Silent Night

The scene where the old lady ctfd after the killer hands her a few dollars is goals. The whole thing is glorified trash but at least everyone prances instead of wallows through it. 2/4

Ted

Considering Seth MacFarlane's criminally hillarious Family Guy is already pretty uncensored, I was pretty intrigued to see how he would fare with all boundaries being thrown out the window in a feature length movie with all censorship being sent to Hell. It stars Mark Wahlberg as John, an immature pothead with a talking teddy bear named Ted as a best friend a girlfriend named Lori (Mila Kunis) who wants John to grow up and leave his teddy behind. Obvious conflicts occur over what John wants to do for himself as opposed to what Lori wants John to do. Though the movie has the tendency to feel like a stretched 30 min skit and I don't feel that Wahlberg was necessarily the most...humorous as the lead, the material has an undeniable fuck you charm and humor that I enjoyed. Ted has a pretty good balance of nasty, smartass, and pop culture references to give something to people with all different types of sense of humor. Not a bad start for a feature length movie despite the tendency to feel as crammed as a turkey.

2/4

Click

          If you’re going to aim for the gross, at least make sure that it’s funny. If you’re going to go for the heart, at least make the effort feel natural. Failing at both goals will just come off as obnoxious, as presented in Click, a terribly unfunny and ridiculously sappy movie.

Click stars Adam Sandler as Michael, an overworked, overstressed architect who’s quite bored & unhappy with his life. He soon receives an opportunity to change it with a magical remote that has the ability to fast forward, stop, rewind, mute, and slow down the events of his life that he chooses to use them on. At first it seems to be going pretty well as he’s using the remote on trivial things such as muting his boss or using the remote to his favor during sex with his wife Donna (Kate Beckinsale from the Underwold series). After a while though, the remote has a mind of its’ own, coming into play way too often, resulting in Michael watching his own life feel like a matter of seconds as it goes before his very eyes.

                Click is awfully monotonous and flat which is quite surprising considering that though they are rarely amazing, Adam Sandler’s movies are at least somewhat interesting to watch. Click is as interesting as a remote control manual though. There’s nothing you don’t see coming from 10,000 light years away in this movie. Come to think of it, the more I think of it, the more it reminds me of Scrooge actually. With a non-human like factor coming into play to make someone who is unappreciative of their life realize that they shouldn’t be taking it for granted. Except for Scrooge being pretty awesome and Click failing to even hold a candle to it.

                What’s even more offensive about Click is how terribly unfunny the whole thing is. The first half is nothing but bodily functions and cheap sexual jokes that could be invented by any middle schooler, and the second half is just flat-out miserable when Click goes for the heart but just ends up giving you a migraine. It feels so phoned in and contrived that you can almost see the “Lifetime” logo appearing in the corner at some moments. If Click ever comes on your television then run for your remote and hope that it’s magical enough to vaporize the memory of Click from your brain.

0/4

The House Bunny

Anna Faris deserves a best blonde ever Oscar and I said what I said. 

3/4

Wrong Turn 5

I don't know what's more depressing; the fact that the Wrong Turn series is still around despite sucking the roof off for 3 entries now, or the fact that I keep watching them despite all of their....roof sucking. It's comical how not only is Wrong Turn 5 easily one of the worst movies of the year, possibly even the decade, but what's also humorous is that it outblows part 4 by a lightyear.

Wrong Turn 5 takes place in West Virginia (which is about the only similarity to past entries) and it's about a bunch of kids on their way to a festival that's in the same area as where the mutants are having a party of their own. And during the process, the leader of the mutants is locked up in the local jail where he proceeds to taunt the head officer with death threats the whole time about how she "won't live to see tomorrow". Good times.

Wrong Turn 5 is such an epic failure that listing every fault is like listing how many rocks are on the ground. The performances are equivalent in talent level to people who have a pulse and are willing to embarass themselves on camera. The story managed to get even more paper thin then the last entry which is quite the feat. The effects are even worse than the last one, the creatures now look like Orange, overtanned, masked monsters and in some scenes you can even see their "faces" crumbling off. Add in a complete lack of scares, humor, or fun, and you have a movie that will make you feel as if you're missing a chromosome or two by its dismal ending.

0/4



Silent Hill: Revelation

One thing that's become pretty apparent to me these days is how strong of an indicator the preview for a movie is in showing how great/terrible the movie will be or not. If the preview is busted, then the movie will probably be busted. If the preview is great, well...then there's still a chance that the movie will be busted. Not learning from these lessons has resulted in me suffering from cruel and unsual punishments, like a viewing of Silent Hill: Revelation for example.

Silent Hil: Revelation stars Adelaide Clemens as Heather Silva, the daughter of the mother in the first movie who is stuck in Silent Hill as a result of her attempt to keep her daughter away from all of the dangers that reside in Silent Hill. Well, the residents of Silent Hill want Heather back, sending several people from the cult that run Silent Hill to kidnap her father in order to lure her back to their town. Along the way there's demons created by Alessa who want Heather dead.

Silent Hill is such an utter disaster it's really hard to determine where the blame should go to. Every performance is dull as dirt and as authentic as the creatures running amok in the movie. The story feels like it was pasted from 10 other movies put together, often resembling one of the many busted Nightmare on Elm Street sequels as opposed to a stand-out movie that's only the second one of its' particular franchise. It's completely sleep-inducing throughout, there's nothing scary or remotely interesting going on from beginning to end. And the effects are terrible, it's like your watching a bizzare combination of a cartoon, a video game, and a pack of Crayola created creatures. Add on a completely routine and uninspiring sequel that hints at a third entry into the series, and you have a movie that makes you feel as if you were rotting in Purgatory about a thousand times more than any character in this movie would ever had to endure.

0/4

Sinister

Most horror movies today seem to bring the gore and the guts, but lack the spirit and the fun over why horror movies are such a good time. Not many these days bring both elements to the table keeping a good balance between the terror given to your eyes and the terror given to your mind. Sinister is quite the exception actually, showing that you don't need shit splattered every two seconds to give a good scare.

Sinister stars Ethan Hawke as Ellison, a writer who gets his buck off of writing novels about graphic murders. He's presented more material than he was ready for by investigating his new case, where a little girl goes missing but the rest of her family is found hanging around in trees....literally. After discovering tapes of previous graphic murders of entire families, he realizes that the cases are connected and that the culprit is a lot closer than originally imagined.

Sinister can be quite bonechilling at times. The scenes of the previous murders will easily resonate in your memory for weeks, possibly even months to come. Families are tied to chairs that are being pushed into pools, families have their throats slit, are burned alive in cars, and in easily the most disturbing of them all....you watch a family have an unpleasant, very close encounter with a lawn mower. Weirdest thing is that you rarely see anything on the films, but they hit you as if you were watching a local news story depicting a graphic crime. Creepy shit.

Sinister also doesn't overcomplicate things which is a large strength that plays to the movie's success. There aren't 10,000 characters that show up in 1 scene just to be slaughtered, there aren't 1 million other subplots, and the story doesn't feel the need to overcomplicate things just for the saking of confusing the hell out of everyone. There is a big twist at the end (which is also quite thrilling), but the movie still manages to stay on track as opposed to falling off the cliff at the very end.

I do have some minor nitpicks about Sinister though. They are very minor, but I felt if these things were quite different, the movie could have been even stronger. At times, the movie feels like a dead ringer to The Ring (no pun intended). Evil videotapes with monsters that pounce after a certain amount of time is certainly a creepy idea, but at times it almost feels like a spin-off of The Ring as opposed to a fresh idea. And, I felt that the movie took a bit of time to kick off. It goes from about 20mph to 90mph, just when you feel like it's going nowhere, Sinister begins to slay. Despite these nitpickings, Sinister still proves that if the talent is present, a simple idea can really deliver on the premise of creating pure evil.

3/4



Paranormal Activity 4

It's no secret that I absolutely loathed the first two entries into the Paranormal Activity series. I found them to be quite slow, very flat, not scary, and just unintentionally hillarious. Then part 3 comes around, and low and behold....I was actually quite impressed! My standards for part 4 were surprisingly high and unfortunately, I felt the movie fell a bit short of what I was hoping it would be.

Paranormal Activity 4 begins with where previous entries left off. Katie (Katie Featherton) has stolen her sister's child; Hunter, after killing her sister, her sister's husband, and her own boyfriend as well. The two are now located in Henderson, Nevada where Hunter (who now goes by Robbie) begins spending a lot of time with the neighbors. As unsurprisingly, the more "Robbie" is around, the more unexplainable events begin to happen to the family.

The performances in this entry are quite stronger than previous entries. Kathryn Newton holds her own, as Alex, the teenage girl who is on the receiving end of most of the spirits' mischief. She keeps the audience interested in her character and actually plays the role quite naturally. Katie Featherton once again shines as Katie, the girl who you know is up to no good. Every scene with her is bonechilling, Featherton milks every moment to its finest.

There are some pretty solid thrills here as well. It's not 100% terrifying from beginning to end, but a lot of the "Gotcha!" moments pay off and there some quite impressive visuals on display in this one, especially the scenes with the Wiiconnect playing as a camera to monitor all of the ghosts' whereabouts. And as usual, the last 20 minutes are easily the most frightening as all Hell breaks loose and it becomes a guessing game of who, if anyone will live to tell the tale.

Now for the negative; one of my biggest disappointments with PA4 is how little it explains to the audience. Part 3 left you with a lot of cliffhangers about the unlucky family's past, how this is happening, and why no one has noticed that more and more people just happen to be possessed by demons who give them the strength of Superman. PA4 provides little answers and doesn't seem to concerned with tying up the loose ends that previous entries have started having us think about.

But, my biggest issue with PA4 is just how similar it feels to past entries. Granted, it's much superior to the first two, but still, I didn't feel like this one really presented anything fresh to the series. It's pretty much the same ol' stuff, just with different people. Certain scenes seem like carbon copies of scenes that were used in the first three, and if they were creepy the first time....seeing them repeated in this one just makes the material feel stale at times. Paranormal Activity 4 had the potential to be stellar but instead it just decides to lay down and play dead.

2/4

High Tension





 It seems like foreign horror movies receive the reputation of either being absolutely gruesome, a million times better than American horror movies, or both of the two options. And I have to say, High Tension easily lives up to both of these standards. It’s bloody as hell but still quite effective at being very spine-chilling at the same time.

High Tension is about two semi-lesbianic (yes I’m aware that isn’t a word) friends named Marie and Alexa. While staying at Alexa’s parents’ house one weekend, a male intruder breaks into the house, murders all of Alexa’s family, and then kidnaps her, all of which was viewed by Marie who was hiding under the bed the entire time. Marie is determined to save her friend as she chases down the killer while viewing all the carnage and death he leaves behind him.

                High Tension pulls no punches when it comes to the blood. Every murder pretty much ends in an explosion of blood which is awesome, and from what I’ve read, a few scenes were edited down which actually makes me quite sad that we could have seen worse. But I digress, High Tension doesn’t back down when it comes to showing the gruesome shit on screen, there is very little left to the imagination. People are slashed, throats are slit, people are beheaded by furniture, kids are shot, heads are used as masturbatory aids, and you get the point. This is a huge positive though, gorehounds aren’t into using their imagination to picture what a death in a movie looks like, and they want to see it happen.

                Even though High Tension easily earns its’ R rating in the gore department, I actually would feel like the movie would feel quite menacing without it. The direction is quite clever actually, placing the viewer in the seat of Marie as she is following the killer and her kidnapped friend while he is doing all of this terrible shit to people. It actually makes the viewer feel like they’re in the back of a rollercoaster like Marie would feel in this movie and that’s something easily worthy of recognition. High Tension is solid at making the viewer feel like they are actually there watching everything occur in front of their own eyes.

                As for the controversial ending, I was actually pretty sold by it. Granted, it was completely ridiculous and was taking a similar path to many horror movies today, I still was a fan. This type of resolution is something that can really be sold if the actors are into it, and Cécile de France (the actress who plays Marie) sells the hell out of it.

          High Tension is a solid, thrilling, gruesome film from beginning to end, sold by the direction and strong performances along with a great pace that never lags. Sure it’s ridiculous as hell and if you pick it apart, it doesn’t really make a lick of sense. But that’s what the genre tends to entail, and for utter lunacy, High Tension is a great bet to put your money on.

3/4

Primal

These days I'm convinced that climbing Mount Rushmore is accomplished with less trouble than making a horror movie that keeps my interest from beginning to end. Failing to provide the goods, is Primal, a horror movie which really should stayed in the stone age and never came to this one.

Primal is about six friends on a camping journey in the wildnerness. When one of them falls sick after skinny dipping with leeches, the other five panic as her condition goes from worst to monster-worthy. She begins her "illness" by bleeding and ends it when she's completely deformed and hungry for anything with a pulse. She attacks, which then brings up the question of whether or not the others can kill a friend or not. Most of them seem to get on board, but others (mainly the boyfriend), are a bit less for the idea.

Primal unfortunately provides very little of merit, but I guess one thing I would consider satisfactory is the makeup. The creatures actually look really swell and I was impressed that that the monster/cavemen creatures weren't styled as shabbily as most movies of the genre tend to look. Granted, this is probably one of the few things I enjoyed about this movie, but still, could be worse I guess.

Now for the dreadful; and there's a bundle of problems worthy of being mentioned. All of the characters are ridiculously unlikeable. They behave in such stupid and barbaric ways it's hard to imagine there's something less intelligent running around. All five of them could have been killed at once and it would have been easy to not give a shit at all. The movie just feels routine and bland at all, created without any sense of fun or fright. Add in a routine finale and a movie that leaves you with more questions than answers, and you have something that is as substantial as a movie that was made by cavemen for the cavemen.

1/4



A Series of Unfortunate Events

When I think of movies geared towards children, I think of optimism. Lighthearted movies (mainly animated), where you know everything will be just fine and that there really isn't any present danger to the main characters. Here to kick that idea in the groin is A Series of Unfortunate Events, a movie that makes the ending of Bambi look like casual fluff in comparison.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is about three children; Klaus, Violet, and Sunny (most recognizable being Emily Browning from The Uninvited as Violet) whose wealthy parents were recently killed in a fire due to unknown circumstances. They are then sent to live with a distant, strange relative by the name of Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), and least can be said is that he has other things planned for the children besides a trip to the zoo. In the event of all of their deaths, Count Olaf gets bank. He is determined to get the mentioned bank, no matter how many others need to be offed in the process. Happy kids' movie right?

A Series of Unfortunate Events shines in many categories, but one of the movie's biggest strengths is the appearance; absolutely astonishing. It's as if the movie was the distant stepcousin of a Tim Burton creation, minus the Johnny Depp part of course. Every scene is shot to perfection, the colors are brooding and menacing, the setpieces are astounding. The movie really does create a successful atmosphere of melancholy.

The performances from everyone are really stellar, but Jim Carrey surprisingly nails it, I would easily consider this one of his best performances. He displays an unsual amount of uneasiness and terror for a PG rated movie, yet he hams it up when needed in the scenes where he depicts Olaf as a caring relative that couldn't love the children more. It's Carrey's show here and he really keeps your attention in every scene that he is a part of.

Though it's certainly not something I would call terrifying, A Series of Unfortunate Events is actually quite creepy which is shocking considering the low parental rating of PG that it received. Count Olaf really is quite a menacing guy who will take down anyone in his path. Granted, you aren't able to see any of the murders, but still, I was pretty impressed by the effective thrills that this material provides. It's like the children's movie that is geared for everyone. I just really hope this isn't the type of movie that will inspire 10,000 sequels. Because that is the type of event that is quite unfortunate, and will make the orphan's journey feel like a walk in the park in comparison.

3/4



Bride of Chucky

I've always been a big fan of the Child's Play series. I think all of them (with the exception of part 3) are tons of fun and they balance comedy and horror quite well. I was quite pleased with this one, as it easily rose above the last entry and was the beginning of one of my favorite recent additions to the Child's Play cast; Jennifer Tilly. I think she's tons of fun and a blast to watch in these movies as she really maintains the level of energy and camp that a movie about a 3 foot killer doll really requires.

Bride of Chucky picks up a few years after the third began, as Chucky reunites himself with an old flame named Tiffany. And through a miscommunication or two, Tiffany is killed and turned into a doll as well. Neither of them want to remain in doll form, and they have quite the potential opportunity to fix this through Jade and Jesse (Katherine Heigl from Knocked Up and Nick Stabile). They follow this couple, leaving a pile of bodies behind the couple at every step.

Bride of Chucky is cinematic eye candy and when done correctly, it can be quite satisfying. There's nothing Oscar worthy about anything in this movie at all, and everyone is aware of that, hence the success in the delivery. The performances are just the right amount overexaggeration, there's little jabs at other horror movies that will please the diehard blood fans, there's tons of bloody murders that occur quite frequently. All of the elements are here to make fans have a helluva of a great time.

3/4



Jeepers Creepers 2

"Once is a blessing, twice is a curse" is not only a very humorous, though often true saying for having more than one child, this can also be used for having more than one entry in a series. Jeepers Creepers 2 is a complete fail and it's still a mystery to this day as to why it was invented.

Jeepers Creepers 2 stars Ray Wise, as Jack Taggart, a father who is hellbent on getting revenge on "The Creeper" for taking away his son. Oh, and during all of this, a schoolbus full of teenage athletes, their coaches, and their bus driver are stuck in the middle of nowhere while The Creeper hunts them down. And I guess there's a psychic whose having visions about Darry from the first movie after he's been killed warning everyone to stay away from The Creeper. And no, I'm not making this shit up.

The only reason I'm not giving this movie an F is just based on the pure hillarity of the whole thing. The performances are terrible, the story is air thin, there's more scares in an episode of Rugrats, but it blows so hard it almost loops back around to being completely hillarious. Nothing can be taken seriously the entire time as the entire movie feels like a big blooper. I can't think of one scene that's even remotely chilling but I can name about 10 that made me laugh my ass off. It's just a shame no one informed the director on how comical Jeepers Creepers is from beginning to end.

1/4





House at the End of the Street

Still to this day wondering who the Fuck JLaw pissed off to get placed into this movie. That is one powerful person. 

0/4

When a Stranger Calls

Adding another notch onto the belt of unnecessary remakes is When A Stranger Calls, a complete waste of time that fails to provide any merit from beginning to end. If it ain't broke don't fix it is a pretty good rule to go by. Not if it's kinda loose, rip it apart and shred it, considering I didn't even find the original to be that amazing either.

When A Stranger Calls is a pretty basic story based on the classic urban legends about babysitters and the stalkers that pursue them. Hot young thing (Camilla Belle) is babysitting children and is stalked by a stranger who just happens to be making all of his calls from inside the same house where she's at. Providing character names for movies like this is quite pointless considering they might as well all have been named Jane Doe.

Keeping a movie at a PG-13 rating can sometimes be a challenge for movies to provide the horror without all the guts and gore that R-rated movies provide. But it has been done, Hell, just look at movies like The Others, The Ring, The Sixth Sense, The Skeleton Key, etc. So there's not really much justification for the complete lack of pulse in When A Stranger Calls. Not only do you not see any of the murders (you see a tiny bit of aftermath), but you don't see any sign that indicates this movie was supposed to be intended as a horror film. Hell, there was scarier shit in Scary Movie, and that at least had the decency to be funny as well. Nothing in When A Stranger Calls is remotely original, unpredictable, or chilling. It's as stale and terrifying as expired milk.

And here's another thing that pisses me off about movies like this. They completely blow from beginning to end without any entertainment or reason to keep going, but to make matters WORSE, they throw on some obligatory, thrown together ending to insinuate that a possible sequel could be on the way. And what a terrible signal that sends out.

0/4

Intruders

Intruders is a poorly delivered joke. And I mean that in the nicest way possible (though I certainly wouldn't call it a very good movie at all). I would compare the Intruders to a joke that starts out with a good premise, but by the time the person is done telling it...the joke has been running forever with such a poor delivery that it's impossible to have interest by the end. Intruders is like watching a good idea fall down the stairs and end up with a broken neck.

Intruders stars Clive Owen as John, a father whose daughter is having horrific nightmares about a faceless monster looking to steal her face. Simultaneously, in another country, a little boy is also having similar nightmares about this monster that's coming to get them. But what do the two children have in common? As the movie unfolds, the least that can be said, is that these two children have more similarities than they would have ever imagined, and that this monster named "Hollowface" is targeting them for a specific reason.

Like I said, Intruders had good potential. There's an intriguing premise behind this movie and I must admit fo a while, I was actually quite curious to see where it would go. Unfortunately, watching this movie for excitement and thrills is like running through mud to improve your speed. So many flat and lifeless scenes are thrown on in this movie, it seems more like your watching a Lifetime movie's deleted scenes as opposed to a real movie. There never seems to be any present terror here and the movie is unsuccessful at delivering any type of menace at all. Add on an uninspired and cliched ending, and performances that all feel like the actors were on complete auto-pilot the entire time, and you have a movie that warrants a giant alarm to go off before the opening credits roll.

1/4

The Skeleton Key

Really deserved a bigger following and that ending pulls 0 punches. 

3/4

Piranha 3DD

I get bored with shit easily so I'm going to temporarily start up a new format called P.I.G.S. Which stands for;

P. Plot

I. Introduction of opinions

G. Good stuff

S. Shitty stuff

Let's try this out! :)

P- It's been about a year since the piranhas invaded Lake Victoria and they're back for more flesh. Maddy (Danielle Panabaker) comes back for the Summer to check on the progress of her water park, which has now been turned into a tits, booze, and water infested playground by her stepdad (David Koechner). He comes up with the bright idea of draining the lake's water for the theme park, giving the piranhas a direct extension to a buffet of Maddy, her fellow employees, and all of the park's guests.

I- I'll just summarize it easily, I think Piranha 3DD is easily one of the worst movies of 2012. There's very little (if any) redeeming factors here. It's really like watching a 90 minute beer commercial if the chicks got naked and then murdered at the end of it. How the franchise has two movies to its' name is a mystery and if this franchise expands into a third movie, then piranhas should just be let loose into the theater to end moviegoers' misery.

G- Like I've mentioned before, the good is very small in this movie. I will say that minus signing up for this movie, Danielle Panabaker actually gets out of this movie the least unscathed, as she's probably the only performer that shouldn't be sent to the Razzies ASAP after finishing this movie. Hmm, it's also quite bloody as well. How the murders are done, I'll discuss in a different paragraph but hey....Kool-Aid/blood ftw. And I can't lie, hearing the line, "Josh cut off his penis because something came out of my vagina", was a guilty, if very slight humorous moment of this movie. A scene with a surviving character from the original movie did provide some fun as well.

S- First off, the acting....oh God, where to begin. The performances range from God-awful to, "Your mother is screaming in her grave due to what you're doing", and sadly most of them fall in the latter category as opposed to the former. The death scenes are painfully fake as well, the piranhas look like action figures, you can smell the plastic off the fake limbs that are thrown everywhere, and like I said....Kool-Aid blood all-around. And the story is an exact copy of the original, which was already as substantial as a piece of thread. The movie tries to throw comedy and horror in the blender to mix and ends up about as appetizing as a protein shake. Do yourself a favor and avoid this movie like the main stars avoid clothing.

0.5

1/4



Trilogy of Terror



I've been getting into older horror movies a bit more recently, and a bit ago, I came across this movie which stars Karen Black in all three stories who I easily recalled as Mama Firefly from House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. I thought she was creepy as fuck in those movies and low and behold....she didn't gain that talent late in life, Karen Black is delightfully unsettling in all three stories.

Trilogy of Terror is broken into 3 stories all of which have Black as the main lead. In the first story, she plays an innocent teacher named Julie, who is drugged and blackmailed by a malicious student. But low and behold, she isn't nearly as innocent as she looks. In the second story, she plays Millicent Larimore, a woman dedicated to murdering her heartless hoe of a sister named Therese. And in the third story, she plays Amelia, a very passive and weak woman who buys a tiki doll for her boyfriend, and as expected...this tiki doll is quite deadly.

Considering Black is the main character in all three stories and not a ton of energy is dedicated to other characters, a lot of the movie's potential to fail/succeed does rest on her shoulders...and luckily, she carries it off well. Though the 3 different characters all have some similiarites linking their personas together, they also have some differences that Black pulls off rather well. And she's fucking creepy in all three. Hat's off to her.

None of these stories are very scary (in fact, they have the tendencies to resemble moderately creepy campfire stories as opposed to plots ina movie), but there are a couple of pretty cool moments and it was a pretty intelligent idea to make the movie short, with 3 stories, making it pretty hard for the movie's 3 segments to overstay their welcome. It's not a movie that will chill you to the bone, but it's pretty fun to watch and in terms of how the story moves, it's what Goldilocks would describe as, "just right".

3/4

Cabin in the Woods

Sick of generic horror movies? The ones where every good scene is shown on the previews? The ones where you can see every twist coming a mile away? Then Cabin in the Woods is the horror movie for you, breaking all of those common horror stereotypes while taking the viewer on a cinematic rollercoaster from beginning to end. Just when you think you've seen all the twists, one will blindside you like the last drop of a ride.

Cabin in the Woods starts out in a pretty routine manner. 5 friends go up to a cabin in the woods and begin to become attacked by creatures. The group of friends couldn't be any more common either; the slut (Anna Hutchison), the virgin (Kristen Connolly), the jock (Chris Hemsworth), the stoner (Fran Kranz), and the scholar (Jesse Williams). So you think you know where things are going, but then another twist is added from early on. Two men working in some top secret organization (Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins) are monitoring and even controlling all of the groups' every move. Why they are doing this and how they are doing this are just some of the questions that Cabin in the Woods slowly begins to answer as the movie progresses. This is just one of the highlights of the movie; you don't see where it's coming despite having a ton of intrigue in knowing where it will end up.

Though you could argue that the whole "being watched and controlled" aspect has been done in movies like Stranger than Fiction and Truman Show, Cabin in the Woods takes these elements and mixes them in with many others, resulting in something that feels oddly original despite being advertised as the average horror movie from the previews. The organization part of the story always has something hillarious going on, often resulting in pure terror on the teenagers' end, to pure comedy on what is going on with all of the scientists. It's rare in a movie to scare you and then make you laugh like Hell 2 seconds after.

The special effects were also quite noteworthy in this one. Despite the fact that the teenagers look and speak like teenagers in this current decade, something about the visuals in this movie feel oddly reminscient of the 80's/90's....but in a good way. All of the monsters (and trust...there are many, ranging from killer robots, giant spiders, snakes, mermen, zombies, and killer redneck hillbilly zombies which are quite different mind you) don't feel like CGI overload. It actually reminded me of the good old days where people used costumes and makeup to get that more authentic feel for the creatures in horror movies. And watching a giant merman onscreen without that authentic and realistic feeling would just be so wrong.

The performances are also pretty stable as well. There really isn't a weak link among the group (which is a rarity) and there also seems to be a natural chemistry that is present amongst these people (which is a triple rarity). Most noteworthy being Kranz as Marty the stoner and Kristen Connolly as Dana the final girl. Who would have ever imagined a movie about killer redneck zombies praying on the living as coming across so hillarious, authentic, and just flat out fun?

4/4

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

I don't know why so many movies insist on rewriting History, making it even duller and more tedious than most of it already appears to be to most people, but low and behold...Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is up for the challenge, sucking on all levels and will easily be appearing on my worst movies of 2012 list at the end of the year.

In addition to being against slavery, and extremely into politics, Abraham Lincoln was also a...vampire hunter? Yeah, never was taught that in school. Benjamin Walker plays Abe Lincoln, the upcoming president who had a passion for killing vampires since the day his mother was murdered by one (it's always the Mother's fault). He finds a trainer in Henry (Dominic Cooper), another man who had his life changed by vampires, though unlike Abe....Henry's connection to the vampire world is a bit more personal. He also has some extra help from former slave; Will, his wife Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Weinstead), and his fellow employee Speedy (Jimmi Simpson), to work together to destroy the main vampires that run the town.

One of the biggest problems with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, is that it's just a complete jackshit of all trades. The writing is lame and archaic, you could almost see the dust being blown off of some of these lines and watch the desperate attempts at humor hit the fan. It's not scary at all either, it's just loud with a bunch of obnoxious, second-rate Matrix special effects popping up on screen every time there's a sensation of an audience member slowly drifting into a coma. The harder you try, the bigger you will fall...and that is a lesson that Vampire Hunter learns the hard way, an 105 minute lesson learned for both everyone involved in the movie and everyone watching.  

Unfortunately, this isn't a movie that just drags down the writers, editors, visual artists, and the director....the actors go down with the Titanic is well. There isn't one performance highlight, as everyone acts with the passion and vigor of someone reading names out of the telephone book. It really does feel like a bland History re-enactment with some vampire shit in the middle to attract the younger viewers. Suffice it to say...attraction failed.

Abraham Lincoln is a poorly plotted, poorly acted, written, and directed mess of a movie that serves no purpose in existing. Not one ounce of humor, intrigue, excitement, or thrills is present in 1 minute of this disaster from beginning to end. It's a shame this movie isn't more like a vampire, being destroyed the moment it entered the light. Oh, and the vampires in this movie don't even burn when they come in the sun. You double fail, Abe Lincoln...get your shit straight.

0/4

Angel Heart

Giving people another reason to be afraid of anywhere located near New Orleans is Angel Heart, an effective and truly frightening horror movie that is easily one of my personal favorite movies of the 1980's.

Angel Heart stars Mickey Rourke (Sin City) as Harry Angel, a private investigator hired by Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to find a man named Johnny Love who hit it big years before and managed to skip out on Louis...avoiding any type of payments that were owed to him. So pretty much, Harry is paid a large sum of money to track down this guy so that he can pay Louis back. Sounds pretty easy right? Well, there are a few complications. Excluding the fact that Johnny Love seems virtually impossible to find, there's also the miniscule little issue of every witness that Harry speaks to being murdered directly after they answer Harry's questions, making local police wonder if Harry himself is behind these crimes. Not to mention that Harry's search takes him to New Orleans, where everyone and their mother has a personal relationship with the devil himself and would cut a chicken's throat in a second for him (I'M NOT KIDDING...YIKES).

Though Mickey Rourke definitely holds his own here as Harry Angel and is definitely captivating as he takes the audience on his mental and physical journey to solve the mystery and locate Johnny Angel, it's Robert De Niro as Louis Cyphre who completely steals the show here. He's certainly a co-star compared to Rourke, but during his scenes onscreen...he dominates every bit of your attention, completely erasing the fact that he's not the absolute protagonist in this movie. Cosby kid; Lisa Bonet also holds her own here, as the oversexualized witness that may know more than she's letting on about Johnny Love.

One of the strengths in this movie is how it's chilling even when the audience is seeing nothing. Don't get me wrong, the murders of the witnesses which include death by being choked with a penis, having the heart ripped out, and having a gun shoved where the sun will never shine are certainly scenes that I wouldn't call excessively gruesome, but the movie doesn't rely on its' graphic demises to get across a strong sense of tension, despair, and pure terror. It relies on the premise & surroundings as well. This is one of those movies where every character could possibly be up to no good, and I would definitely say this movie will keep you guessing up until the end, or at least...close to the end.

As for the ending which I will certainly not reveal...I would say it was executed pretty smoothly. As expected, it does have a twist but it's twisty enough to satisfy those who want to be surprised...but not so convoluted as to where it's just twisty just for the sake of being twisty while not making a ton of sense, which a lot of horror movies are quite guilty of. Angel Heart will chill you down to the very bone.

3/4



Wanderlust

I wasn't really excited about watching this movie at all when it first began. I thought it would be really lame and be one of those comedies where every scene with any type of hilarity would be played in the trailers. Luckily, I was wrong, and though Wanderlust does miss the mark every so often, it hits far more than it misses and makes it easy for me to recommend this.

Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd play Linda and George, a  Manhattan couple used to the finer things in life...until they both get fired. While browsing through various living options, they come across a town that seems quite...different than the rest, operating on values of loyalty, free love, public nudity, and a complete aversion to any type of technology. Though the townfolk's way of life seems quite foreign and downright bizzare at first, they slowly begin to accept these people's ways, morphing from modern people to flat-out hippies.

Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston are perfect as the lead couple. Jennifer Aniston doesn't really have the best track record with her work on the big screen, but she shines here, easily delivering one of her best performances in one of her best movies.

And as I've mentioned before, Wanderlust is actually quite hillarious with scenes that weren't beaten to death in the trailers. Most noteworthy of those being several scenes in the beginning, with Aniston pitching her penguins with diseases documentary to HBO and the inconsistency and quite realisticallly hillarious car ride that perfectly depicts how fast people change their mood, tone, and any type of emotions in the process especially while traveling.

Though Wanderlust does exhaust some of its' material and almost come across as quite...desperate at times, the lead performances, supporting performances, and general laugh to fail ratio is enough for me to recommend this. Just don't expect anything terribly fresh or surprising, otherwise you'll probably feel as screwed as the main characters do at times.

2/4



Club Dread

Looked like a ton of fun to make! Shame it left out the audience in that party. 

1/4



Teeth

Just as the idea of sex couldn't seem to get any scarier to some, is Teeth, a hillarious, disturbing, original, and terribly fun movie all about the consequences of having non-consensual sex. Starring Jess Weixler as Dawn, the lead girl who is cursed with vagina dentana. Which pretty much means exactly what it sounds like, she has teeth inside her vagina that spring into action whenever someone tries to...enter, without her consent. As you can imagine, the results are often quite painful for those who just can't seem to leave her alone.

Lots of movies feature teenagers killing other teenagers and/or having powers/curses that enable them to do so, but I can't say I've ever seen one that has anything in common with Teeth, in the very best way. Teeth manages to keep your interest through the horror that these characters go through with Dawn and the humor that is also portrayed in these sequences of horror as well. Gynocologists, step-brothers, sexually frustrated religious guys beware, Dawn (brilliantly played by Weixler) is on the hunt, and it's safe to say she is certainly long in the tooth.

3/4



A Nightmare on Elm Street

In general, I feel like people shit all over remakes just for the simple fact that they're remakes. If one is exactly the same as the original, it gets beat to death as being pointless and repetitive (The Omen). If one makes some pretty big changes or any differences in the story...then it just gets labeled as silly or overcomplicated (Halloween). When watching a remake, I try to put the original out of my mind when critiquing the newer version. Obviously, try is the big word, considering comparisons of the two are quite unavoidable, but I digress. I actually enjoyed this version of Nightmare on Elm Street mainly because it was as Goldilocks would say..."Just right" in the middle of the two worlds. It didn't strictly copy the original's format nor did it make 135038493489358934839 changes just to strive to be different.

Anyone who has ever seen any horror movie pretty much already knows the basic plotline of Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley) is burned to the ground by parents on Elm Street whose children were murdered by Freddy. He comes back (like they all do) and begins to murder all of the teenagers who live on Elm Street...in their dreams. Most noticeable of those teenagers being Kris (Katie Cassidy from Black Christmas) and Nancy (Rooney Mara from Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

I was impressed by the little surprises in NOES (because I'm too lazy to keep writing out the full title). The main one, being the order of the characters' deaths. Without giving away too much, one character who we fully expect to be the lead and make it through the end...dies in their second scene, while another character who we imagined would be a co-star...turns out to be the hero/heroine of the movie after all. It's pretty refreshing when you can't guess a movie's death order right after viewing the characters for the first time. Easily some kudos to the writers is owed right there.

NOES actually manages to be quite scary at times as well. Some of the cat and mouse scenes with Freddy chasing around the teenagers in their dreams still feel as inventive and fun to watch as were the scenes in the original NOES. And also, the new version of NOES doesn't splatter gore across the screen at every given opportunity. Like an animal, NOES strives to achieve its' goal through the hunt as opposed to just focusing on the kill alone.

The acting is actually pretty impressive as well. Generally I don't expect many strong performances in these types of movies, but this one actually proves to be an exception. Or maybe my standards are just super low after watching billions of Syfy channel movies where the actors would be deemed as competent if they knew when to scream on cue. Ehh, either way...NOES isn't a total embarassment to watch in terms of performances, and the leads (mainly Rooney <3) do the original characters proud. NOES actually is a pretty solid remake on a flawless original in my opinion. Just please....DON'T MAKE ANY MORE SEQUELS TO THIS. That would be a bigger dreamkiller than Freddy for fuck's sake.

3/4

Chronicle

Taking a fresh perspective on the typical movie involving superpowers is Chronicle, a film about three teenage boys who receive superpowers by a radiation hole. The twist on this movie is that unlike other movies where the main characters have powers....these three guys never even remotely consider the idea of using their powers of helping out others. Instead they're too busy on doing things like; moving people's cars, rearranging everyone's stuff, flying to different countries, and just being able to shoot the breeze on top of the highest building in the city. But like all movies with superpowers, a villain is formed, as the most conflicted and disrespected teenager; Andrew (Dane DeHaan) starts using his powers for pain as opposed to fluff. Chronicle contains some awesome visuals, the scenes of the three guys flying like planes look stellar and DeHaan, Alex Russell, and Michael B. Jordan are quite solid as the lead guys in this.

But unfortunately, Chronicle falls short of amazing mainly because of the lack of material provided. Too many scenes involving the guys using their powers feel repetitive and after a while...it gets a bit old to see them use these powers and the ending is highly disappointing. Nothing terribly interesting is provided, the fight scenes all feel like they're one big overlong scene and the absolute final scene lacks any sort of a satisfying finish. Chronicle shot for the stars but instead, it just hit about as high as the top of one of the buildings that the characters frequently hang on.

2/4

ATM

Some movies have such little thought put into the final product that they make you wonder if you're not just seeing a series of bloopers strung together. That is the case in ATM, a tedious, poorly acted, written, and directed horror movie that's about as scary as well actually going to an ATM. Basic plot is that three coworkers (the most notable being Josh from "Drake and Josh") get stuck in ANTM by a hooded figure that bashes anyone's brains out that gets in his way. They can't get out and it seems like he has no interest in getting in, so it becomes a terribly dull battle between the two sides. As if the concept of being stuck in an ATM wasn't silly enough (especially considering some of the past movies dealing with being stuck in such worse places; an elevator, the ocean, underground etc) the movie just feels completely clueless. Nothing remotely interesting or creepy happens at all. Add on three terrible performances, dialogue that feels as if it was made on the spot, and a ridiculously lackluster "twist" ending, and you have a giant fail of a movie that makes you wish you could get a refund of your time and/or money.

0/4

Forget Me Not

If Forget Me Not was an essay, it would be one with some pretty good body paragraphs and a rather disappointing conclusion and flimsy beginning. Shame that it had so much potential but unfortunately Forget Me Not just doesn't really know how to start or end with power.

Forget Me Not is all about Sandy (Carly Schroeder from Mean Creek) and her friends enjoying their time on graduation weekend. They should be having a blast, but after an odd encounter with an unidentified girl while playing the game "Forget Me Not" (which pretty much just looks like Hide and Seek in a graveyard), things begin to go wrong. It's up to Sandy to find out why this is happening and how to stop it before her and all of her friends are completely forgotten.

My favorite thing about this movie is easily what happens after each person is killed; the memory of them is totally erased. It's a pretty inventive idea that actually hasn't been done to death which is a rarity in basic slashers such as this one. Not only is it creepy based merely on the idea of totally losing any type of memory of your friend after they're gone, but it also adds an extra layer of mystery about Sandy when her friends start disappearing. It makes you wonder if everything is at is seems or if there's something going on with her that's being saved for the grand conclusion.

For a low budget horror movie, the effects were pretty decent as well. I loved how the ghosts would show up on the scene and the most recently murdered friend would join them. So by the end of the movie, the main characters are being chased by their entire clan....who they pretty much have no memories of. Weird. The death scenes aren't out of this world amazing, but at least it's not like most other horror movies where everyone just gets stabbed or ripped apart; everyone dies in completely different ways, and I'd be lying if I said that the death scenes involving an open grave and a wood chipper didn't bring a smile to my face.

Now for the bad....the beginning scenes are absolutely painful to endure. I've never met anyone in my life that speaks as ridiculously asinine as the characters in this movie do. It's so ridiculously contrived you would swear that some parts of this movie were written by someone with the attitude of a 60 year-old on how the youngsters communicate. 4 minutes in, and I couldn't wait for the death scenes to start happening just to get the characters to stop talking. It's quite odd how the performances get stronger as the circumstances get less and less realistic. You would think acting like a partying teenager would be easier than acting like a teenager getting chased around by a recluse ghost who makes your entire memory fade away.

As for the ending, I was pretty disappointed as well. Towards the climax, several ideas popped into my head about what I thought/was hoping the big twist would be (because you know there's going to be one...come on). Sadly enough, none of these ideas happened on screen. The final scenes feel so choppy, rushed, forced, and nonsensical (even by this movie's logic...shit doesn't add up), you would almost swear that this was the ending to a completely different horror movie and not the one that started building promise after the initial painful and stiff opening scenes. Just do yourself a favor, turn off the movie around the point the remaining characters head to the convent/hospital and we can forget the rest of it ever happened. :)

2/4



Wrath of the Titans

This is going to be a quick review, in fact, some might say my review will last as long as it took to come up with the plot of this movie. It's a quick review because I really don't have a ton to say about Wrath of the Titans actually. I thought the previews looked horrible, most of the reviews I read were horrible, so it's not much of a crushing blow that the actual movie turned out to be...you guessed it, horrible.

The "plot" deals with Perseus (Sam Worthington) leaving his life of peace to go save his father Zeus (Liam Neeson) from Zeus's brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Zeus's other son Ares (Edgar Ramirez). Sounds like a Jerry Springer episode yeah? There's a ton of other shit going on with fighting and about 10,000 other names that you almost need a subscription to Greek Mythology Weekly to keep up with, but yeah that's the basic point.

Like most action movies these days, Wrath of the Titans brings the action (not very well, which we'll get into), but it's not much of a movie. There's absolutely nothing interesting or even remotely strong with this story (if I can summarize it in two sentences....that should tell you right there), the writing is so archaic and borderline embarassing at times you can see the cobwebs being blown off the script and the acting is so unbearable. This cast had a lot of of talent but if they're not overacting like Ramirez or Fiennes, they're completely wooden like Worthington or Neeson. It's a shame to watch so many good actors go down the drain along with this movie.

And the action scenes.....God, where do I begin? First off, for a movie with the word titans in it, there sure as fuck is barely any titans. They show up in the last 20 minutes (probably around the time I began going into my coma) and fight for about 5 minutes and go away. Big whoop. The other action scenes don't fare any better either. Though the scenery is quite impressive, everything in it is definitely far from it. You can almost smell the CGI in just about every scene and it's pretty much the equivalent of sitting down and watching someone play a video game for 99 minutes= not very fun at all. At least on a game though, you can quit early and save your money as opposed to Wrath of the Titans that feels like the game from Hell that will never end.

0/4

The Hunger Games

For those who read my reviews, odds are that you're pretty familiar with the fact that I despise long movies in general, considering I don't think many of them are worth three fucks of their length. It's also a lesser known fact that I don't really care for action movies much either (I much prefer to see someone get their head chopped off then shot off anyday). So for one to make me as enamored as I am with The Hunger Games...that says something right there about the sheer amazing quality of it.

The premise of The Hunger Games is if you took the lovechild of The Most Dangerous Game and The Lottery and threw it on screen with a bit more of a magical element too it. Every year in the 12 districts of Panem, a boy and girl between the ages of 12-18 are selected to play the games. So 24 kids go in the arena, but only one will come out as the victor, pretty much being promised to be hailed as almost a celebrity of the bloodbath. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence from Hunger Games and the last X-Men) volunteers herself after her younger sister is selected, taking her place and joining fellow contestant Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) as the two kids from their district. Once they have arrived at where the games will begin, they do training for every part of the event, from the looks, to what to say in the interviews, to how to gain sponsors in order to actually survive (fellow noticeable actors such as Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, and Lenny Kravitz show up in this section). As the games begin, it's a vicious bloodbath that requires Katniss to bank on every skill she has utilized in life so far. Whether it be defending herself from the "Careers" (pretty much the kids who get off on this shit), or using her nuturing instincts to protect a fellow player named Rue (Amandla Stenberg).

The Hunger Games is exciting for all parts of the body that get some type of..fulfillment from movies. The first one being the heart. Though it's far from being anything related to a romantic comedy, The Hunger Games is actually pretty emotive overall. The scenes with Katniss and Peeta hit the right notes, those being ones that let you know there's a strong romance brewing but it doesn't bash you over the head with it as to lose focus from the movie's primary ideas. The death scenes are also quite heartbreaking as well, and for those who have read the book and/or seen the movie...I don't need to mention which one in particular will feel like a knife to the heart.

The brain is also a part of the body that gets some type of stimulation when viewing The Hunger Games because of the way that the society is presented. With the constant needs for high ratings, honoring a sacred tradition, and the shit that gets viewed by people all over the world, it actually makes you question if our own society is that different than the one presented in The Hunger Games. How valuable is a human life in our own society when the main complaint about the media is the lack of restraint that it upholds with its material?

And for everyone wanting a bit of thrills, The Hunger Games easily charges up the pulses of everyone in the theater. Jennifer Lawrence (who for the third time in a row is proving that she's amazing...and a BAMF) will easily be regarded as the next big hero of an action trilogy. Move over Harry Potter, Spider-Man, and anything related to a vampire...Katniss is taking over. The action scenes in this movie are brilliant. Exciting, nerve-wracking, and actually pretty graphic, though not too graphic though considering the PG-13 rating. The scenes alone with the beehive and the killer dogs are scenes that should grab anyone's attention. The Hunger Games will easily become the next big film phenomenon which is deservedly so considering how many right notes The Hunger Games will hit from beginning to end.

3/4



Silent House

I've noticed a pattern in horror movies these days; a failure to provide a solid conclusion. A lot of them keep my interest until the very end where everything just goes straight to Hell. I'm not sure if these movies end this way because of an overzealous attempt to be tricky and surprise the audience or if that particular ending was just the only rabbit in the director's hat. This happens to be the scenario with Silent House, a movie which could have a stronger finish to match the rest of it.

Silent House has a pretty simple premise. Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen) is working with her father and her uncle on fixing up their old house in order to sell it. On this day, soon after starting their work, Sarah begins to feel like something just...isn't right. Starting with an odd conversation with an old friend (Julia Taylor Ross), after which soon not being able to locate her father in the house, to finally, realizing that something bad has happened to him and that they are not alone in the house. Marvelous day for Sarah.

One of the most impressive things about Silent House is the way it's shot. I've read many complaints about how shooting it all in one take became tedious and quite obnoxious to watch, but I actually found it to be quite captivating. It really does feel like you're with Sarah the entire time. When she's hiding from someone, you feel like you're hiding from someone as well. When she's tripping or hitting her head on a pipe, you feel like you're hitting your head on a pipe too. When she's running around with her shirt practically hanging off her tits, you feel like...well, probably not.

Elizabeth Olsen holds her own very well in this movie. Not many actresses could have made this character interesting considering you know very little about her, but Olsen does it quite effectively. She's persuasive in the early scenes before any of the terror occurs and she also proves that she can scream with the best of them. Olsen is a star and performances like this one and Martha Marcy May Marlene (say that 5 times fast) should make sure this girl stays on the map.

Now for my biggest problem with the movie; the previously mentioned conclusion. Now, I'm not a rocket scientist, a plastic surgeon, a lawyer, or any other type of profession where you need to have an IQ above how many fingers you have at all. But if I can spot the ending to a movie a mile away, there's a big problem. Silent House just isn't that surprising. The twist can be seen from outer space so at times you're wishing the movie could keep up with what you have obviously discovered. It just seems like Silent House was on the same wavelength as the kid who just couldn't stop eating the glue. Not only does Silent House's ending reak of predictability, the way it's wrapped up is as if the director ran out of film at the very end. Too many questions are left on the side of the road and you're just left feeling disappointed. Silent House had the potential to be great but a lackluster ending reduced it to just being decent. Shame.

2/4



The Help

It's always a joy when a movie which you think you know everything about turns out to be totally different than what you expected. Don't get me wrong; The Help is obviously about injustices between races in a much earlier decade but the overall feeling is one I didn't expect. Not only is The Help heartbreaking and powerful, it's actually much more entertaining, hillarious, and witty than I ever expected, easily one of the best movies of 2011.

The Help stars Emma Stone, as Skeeter Phelan, a young writer determined to make an impression in the literary world. So she decides to write a novel from the viewpoint of the help, collecting her material from local servants Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson (played by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer), and exposing the evil of the people they work for led by Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) as the town's main racist with plans of making all of the black servants be demoted to using separate bathrooms outside of their employers' homes.

The Help's performances are easily one of the strongest positives of the movie. Emma Stone as Skeeter is quite effective, summoning up a rare contrast of an innocent, yet powerful and agressive energy, and she works both of these traits so well. Octavia Spencer (who deservedly won the Oscar) and Viola Davis (who SHOULD have won the Oscar) are forces of nature here. They'll go from breaking your heart to making you laugh your ass off in a matter of seconds, and not once do you see actresses performing roles, you see people behaving as people. Bryce Dallas Howard is also deliciously evil and the town bitch, and Jessica Chastain (who was rightfully nominated for the Oscar) is terribly endearing as Celia Foote, the town housewife who doesn't treat the help like dirt...and as expected, is despised for her differences and kind outlooks.

The Help's tone achieves the perfect blends of different types of attitude here. Rarely would I consider a movie about exposing social injustices to be entertaining, but The Help actually managed to capture and hold my attention from beginning to end. And considering that this movie is almost 2.5 hours long, that is no easy task mind you. And as heartbreaking and effective as the movie can be with the emotional punches that it swings at you, The Help is actually quite spicy and at times, very hillarious as well. Not once do you feel like you're watching a soap opera/Lifetime special of prejudices. The screenplay would be what Goldilocks describes as "Just right". Just the right amount of drama, of comedy, and of all that good shit in the middle.

The Help is easily one of the best movies of 2011 bar none. It exposes social injustices in a way that will attract all types of audiences. Those who are looking to find out about how things were in the 1960's according to race, those who are just suckers for those Oscar bait types of movies, and those who want a good laugh and possibly a good cry (TRUST ME, there will be at least one scene that will come close to making you cry/actually making you cry). The Help is a masterpiece that should be seen by every type of moviegoer.

4/4