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