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