After perusing the Rotten Tomatoes page for The Happening, I feel secure in my initial decision to skip this movie. Even EW and Hollywood Report gave it a C.

I actually like Shyamalan in most circumstances. I even saw Lady in the Water, although it was overly simple for the melodramatic tone of the film, I wasn’t upset that I’d seen it. And Unbreakable is an excellent film. So why can’t M. Night deliver with his latest feature?

Basically, it’s a gorefest and nothing is resolved. Who wants to see that? Not to mention, I hear his characters have less than stellar dialogue. M. Night simply says it’s not supposed to be complicated and should be considered as a “fun b-movie”.

For Father’s Day this year, maybe skip the movies and go fishing instead.

Source: IWatchStuff

Pajiba’s review of The Strangers made me seriously consider seeing this film, unlike the melodramatic trailer.

The trailer positioned the movie as a slow and boring torture fest, but Dustin’s review makes it sound like a good stylish horror flick. There are no stupid flat characters reminiscent of the victims in Hostel or Turistas. It instead focuses on a life-like couple, Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, who are pursued by three masked assailants. Instead of using camcorder montages to heighten the reality, the director, Bryan Bertino, chose to use a careful mise-en-scene to create realistic horror sequences. Now that sounds quite refreshing to me.

Some critics have compared this movie to Funny Games, since both films focus on people being attacked in vacation homes. Seeing how I didn’t care for Haneke’s film, once again my desire to watch this movie went down again. Lucky for me, Dustin condemns this shoddy comparision:

“Unfortunately, The Strangers will suffer needless comparison to Michael Haneke’s Funny Games because of the common theme of vacation home invasion, but the two films couldn’t be more different in execution. Bertino doesn’t dwell in self-aware dialogue, wink-wink nudges towards the audience, or hypocritical preaching in manner of Haneke…”

My only issue now is that of a financial nature. With all the blockbuster flicks out this summer, I’m not sure if I can give the theater another helping from my wallet. Hopefully, I could see it at the budget theater.

I finally watched AVP 2: Requiem last night and was sorely disappointed. The first AVP is waaaaaay better.

My main problem is that it was boring!!! Why would I want to watch the Predator get all CSI up in the spacecraft of his dead comrade? They go so far as him re-living the last moments of the dead Predator, grasping for clues. Predator doesn’t need to be logical, he’s a natural tracker. He can find the aliens and shoot ‘em up in his sleep.

All they had to do is keep the plot simple and lean. But no, they had to mix in some “7th Heaven” style family melodrama with a war vet mom returning from Iraq to reconnect with her daughter and some stupid teenage love triangle that wouldn’t hold up on “Dawson’s Creek”. Don’t care about the characters, especially if most of them are gonna die.

The key thing to good horror and sci-fi is to keep it simple and to the point. Alien and Predator battling it out. End of story.

I should have listened to FourFour’s advice and skipped it and just settled for watching his “fierce” Alien vs. Predator 2 montage.

For some crazy reason (maybe not so crazy if you’ve read my Old School Friday posts), I am seriously pumped about AVP 2. None of my friends could find take a break from their new year stupor and watch with me in theaters this past January. So basically, I’ve been waiting for 4 months to finally see what this alien/predator hybrid looks like!

I had no idea that these AVP flicks are based on a Dark Horse comic series. I think I gotta check out the Terminator vs Alien vs Predator comic. Just that phrase alone simply blows my mind.

Buy Alien vs Predator: Requiem on dvd today.

Prom Night was number one at the box office this weekend, which is beyond unbelievable. I agree with Defamer’s resentment and disillusionment at the state of horror movie business. It seems that studios would rather go easy on the gore and secure a PG 13 rating, then y’know make a decent horror flick that happens to be rated R.

Coming in second place was Keanu Reeves crime thriller, Street Kings. I actually forgot all about this movie.

After watching the trailer and reading Pajiba’s review, I think it might be decent. It might have to be a matinee, but I’m putting it on my must see list along with Smart People. The comedy-drama debuted at number 7 with 4.4 million.