The Colony (2013) - Movie Review

Official Score = 1 1/2 Devils

When it comes to movies with a big budget, some powerful talent, some great special effects, and a great premise, you would expect the movie to be great right? Or at least good?

I have to admit that I have not seen to much of this over the last 5 or 6 years, but back in the early part of the new millennium... And I will be honest and say that the fact that Hollywood wants to remake every horror movie ever made has not really helped any...

The reason I mention this is because I was recently disappointed with the movie, The Colony (2013)...

The Colony... A movie that had a lot of promise, but in the end just really didn't make it!

Written by: Jeff Renfroe (Civic Duty), Svet Rouskov (Silent Cargo), Patrick Tarr (American Psycho), Patrick Trottier (Hellions) & Directed by: Jeff Renfroe. Starring: Kevin Zegers (Dawn Of The Dead), Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix), Bill Paxton (Aliens), Charlotte Sullivan (Defendor) & Dru Viergever (Survival Of The Dead).

The world froze over a long time ago. So long ago that I can't remember the warmth of the sun. I heard stories growing up... How the planet grew hotter as our fuel was burned. How we made towers to work the weather. But the truth is... one day... it started to snow. And it never stopped.

- Sam (Kevin Zegers), a quote from: The Colony (2013).

This movie tells the story of how in the modern times, the way the world's governments decide to handle the problems of Global Warming is to create a machine that would control the weather... The problem is, is that the machines have malfunctioned and have made it so that the Earth has started to permanently snow...

About 40 years later, mankind has gone underground in to shelters (called Colonies,) to survive the extreme cold. During this time, one of the Colonies goes silent, and Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) decides to take a team over to investigate why they went dark,

Briggs (Laurence Fishburne), as he is leading a party to check out what happened to the colony that went dark.

What they will find there will shock them down to there very core... But as they are trying to escape the massacre created at the dead colony by a group of ravenous cannibals... They will have to contend with the potential that they might lead these cannibals back to their, 'Colony'!

Listen I will be honest and say that this movie was pretty much an overpriced bad knock off of, 30 Days Of Night (2007), I mean at least in that movie they were, 'Vampires' that went after a group in a small town in Alaska during it's darkest period... The bad guys in this, barely acted like comprehensible Zombies... And they never explained why these Cannibals were jumping from colony to colony and killing everyone...

Ultimately, I just didn't see why this ended up happening... And it was not explained at all... All in all, It just seemed to happen... And frankly it just seemed like senseless violence jumping from one colony to the next (And trust me when I say that I do like violence in horror/sci-fi movies,) ... but since there was not enough character development with the cast in the colony, I kind of really did not care all that much rather the colony lived or died, which made this more of a pointless gorefest...

Tales From The Crypt... Oh How We Miss Them

The Cryptkeeper welcoming us back for another wonderful, 'Tale From The Crypt'!

Back in the late 80s there was a late night horror TV anthology series that was just something to be hold... It had some truly scary episodes, some truly funny episodes... but rather they be scary, or funny, most of them were truly something to enjoy... And with those episodes, you would get horror movie quality special effects (the like of which made horror movies great, and which have been found to be lacking in most modern horror movies...) And in all of this, you get some truly amazing talent, (including: Tom Hanks (Apollo 13), Larry Drake (Darkman), etc...) And along with the amazing talent of filmmakers like, 'Robert Zemeckis' (Back To The Future) and you got the amazing HBO late night smash hit, 'Tales From The Crypt' (1989 - 1996)!

Based on the EC Comics series of the same name, this series debuted on HBO on June 10th 1989 and would go on to superstardom, and become one of the most famous horror anthologies of all time, making, 'The Crypt Kreeper' (Don't let the name fool you kiddies, he may look scary... But he is more awesome then will give you a jump!)

The face of late night TV in the late 80s - the mid 90s... A face that only a mother could love!

Now the reason that I say that this series would probably go on to be one of the most famous horror anthology TV series of all time... The reason for that is this... Well you might say that, 'The Twilight Zone' is that... The truth is, is that what makes, 'The Twilight Zone' one of the greatest anthologies of all time is not because of the horror aspects of the series, but because of everything (the science fiction side to...)

No in the case of Tales From The Crypt... They became the, 'The Twilight Zone' of horror anthologies, having pulled off a long list of celebrated 80s and early 90s superstars, including (Besides those mentioned above): Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters), Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Brad Dourif (Child's Play), Margot Kidder (The Amityville Horror), Bill Paxton (Aliens), Malcolm McDowell (Halloween)... And that is just to name a few!

Legendary actor: 'Kirk Douglas' in a scene from, 'Tales From The Crypt'!

 Included in this also is the fact that most of this series was extremely well written, with stories that were extremely well crafted, with enough character development, that when the shit hit the fan (and I mean this show had episodes that were about 1/2 hours long, so the fun gore moments, when the shit hit the fan came rather quickly...)

And along with great stories and great acting talent was the fact that this show... considering the fact that (well at least when I got in to it... And I got in to it when it was still on the air) was still running on late night, had some surprisingly great special effects that I would say would rival just about any special effects that you would see in any movie!

The use of an, 'Electric Chair' is just one example of some truly remarkable special effects in the series!

But besides what I mentioned above, one of the coolest things... And I imagine that this probably would sound pretty odd, but the truth is, is that I would say what tops out this series over all is, 'The Crypt Keeper'... I mean John Kassir (Batman: Arkham Origins), did an amazing job bringing the crypt keeper to life and giving him this sort of bad ass hilarity that just made him perfect!

In the end, I guess what I am trying to say is that there were few series (anthologies or otherwise), that are made these days like shows like, 'Tales From The Crypt'... I know that: Tales From The Crypt Presents: Bordello Of Blood (1996) didn't do all that well in the theater, but this series in it's heyday was truly prolific, and left a mark on the world of TV, and for the fans like me, we miss that, and would love to see, 'Tales From The Crypt' come back in all of it's glory!

Aliens (1986) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_415" align="alignright" width="350"] Official Score = 4 Devils[/caption]

Written by: James Cameron (The Terminator), David Giler (The Money Pit), Walter Hill (The Warriors) & Directed by: James Cameron. Starring: Sigourney Weaver (Avatar), Carrie Henn (Alien Evolution), Paul Reiser (Mad About You), Lance Henriksen (Millennium), Bill Paxton (Twister), Michael Biehn (The Abyss), Jeanette Goldstein (Terminator 2: Judgement Day), William Hope (Captain America: The First Avenger), and Al Matthews (Tomorrow Never Dies).

This movie is an interesting one to me, you see usually sequels tend to not to be as good as the original movie… They usually have overblown special effects, a bigger cast, and an over the top story that seldom is ever as good as the original… This movie to me is not one of those!

You see this movie had a great cast which brought back Sigourney Weaver (who played Ellen Ripley in the first movie) and told the story of how after the hell that she went through on board the Nostromo fighting the first Xenomorph attack, she ends up drifting through space for centuries in the Nostromo’s escape craft’s Hypersleep chamber!

Now when she gets back, she ends up losing her status within, ‘The Company’ when they learn that she is the only one that has survived the attack on the, ‘Nostromo’ and all of her crew is killed by the Xenomorph…

After she loses her status in the company and is relegated to loading freight on to ships that are coming in and out of the company’s space station near Earth, she also ends up finding out what happened to her daughter centuries ago, and ends up falling in to a deep depression… That is of course until Carter Burke (Reiser) pays her a visit…

[caption id="attachment_896" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Carter Bruke (Paul Reiser) and Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) not longer after Ripley is rescued from the, 'Nostromo' escape vehicle![/caption]

You see Burke got it arranged to have a colony installed on to LV426 (the planet where Ripley and the Nostromo had originally picked up their Alien passenger that ultimately ended up destroying the Nostromo, it’s crew, and ruining Ripley’s life!)

Now the Colony has stopped communicating with the company back at home and Burke is putting together a team of Colonial Marines (an elite military unit that works with the company) to head to the planet to check on the colony, and since Ripley had been their centuries ago, Burke decided to bring Ripley along as an advisor on the mission… (and despite her better judgment decides to head off with Burke and the Marines…)

In the end, Burke, Ripley and the rest of the Marines will get more then they bargained for when they make it to the planet and Ripley comes face to face again with the Aliens that ruined her life!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Ripley is about to go head to head one more time in, 'Aliens (1986)![/caption]

Now you wouldn't think it, but this movie in my opinion maybe one of the few sequels that are as good (if not better than the original), and I think that is in large part due to the fact that the first two Alien movies were directed by Directors who would later become Science Fiction Masters! (Ridley Scott for Alien (1979), and James Cameron for Aliens (1986)!)

Another thing that I really liked about this movie is the special effects… I mean like most sequels, the special effects are bigger and more splashier… (these are, but they are done really tastefully.)

The cast of course was utterly phenomenal in this (as they are in most of the other movies that I have seen them in…)

And in all truth, the story was awesome! I mean I always love Sci-Fi, but I also love how they put an element of drama and deceit that was all believable and very well done!

In the end, this movie is an amazing good time and if you haven’t seen it yet, then you might give it a try… I think you might really like it!

http://youtu.be/XKSQmYUaIyE

Brain Dead (1990) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_330" align="alignright" width="220"] Official Score = 2 1/2 Devils[/caption]

Some can say that the golden age of the horror movie franchise lasted for about 50 years, from the early 1930s to the late 1980s... Some can even say that there has been many golden ages seen in horror, (i,e... The 1930s - 40s with Universal's Monster Movies, the 1950s - 1970s with Hammer's Films, and even the rise of the slasher film in the 80s). In my opinion, I would say that like everything, in horror, there has been ebb's and there has been flows, there has been ups and there has been downs. But for me, I think the best time period for the horror genre really was from about 1950 through to about 1995. Now that is not to say that there has not be a good movies before and after, but for my money, some of my favorite horror movies have come out of these decades! In the early 1990s there was a series of movies that were in some ways directly connected because of their similarities I believe due to their connections to the H.P. Lovecraft novels, (but we'll get in to that in a moment.) Now this movie that I am speaking of is Brain Dead (1990)! Written by: Charles Beaumont (The Intruder), Adam Simon (Carnosaur), and Directed by: Adam Simon. Starring: Bill Pullman (Independence Day), Bill Paxton (The Terminator), Patricia Charbonneau (Manhunter), and George Kennedy (Demonwarp).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="534"] Doctor Rex Martin (Bill Pullman)[/caption]

Have you ever heard the old saying that, 'perception is reality', and in Brain Dead (a movie which was heavily influenced from the old Lovecraft story, 'Re-Animator') is a fascinating Psychological Horror movie that takes the concepts of perception as reality to the next level! You see in the world of Brain Dead, a highly regarded Neuroscientist by the name of, Dr. Rex Martin (Pullman), a man who closely maps and studies the brains of various people, is about to get an offer that he can't refuse! This offer is from his old college roommate and good friend, 'Jim' (Paxton), who needs to get at a set of figures that seem to be stuck in the mind of a genius scientist by the name of, 'Halsey' (Played by: Bud Cort), and wants Martin to get the numbers out of Halsey by use of a currently un-tested and unproven method of extracting it from Halsey's mind! Well after Martin refuses Jim's offer, Jim has Martin's grant pulled in an effort to nudge him in the so-called, 'right direction'. So Martin performs the procedure to a total success, and right as he is about to have all the success and money he could have ever need to complete his research, a homeless man attacks Martin, by pushing him in to an on-coming car! Now Dr. Martin will truly find out what it is meant by, 'perception is reality' when Martin is sent in to a nightmare world for which he may never come back from!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="534"] Dr. Rex Martin's work will ultimately take him to new realms of fear![/caption]

In the end if you are looking for a fun mind fuck of a movie, or if you are a fan of Lovecraftian movie/novels then I would recommend this one, it is a fun one!

http://youtu.be/QtmqGe7740g