Five Short Horror Films You Can Watch On Youtube

Halloween is back once more and to celebrate the spooktacular festivities, I’ve compiled a list of 5 great short scary films that you can watch on youtube. I’ve omitted some of the more known ones (such as the original short for Lights Out, now a full length movie) and attempted to find films made by unknowns who have some seriously storytelling talent (we’ve all been the underdog at some point, right?). So without further ado, here are my top 5 picks for horror shorts you should watch for Halloween night!

1) VICIOUS

Director: Oliver Park

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WOYI7lVbXQ

This is a good one for watching in the dark in your bed, with nothing but the computer light and lingering feeling you might need to use the bathroom. Reminiscent of ‘Lights Out’, the film follows one young girl seemingly disturbed by tricks of her mind after a friend’s death…Or are they? Worth a watch if you’re into slower burn horrors/thrillers.

2) DOWNSTAIRS

Director: The Boxleitner Brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz6ThqHqJes&t=936s

If you’re a fan of films like Shaun of the Dead that give a steady mix of humour, jumpscares and gore, this is the short film for you! When a security guard has a rough night, things go bad for him when he decides to investigate the strange noises and smells coming from downstairs (Sidenote: this short features the best characters out of all on this list, and also some of the best one liners).

3) BLACKBOX TV’S 360 CHALLENGE

Director: Tony E. Valenzuela

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0wbVfpOCvI&list=PLOvbMqO-5Mj90EQrjHlHJXv_jItV4ubrK

BlackBox TV is one of the best YouTube horror channels (and has been for a while), putting up frightening short films one bloody mess at a time. One of the most fun things on their channel at the moment has to be their interactive experience featuring some of the most terrifying creepypasta’s, video games and nightmarish creatures on the internet. From Five Nights at Freddy’s to Slenderman to Clowns, the 360 degree experience puts you at the helm to control the view using your arrow or WASD keys. The challenge? To see how long you can last without going out of full screen/shutting the whole video off. Useful for a party game or if you’re really just trying to freak yourself out on Halloween night!

4) THE COP CAM

Director: No Sleep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvSlUgSKEuc

What I enjoyed most about this work was that it proves that interesting horror films are about the build up of tension and suspense, not necessarily the duration. At a mere two minutes fifteen seconds long, this film has intrigue and curiosity right from the get go, drawing us in up until the final second. Worth a watch if you don't have much time on your hands or if you're trying to cram as much spooky into one night as you can.

5) SHE’S A DOLL

Director: Jason Hornack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e37BmyOf3Y

This one is less ‘horror’ and more ‘disturbing’, and definitely warrants a watch if you’re into more twisted veins of spooky films (like body horror films). When Adam’s abusive wife leaves him, he decides to find an alternative, and more suitable, replacement. Although the production is not exactly A-Grade and its soundtrack can tend to get a bit distracting, its eerie and unsettling nature is definitely a helper in getting into the Halloween vibez, with the ending something that will stick with you for a while.

And that's it! There were definitely some that I omitted (otherwise this list could be 50 short films long) so the rest is up to you to discover! Happy Halloween everyone!

Classic Movie Review: Scream (1996)

Wes Craven's Scream was known for revitalising the horror genre. It came after a decade of a cheap horror flicks a that took themselves way too seriously. The self referential nature of the movie combined with Wes Craven's own history with the genre brought a new element to horror films that is still a big part of the genre today. Twenty years later, the movie is still terrifying despite the fact that it is an incredibly 90s movie.

One night, teenager Casey (Drew Barrymore) is settling in to watch a horror movie when she gets a mysterious phone call toying with her, asking her to name her scary movie. More than just a prank call, a killer shows up and murders both Casey and her boyfriend. These murders petrify the town of Woodsboro and in particular Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), who is still reeling after the brutal rape and murder of her mother a year earlier. As more murders happen, everyone ends up being a suspect. It turns out that the killers are following the rules that are set out in horror movies for who gets killed.

The best part about Scream (and it's sequels and recent Netflix series) is that you don't know who the killers are until the end of the movie. There are multiple suspects, everyone from Sidney's boyfriend Billy to the horror obsessed Randy. Spoiler alert: it ends up being both Billy and his friend Stu who are obsessed with horror movies and taking revenge for what has happened in the past. This is the second most reason for why it is so terrifying. These aren't unstoppable supernatural beings like Freddy or Jason, they're teenagers who have taken their love of horror movies to an extreme level. Skeet Ulrich (who plays Billy) is legitimately scary as this super serious psychopath and Matthew Lillard (Stu) is this weirdo who just loves to play games. Interesting side note: Skeet Ulrich was actually cast in this movie because he looked exactly like Johnny Depp in the first Nightmare on Elm Street. The final scene in which these two characters end up stabbing each other to make it seem like they are victims is both terrifying and darkly funny. 

Scream's multiple references to other horror movies would be considered cheap these days (the Scary Movie franchise definitely made that a reality), but these references work so well here. That primarily has to do with the fact that it uses them in its story. The rules of horror movies (and variations of them) that are set out in this movie have been used so many times in other movies that they have become a parody in and of themselves. In other movies they are used almost as a joke or a shorthand that most movie fans will know them without realising it.

Ghostface doing his thing

The only thing that doesn't work (and it's not really the fault of the movie) is that the technology has dated quite a bit. There is a lot of talk of cellular telephones as though they are a fad that is about is very comical. All the video cassettes is also very humourous. This has been made up for in the following movies, which update the technology accordingly and the recent Netflix series even introduces smartphones and gifs to the horror equation. In any other movie that would be irrelevant but in this movie franchise technology is key.

Despite having spawned a huge number of sequels, spin-offs and parodies, Scream is still a super scary and original movie. While sequels are generally considered bad, Scream 2 is just as a good, with Jerry O'Connell, Timothy Olyphant and Liev Schreiber bringing some really good acting to the series. This first one however is a must watch.

Trailers Week 121: 30/10/16

Frank & Lola

This movie is about the obsession a guy feels for his girlfriend. But like taken to the extreme.

Man Down

Shia LaBeouf is obviously traumatised by the things he's seen and done while at war.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

I guess this is how heroes are made. This movie looks like it shows a totally different version to the returned soldier story that we just watched.

Sugar Mountain

This scheme to make money might actually work in a perfect world. You fake someone's disappearance in the wilderness, only to 'find' them a couple of days later. Then you write a book and sell the movie rights.

Split

M. Night Shyamalan tries again to make a suspenseful movie. Apparently if you have split personality disorder, you can also shapeshift your body. This is coming from the guy who made The Last Airbender.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

There's this weird genre that has popped up lately where spies or assassins move to the suburbs and inevitably get caught up in hijinks. Examples are generally along the line of Killers or Mr and Mrs Smith. Invariably the result is never a good one because they always seem to be missed opportunities. While there are some decent moments and some great actors in Keeping Up With The Joneses, it also happens to miss the mark.

Jeff (Zach Galifianakis) and Karen Gaffney (Isla Fisher) are just a regular couple living in the suburbs of Atlanta. Jeff works as the HR person at an aerospace company and Karen works as an interior designer. They are happy together in their small community and get excited when they see that some new neighbours are moving in. These new neighbours turn out to be the complete opposite to them. Tim Jones (Jon Hamm) is a travel writer whose hobby is glass blowing. His wife Natalie (Gal Gadot) runs a food blog and donates to charity. While they seem like the perfect neighbours to have, Karen does some digging and finds that they are actually spies looking into the company that Jeff works for.

As fun as the concept of highly trained professionals moving into suburbia is, it never pans out the way you want. This is especially true when it comes to comedies that use the premise. There aren't enough jokes to fill out the entire thing and you want to put minimal action in there because it would become an action movie otherwise. Also the way that this movie treats Gal Gadot is really bizarre. I'm not one to jump up and down about the treatment of women in movies, but what they've done here is made a character that is contrary to the concept. Natalie is supposed to be this physically strong spy, but she ends up being a character that is just there to be considered attractive. It also falls into the same traps as makeover movies from the 80s and 90s. They take Isla Fisher's character and make wear unattractive clothes, but 'fix' her by putting her in some lingerie or a tight dress.

The movie's casting is a strong choice that helps with the lack of written jokes. Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher are good comedic staples with which to build on. Galifianakis is always funniest when playing a guy from the south as he has mastered the accent pretty well. I was a bit unsure of what was going on with Fisher's accent. I thought she was going for a similar that Rose Byrne has been doing lately where she plays Australian characters, but she seemed to bounce between the two. Jon Hamm has shown now that he is pretty good at playing a goofy character. While he is supposed to be serious, there were moments that you could tell he was having fun. Comedian Bobby Lee also turns up in a stereotypical Asian role as the proprietor of a Chinese snake restaurant that's pretty funny. Patton Oswalt appears at the end as the bad guy, but has very little time and doesn't have a chance to get a good footing.

Keeping Up With the Joneses is not the best comedy to come out this year. It's not bad as such, but there is a lot of down time between jokes. These instances are glaringly obvious and just make for some hollow viewing.

Café Society

Café Society is fun, romantic, and surprisingly smart, with a lot more going for it than it might seem. As we get a glimpse into contrasting scenes of New York and Hollywood during a rich and vibrant time in America's history, we begin to see the mentalities of the esteemed and the successful, and begin to realise there is perhaps this side to all of us. Employing a colourful and exciting aesthetic and a rich and genuine cast, Woody Allen achieves an interesting and engaging movie with a lot to think about.

Set in the mid 1930s, Café Society follows Bobby Dorfman (Jesse Eisenberg) as he decides to leave his quaint life in the Bronx behind and move to Hollywood to make a name for himself. Bobby hooks up with his uncle Phil (Steve Carrell), a highly successful film agent, who helps him get a start in the industry. Bobby quickly falls for the charming Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), Phil's surprisingly grounded secretary, however complications force the two apart. Bobby returns to New York to run a night club with his gangster brother Ben (Corey Stoll), before his life gets shaken up once again as Vonnie re-enters the picture.

The writing is surprisingly clever, with an easily missed message smartly woven into the changes experienced by the characters. While the end of the movie may ultimately leave audiences wondering if it was nothing more than a comfortable romance flick, the changes experienced by the characters throughout the film suggest otherwise. As Bobby remarks to Vonnie how she has fallen into the glitz and glamour lifestyle she had once loathed, we can't help but realise the same of Bobby himself, who perhaps only became this way through the bitter lessons learnt during his time in Hollywood. Needless to say, there is much to think about in the film's true meaning, and Woody Allen crafts these complicated pictures of society masterfully.

Performances are impressive across the board. Jesse Eisenberg employs a mix of his trademark awkwardness (The Social Network, Zombieland) as well as his surprisingly enjoyable and just as recognisable charismatic character (Now You See Me) to create an enjoyable dynamic to the character of Bobby. Likewise, Kristen Stewart proves she has matured much from her Twilight days to deliver a charming and enjoyably complex performance as Vonnie. Cafe Society features an impressive supporting cast, with particular mentions to Parker Posey who continues to raise the question of why she isn't in more A-List movies.

When it boils down to it, however, this movie isn't perfect. While Woody Allen's narration is ultimately enjoyable, it is perhaps unnecessary in telling a story which easily tells itself, and the constant jumps between the two different sides of America can be a bit jarring at times. This being said, the upbeat jazz soundtrack helps draw the viewer into the rich context of the film, easily supported by the constant name-dropping to 1930s Hollywood celebrities such as Fred Astaire and Joan Crawford. While it is often easy for intended immersion such as this to feel forced, Café Society does it with ease.

If you like complicated romance, you will enjoy this movie. If you like jazz and the 30s, you will enjoy this movie. If you like impressive portrayals of socially unsure and evolving characters, you will definitely enjoy this movie. And if you've ever seen a Woody Allen film and liked it, you will enjoy this movie. 

Masterminds

Jared Hess has had a mixed bag of comedies over the years, with nothing yet able to match his opening foray into features, Napoleon Dynamite. This time he teams up with Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig and Owen Wilson with Masterminds.

David Scott Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis) is an armoured-truck driver for Loomis Fargo. His life consists of maintaining his Barry Gibb haircut, relinquishing himself to his bizarre fiancée Jandice (Kate McKinnon) and dreaming about his co-worker Kelly Campbell (Kristen Wiig). After Kelly gets herself fired, her sinister friend Steve Chambers (Owen Wilson) suggests they plan a heist of Loomis Fargo, and use Ghantt’s affliction for Kelly to set him up as a pawn.

The plan is to have Ghantt complete the robbery, hand over the $17 million to Chambers and hightail it to Mexico, where Chambers will drip-feed Ghantt with enough money to live until it all dies-down and he can return to take his fair share. However, elements of the heist are botched by Ghantt, and FBI Agent Scanlon (Leslie Jones) starts to put the pieces together and track him down.

I have to admit I went into Masterminds with fairly low expectations. This comedy troupe - whether together or apart - produces both hits and misses, but I left pleasantly surprised. It’s not a great film by any long shot but it stands head-and-shoulders above some of the comedies we’ve seen recently. Considering how heavily-saturated the genre is, that could be considered a compliment. The actual comedy is predictably unstable, riding a sine wave of effectiveness. Early moments like David and Jandice’s wedding photography scene with Enya’s ‘Only Time’ blazing, or the robbery sequence keep you watching where other jokes pass by with not a murmur.

Since the film is based on an actual event – the 1997 Loomis Fargo Robbery – Masterminds doesn’t really have any crazy, outlandish sequences, which is probably its strongest asset. It relies more on standard slapstick and screwball comedy where others would stage a huge comedy-action sequence. It’s by no means a subtle film, yet in a genre where everybody’s jumping on the shock-train and trying to outdo each other, a film that’s even slightly understated like this is a breath of fresh air.

Galifianakis plays Ghantt as a bumbling idiot which might be exaggerated but it works, although half his performance can be attributed to his hair. McKinnon has just the right amount of involvement, with just a few well-rounded scenes – considering that she’s effectively playing a creepy doll-like character, somewhat reminiscent of Pris from Bladerunner, any more screen time for Jandice would have been a mistake. However both Wilson and Wiig were more of a let-down. Wilson doesn’t really escape from his ‘I’m Owen Wilson’ shoes but manages to whinge a hell of a lot, and Wiig’s Kelly is sidelined for a lot of the film, only really there to further Ghantt’s story. By far the best character in Masterminds however, is Jason Sudeikis’ Mike the assassin. With just the right mix of psychopathic and weirdly genteel, he outclasses the other secondary characters with a minimal amount of screen time.

Masterminds is by no means going to top the list of best comedies of the year, and it will probably be exiled to a life of occasional Netflix viewings. However, its comparatively toned-down approach is a relief point in an increasingly excessive genre.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Making a new franchise can be a difficult thing, especially when you announce plans to make one. Normally a movie does well and then you capitalise by making a sequel. If that does well, you try again. Before you know it, franchise. However, when you announce it in the first place, there are a lot more expectations when other movies come along. Going into this one, my expectations were high, considering how good the first one was.

Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is drifting from job to job, given to him by Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders). Despite Turner only being a voice at the end of the phone, Reacher bonds with her and tells her that he'll get her dinner when he's next in Washington DC. Only once he gets there, he discovers Turner has been arrested for espionage. Blocking his way in finding the truth is Colonel Morgan (Holt McCallany) who sends a mysterious ex-special forces soldier (Patrick Heusinger) to hunt him down. But Reacher also has to deal with Samantha (Danika Yarosh), a teenager who may or may not be his daughter.

The thing this movie does well with is action. The pace of the film is relentless. It moves from one set piece to the other quite well and there are quite a few of them. The final fight between Tom Cruise and Patrick Heusinger is executed well and is quite tense, despite the fact that we know Tom can't be beaten. Add the fact that he always does his own stunts makes it all the more impressive. His chemistry with Danika Yarosh is also worth noting. I've never seen Tom Cruise act in a paternal way (I won't count War of the Worlds because he was a bad dad). He carries it off really well and by the end I was hoping that Sam might actually be his daughter.

The big thing where this movie fell down was its confusing storyline. I know it's an action movie and that story is only used sparingly, but this one felt like they were making things up as they went along. Soldiers being shot changed to weapons being sold changed to drugs being smuggled, there didn't seem to be a coherent through line in the story. It seemed like whatever they needed it to be, they changed it to. I also want to comment on the lack of star power in the film. This one has Tom Cruise and Cobie Smulders and that's it. While the other actors are fantastic at what they do, it was a surprise in the last one to see a high calibre of actors in supporting roles. You had Jai Courtney, David Oyelow and Werner Herzog, all big names who could carry something on there own, but they also elevated that first movie. Beyond Robert Knepper, I didn't recognise anyone in this movie.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was supposed to be a sequel to launch a franchise, but now after two movies I feel like they've reached the limits of what the character can do. We get that he's a drifter who doesn't drive, going from adventure to adventure, but they just seem repetitive on the screen. Tom Cruise should stick to Mission: Impossible from now on. Then again, I wasn't a fan of Mission: Impossible II.

Trailers Week 120: 23/10/16

Logan

I'm really hoping that this new Wolverine movie doesn't turn into a crazy action movie and stays as a restrained and quiet drama with a couple of fight scenes. I think that would be the way to go.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

As great as the last movie was, I really hope they don't reuse the soundtrack. Still, looks like a lot more space fun is coming our way.

Assassin's Creed

Just a lot of confusing action in this trailer. And I played the games.

Arrival

Thems certainly look like aliens alright. But seriously though, any life form we would meet would barely have what we call a 'language'.

Nocturnal Animals

I think the lesson of this movie is to not violently break the heart of a Southern gentleman. 

A Cure for Wellness

This one looks like Stranger Things met Shutter Island.

Operator

This feels like a semi-prequel to Her, where the guy who invents the voice personal assistant just wanted his girlfriend around him all the time.

The Boss Baby

I can just imagine this is what Alec Baldwin was like as a baby.

Classic Movie Review: Westworld (1973)

What better way to connect the recent release of The Magnificent Seven remake and HBO's TV show of Westworld, by reviewing the original sci-fi classic. Now if you're wondering why I mentioned The Magnificent Seven, well Yul Brynner was the star of that original movie and he's one of the creepiest robots you'll ever see in this movie. Westworld is also the first movie ever to use CGI and while not at all what we're used to now, it's still very impressive.

The Delos Resort is an adult amusement park where guests can go to three seperate worlds and live an immersive experience for one thousand dollars a day. The three worlds are Roman World, Medieval World and West World. The amusement park is inhabited by androids that are programmed to do whatever the guests want to do. Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) is a first time visitor, being shown around by his friend John Blane (James Brolin). Initially Peter and John have a great time, getting into gunfights with the Gunslinger (Yul Brynner) and going on the run from the law. But soon the scientists behind the scenes, including the chief engineer (Alan Oppenheimer), find a computer virus that is making the androids go crazy. As things get worse and worse for the guests, Peter and John realise they shouldn't have hassled the Gunslinger so much.

On the surface, Westworld could easily be dismissed an old school sci-fi movie that isn't too good. It isn't until the end of the movie that any action really happens and it wraps up all too quickly. If it wasn't for the TV show that is currently airing on HBO, I doubt many people would even know about it. Indeed a friend of mine was surprised to hear that it even was a movie, he just thought it was a cool show. But dig a little deeper and it's actually quite a revolutionary movie. It is the first movie to use CGI sequences. There are a few times when we get to see through the eyes of the Gunslinger. It is only very basic pixels where coloured blocks represent actual things (and later a primitive version of infrared). While most action blockbusters today have some element of CGI in them, back then this was an unknown thing. It's little surprise to hear that this movie has a direct connection with Jurassic Park, the movie that pioneered the technique two decades later. Michael Crichton wrote and directed this movie, while inspiring himself to write Jurassic Park.

The performances in this movie are of note too. While Richard Benjamin does give a very bland performance in the lead, Yul Brynner and James Brolin do their best to shoulder the weight. It would be terrible to describe Yul Brynner's performance as robotic, but that's exactly what he is. It is so much fun to watch a classic actor to show no expression, no emotion, just movement. That adds a level of fear to his performance. This thing is capable of anything and you believe it. He is also dressed in the exact same costume as his character in The Magnificent Seven and acts in a total antithesis to that character. To me James Brolin looks like Christian Bale in American Psycho. There are definite parallels between the characters too. Both John Blane and Patrick Bateman do things with a disregard to the world around them. At least John Blane does it with the knowledge that the world around him is fake.

Westworld is a forgotten gem of the sci-fi genre, even though it has influenced so much of today's entertainment. Everything from the types of things we watch to the way they make them owe a lot to this movie. And while it may seem clunky and robotic for a modern audience, it's still an exhilarating action movie.

Mascots

Christopher Guest mockumentaries are well renowned for being representative of middle America. Things like community theatre and dog shows are things that, though the majority of us may not be familiar with, exist in the real world. His first film in a decade however, focuses on a fictional mascot competition. While Mascots strives to recapture the glory of Best in Show, it ends up landing only a few of its ambitious jokes, while leaving others stranded by the wayside.

In the lead up to the World Mascot Association's Fluffy Awards, mascots travel from all over the globe to compete for the Gold Fluffy. There are Mike (Zach Woods) and Mindy Murray (Sarah Baker), a husband and wife mascot team for a small town baseball team, Cindi Babineaux (Parker Posey), whose character Alvin the Armadillo is a the mascot for a Mississippi university, Tommy Zucarello (Chris O'Dowd), a Canadian who considers himself the bad boy of mascotary with his character The Fist. There are many other mascots including Sid the Hedgehog from the UK. Meanwhile, judges Gabby Monkhouse (Jane Lynch) and A.J. Blumquist (Ed Begley Jr.) are squabbling over who used to be the better mascot and head of the WMA Langston Aubrey (Michael Hancock) is trying to square away a deal to televise the event with TV executive Upton French (John Michael Higgins).

As you can probably tell, one of the problems with Mascots is the sheer amount of characters. I didn't mention all of them, but they all get their own one on one interviews with the camera. It gets to the point where you can't remember the ins and outs of everyone's stories. In the past, Guest has focused on a core group of individuals and gotten testimonies from other characters in a non-interview style. Another thing I found disappointing was the shift in style. For want of a better word, Guest's films have always had a realist quality. Take, for example, the dog show in Best in Show. There was an actual dog show going on in the background with actual trainers and dogs that weren't characters in the show. But here, the background mascots aren't entirely convincing. Another part of the realist style is the way the films were shot. They seemed like they were low-grade and hastily put together, the sort of thing you'd expect from an amateur documentarian. Mascots is too shiny and polished. The sets look like sets, rather than the location shooting you'd expect. Finally, there are a few jokes that are there, but missed out on. Zach Woods' Mike has a history of infidelity that doesn't suit his skinny body and that could have been explored so much more. Bob Balaban (who plays the owner of Mike and Mindy's baseball team) has a lot of sexual weirdness that is set up for nothing.

But these types of movies boil down to the performances. Long form improvisation is tough, but all these comedians are awesome at it. Although I think it would have benefitted from having veterans Catherine O'Hara and Eugene Levy, the other older cast members who are at play are pretty awesome. Chief among them is John Michael Higgins, who doesn't get too much screen time, but what he does with it is magical. His impassioned monologue about his career trajectory is weird and wonderful. Michael Hitchcock is amazing at awkwardly explaining his way through the phenomenon that is furries (a joke that I felt never hit its mark in the movie). Newer inclusions to the team are pretty amazing too. Zach Woods has always been a hilarious improv actor and he provided some of my favourite parts of the film. Chris O'Dowd was a wonderful inclusion to the film, although I felt his ending was a little off. There is also a stunt at the end of the film which I felt was pulled off expertly, and while it didn't make me laugh, I was definitely amazed at the theatrics of it.

Mascots tries too hard at making the mascot competition the joke. I feel like more time should have gone into focusing on the characters and giving more realism to the film. I did feel removed from the entire event and that's the opposite of how you want to feel with this movies. You're supposed to identify with these characters, but that was just too hard.

Trailers Week 119: 16/10/16

Army of One

Just when you think Nicolas Cage couldn't get any crazier, he goes ahead and stars in a movie where he thinks God is telling him to kill bin Laden. Then again, it does come from director Larry Charles, who is equally as insane.

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage

This week we're doubling down on Nic Cage. This time we see his more serious side in the story about the ship that delivered the atomic bomb during the Pacific War.

Life on the Line

When you've made a movie about damn near every job imaginable, you start scraping the bottom of the barrel. I give you John Travolta as a lineman.

Trash Fire

Apparently this horror flick is also a comedy.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

For those of you who sat through all those trailers, you get a treat. Unless you're not a fan of Star Wars, in which case you have to sit through this one as well.

Inferno

I'm not one to be disappointed by movie adaptations of books. This isn't because I know that they'd get them right, rather I don't let my hopes get too high due to the inevitability that they will butcher the source material. I don't know why I let my guard down with the latest Dan Brown adaptation. Past experiences with The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons should have taught me otherwise, but I ended up getting hurt more than ever with this one.

Harvard professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) wakes up in a hospital in Florence with no memory of how he got there and a head wound. His attending doctor, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), explains that he arrived at the hospital with bloodied clothes and that his head wound has caused amnesia, but his memory should return. Before any of this can be processed, he is attacked by Vayentha (Ana Ularu), a mysterious assassin disguised as an Italian police officer. Soon Langdon and Brooks discover that he was there to prevent the release of a plague that could wipe out half of the world's population, a plan devised by Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster), a scientist concerned with overpopulation and who died at the start of the film.

Let me talk about the brief positives of the film before I get into how it devastated me. The film really captured the effects of amnesia and really eased the audience into the story. This is a pretty creative way to convey the confusion of the characters as well as not giving away everything at once. The scenery is spectacular, but that's what is expected when you set your film in Florence, Venice and Istanbul.

I know this isn't a book review, so I won't go into too much detail about it. While Dan Brown's writing is somewhat formulaic, the ending of the book was very different and original. While the movie has the super Hollywood ending (spoilers!) of Langdon stopping the plague from being released and saving the world, the book actually reveals that the plague has already been released and the day that they spent trying to stop was actually the day when the whole world would be infected. Instead of the plague killing people, it actually just made a third of the population infertile, a trait that may or may not be passed down through the gene pool. This ending is so much better and would make people stop and think. But because of Hollywood, we now just got a movie that everyone will forget because it lacks anything to make it stand out. That just defeats the purpose of making a movie, you want something that lasts the test of time to make as much money as possible.

Even if you haven't read the book on which it's based, Inferno is a pretty dreary movie. It sets an exhilarated pace that it can't keep up with. This is combined with a bland and conventional story, as well as confusing twist, to make an unforgettable movie that no one wanted.

The Girl on the Train

Tate Taylor’s The Girl on the Train, based on Paula Hawkin’s best selling novel of the same name, has been one of the most talked about and hyped releases of the year. With an all-star cast lead by Emily Blunt, it certainly has a lot to live up to.

Divorcee Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) is an alcoholic, she has been for a long time, with alcohol-induced blackouts littering memories of her marriage. It all fell apart for Rachel when she caught her husband Tom (Justin Theroux) cheating on her with their estate agent Anna Boyd (Rebecca Ferguson). Every day, Rachel catches the train past her old neighbourhood, glancing into her old house and the surroundings. She becomes fixated on Tom’s neighbours, Scott (Luke Evans) and Megan Hipwell (Hayley Bennett), the archetypal relationship that Rachel desires. After a series of far from lucid moments, Rachel wakes up injured in her apartment. She can’t remember anything from the night before and finds out that Megan is missing.

It’s taken me nearly a week to get my notes together after watching this mess of a film. There was a tremendous amount of hype for The Girl on the Train leading up to release, with many heralding it as another potential Gone Girl, and the comparisons to that are important because technically and thematically it’s obvious that Taylor draws inspiration from Fincher’s film (or rips it off as some may view it). Full disclosure, I wasn’t as enamoured with Gone Girl as many others were, but to compare these two is just insulting.

The first issue comes with the mystery. Judging from the marketing, The Girl on the Train promised to be a dark and gritty mix of procedural crime and psychological thriller. What we get is barely a flash of the crime element until the denouement when all the puzzle pieces are revealed at once, well-and-truly together and not particularly intriguing, engaging or even intelligent. The rest of the film is composed of horrendous editing, a very ugly use of low-framerate photography and a thinly laid psychological pastiche that does very little to enchant the audience.

People are praising Emily Blunt’s performance as the one saving grace this film has, but I can’t even agree with that. She spends most of her time pretending to be intoxicated and stumbling around helplessly in a role that certainly might trump the other performances on-show but is still not worthy of the kudos that it has received. There’s no real downfall for Rachel because she’s already spun-out of control by the time we meet her. The material is just so poor that even such an able cast can’t dredge a solid character out of Erin Cressida Wilson’s script.

Allison Janney's character is probably the only half-enjoyable one, solely because she goes around somehow knowing everything about everyone and being a hilariously smug detective. It’s as annoying as it sounds but hey, at least she’s not sulking around with all the other depressed, dopey characters, whose sole-interactions with the world seem to be abusing each other and engaging in ridiculous love triangles. There’s one particularly absurd scene towards the end that just about sums up The Girl on the Train, with the audience's reaction a mix of 10% genuine shock, 80% belittling laughter, and 10% heading for the exit.

The Girl on the Train is a poorly acted, poorly written, frustrating, tedious, ugly lump of a film, which squanders all its energy on its meandering plot. I couldn’t honestly recommend that anybody spend money on this total misfire, but given the book’s performance, I know that they will.

Deepwater Horizon

Disaster movies are a genre of films that has been slightly lacking in recent years. While environment disaster movies like Deep Impact, The Day After Tomorrow and even last year's San Andreas are still incredibly popular, man-made disasters are rarer. I think that was part of the joy I had in watching Deepwater Horizon, because it seemed to breathe new life into a stale genre.

Mike Williams (Mark Wahlberg) is the chief electrical engineer on the oil rig Deepwater Horizon. He is about to go for a three week stint aboard the rig and spends time with his family. Also going to the rig are Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez) and the boss Mr Jimmy (Kurt Russell). Things seem a bit strange when they get there to discover that the rig's BP bosses, including Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich), are all over the place, putting pressure on the teams on the rig to drill a new oil well without the proper safety tests having been taken. And that can only lead to one thing, disaster.

Deepwater Horizon suffers from a couple of things. The process of offshore oil drilling is something that people study for years and years at a university to be able to do. There are countless numbers of complex machines that go into an oil rig (something Mark Wahlberg is constantly reminding us of). It's hard to boil it down into an action movie, which is weird because the movie does it, but still is complex. The start even has a child's view of the drilling process for all us dummies in the audience. To my understanding, a hole is drilled down into the oil well, a pump is down there and they bring up that black gold (I'm no expert so forgive me for my lack of knowledge, my education in this business comes from movies like There Will Be Blood). The ocean floor however needs to be reinforced with concrete however, because when drilling that hole it can lead to a blowout (which is what happened). Now I was getting to how this works against the film. When you have a whole bunch of characters with Louisiana accents talking about 'see-ment' tests, it can be a little confusing and these are integral details to the plot. The characters also like using idioms and metaphors to explain their work, like Mark Wahlberg's impassioned monologue comparing oil drilling to catfish noodling (which is a weirdly specific piece of cultural knowledge you have to have for that to make sense).

Now I was going to put this next point in with those negatives but it's a weirdly good thing. Once the action starts in this movie, it doesn't stop. Literally. We have about forty minutes of setting the scene to what causes the explosion and then the remaining time is dedicated to explosions. Normally these movies have time in which they slow down and take a breather, but not this one. Mark Wahlberg is constantly running around the oil rig, saving people or switching off things. Again, that's nothing we haven't seen before. But this time it's different. Fat Mark Wahlberg. You read that right, he's fat. Now that is something we've never seen before. Instead of playing his usual super buff gym owner or muscular scientist, he's playing a slightly overweight engineer with a sedentary job. So when it comes to his feats of strength, you can't help but root for the guy. Kurt Russell is no stranger to disaster movie having starred in Poseidon back in 2006, although this time there is no water from him to drown in. Throughout the movie he has a busted up eye which is definitely a call back to one of his iconic characters Snake Plissken.

Deepwater Horizon looks like it's going to be a trashy action flick, but it ends up being quite enjoyable. Despite it's overly technical jargon and shots of the American flag with fire burning around it (which is weird because the rig is owned by British Petroleum, but I'm sure you could write a whole essay about that flag in this movie), the movie is just fun. The non-stop action is something that even a director like Michael Bay would shy away from, but in the case of Deepwater Horizon in works perfectly.

Trailers Week 118: 09/10/16

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

We get our first look at Javier Bardem in what is possibly the longest of the Pirates titles they can throw at us.

Power Rangers

For some weird reason I was a huge fan of Power Rangers when I was six. I can barely remember anything about it though. At first I thought this was a trailer for a Captain Planet movie which I think would be a lot better.

The Great Wall

I think I was a little harsh on this movie last time round. I'm actually excited to see an original blockbuster for once and since it's been made by a Chinese director, there won't be all the mistakes made by Hollywood.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter

I know for sure that I wouldn't have lasted a decade in this world.

Underworld: Blood Wars

It may just be me, but this and the Resident Evil franchise are indistinguishable from each other. It may be because there's been like a million movies between the two or maybe that neither of them broke through into absolute mainstream. Anyway, here's another one.

John Wick: Chapter 2

Speaking of sequels, here's one apparently everyone wanted. But instead of being a cool small budget flick like last time, they have a bit more money on their side.

The Monster

Indie monster-horror flicks are a lot better than the run of possession movies we've seemed to have of late.

Get Out

Trust comedian Jordan Peele to create this terrifying horror movie. It looks like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, but the white family learns nothing about their racist ways I guess.

The Hollow Point

There are many things you don't want to get stuck in the middle of and a war between a cartel and Ian McShane is high on that list.

Patriots Day

I think there's now a law where you can't make a movie about Boston without having either Ben Affleck or Mark Whalberg in it.

Sleepless

Jamie Foxx looks awesome as this renegade cop antihero.

Allied

Robert Zemeckis' new movie comes with a dilemma. Would you be able to kill someone you love even if they were a Nazi?