necromancer-cm

John Dies At The End Upon seeing the face of Paul Giamatti depicted on the poster for this film, I decided: "Why not?" It's a film adaptation of David Wong's book and the trailer doesn't give too much away, while still grabbing your attention.

So, let's start with my pre-viewing thought: "I wonder how they are going to play with the fact that they tell us 'John' will die at the end, while still keeping the element of suspense the film seems to hint at having!" Those of you who have seen this will know, John does not die at the end. What a waste of a great title. This was the worst thing for me. But now that it's out of the way, I can focus on why this film wasn't all that bad.

Starting the low-budget (which is, unfortunately, frightfully apparent, but at least they try and work off it!) 'flick', we are met with a charming little riddle, although, I reckon, most got it in the first few seconds. This really did set the mood however, a dreary atmosphere of doubt and slight confusion is well-drawn from the books by the adaptation. Following this we saw the duo of practically non-existent actors - surprisingly well cast for the part - fighting supernatural apparitions and such like. The best spots of acting really came from both Clancy Brown (or Victor Kruger as many will know him) and Giamatti, with a surprisingly short but enjoyable cameo (we'll call it) from Kevin Michael Richardson as 'Korrok': the eye thingy; which is really all I can call it without giving anything away.

Now add a drug called 'Soy Sauce' (or 'The Sauce' as it is often referred to) and we have a half-decent film. The exclusion of CGI, for the most part, was welcome due to the film's real reversion to how things used to be done, showing that we can make them like we used to. There were some sections of the film which used CGI and, therefore, I can see why they chose to refrain from it's use; it's no 'Lord of the Rings'.

Attempting to mirror those fun qualities one can find in films like 'The Evil Dead' and 'Faust' (1926) we can see the angle with which the director, Don Coscarelli, attempted to tackle this film, but it really isn't one of his best.

I can't believe I'm saying this again, but, it just did not live up to the book, nor to other Coscarelli films such as 'Phantasm' and 'Bubba Ho-Tep'. Read the book first. Then, if you like, watch the film. It isn't bad but its not great either, nor is it 'one for the experience'. You could most certainly live without watching this film but it isn't one you will regret spending the time to watch.

Upon finding this film, I first thought it was of a nostalgic brand. I was wrong and upon looking at trailer found it to be an attempt to revive the much loved horror sub-genre: the "Creature-Feature".

Back in the heavy mists of time, in a land before the dictatorship of Overlord CGI, people used to actually dress up as the monsters in movies. This was a good time before the "Nazi-esque" reign of CGI. It meant there was more realism, if you could even ask for realism from a movie which stars it's antagonists (or protagonists for that matter) as undead humans who leech off others blood, or just eat them; but - the way I see it anyway - if you can't make it with material and your hands (or a machine) then it's probably not a viable concept and creating it with CGI is just a waste of time.

Anyway, this film chose to revive (or try to) that brilliant Horror philosophy. To represent to you what happened I would rather like to use this Visual Aid, imagine an evil CGI Nazi shot the Wolf-Man in the chest with a silver bullet and it would be possible to bring him back to life with a defibrillator - even though it's very impossible, using common Lore as a guide; so then one of the Wolf-Man's supposed buddies the Crocodile-Man (or whatever that thing was from this film) comes over with this life-saving gear and applies the shocks ... but doesn't stop and keeps filling the Wolf-Man with thousands of electrical volts, in essence, making sure that there is no way Mr. Wolf-Man can come back to life. So, for those of you still not following, any attempt at making a movie with these techniques again will be shunned by anyone in their right minds.

Just to get across to you how horrifically bad this film was i shall explain the premise in few words: incestuous, bestiality-loving Red-Necks. There you have it! Now imagine that for an hour and a half with one huge, unrealistic and really quite a lazy try at a twist. If you wish to be able watch a "Creature-Feature" again without thinking back to the time when you were tortured by Red-Necks with less than a 2-digit IQ between them, then whatever you do, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! For those of you who wish to watch it anyway, you're about as dumb and naive as I was, and may your Body Rest-in-Peace because, by God, your mind won't!

Well, what can I say? When I thought to myself: "Hey, I think i'm going to watch this!" all I knew about the film was that my friend told me it looked good and that was it. I went into this movie with no expectations at all, in fact, truthfully, I didn't expect much. My main thoughts were: bunch of B-list actors; except for Jessica Biel, who - with a bit of research - I did recognize from "The Illusionist" and what a performance that was; and a French director who I remembered was taken off the remake of the "Hellraiser" franchise (which looking at the quality of the remake compared to this film was an abysmal mistake).

So I watched it and after the first, perhaps, 10 minutes I could tell that something was going to happen to this Doctor (Biel) and her child. I was right ... for a while. The substantial plot twists and iconic turning points made this film original and by the way, after the first 10 minutes I thought originality had been thrown out the window, how ultimately naive I was. This director had obviously gone to great lengths to provide us with something new; which deserves a round of applause in itself since with so many horror films on the market today have almost soaked up all of the good ideas anyway; but I guess with so many attempts at getting a truly original movie some one had to triumph and that some one was Pascal Laugier - the director, for those of you lost at the moment.

Once we have surpassed the truly substantial twist, in all it's brilliance, we find that what we now believed was just a man (or woman should I say) and no longer a mythical creature; we come to find that there may just be this creature still ... or not, as becomes clear a bit later on. This is the main reason why i have given this film a 9 and not a 10, as although this added to the mystery of it all, it really made me quite annoyed at times; I felt like a dog being told that somewhere there was a bone in a box, then being let down, then finding evidence that there could still be a bone in this box then upon opening the box finding there was no bone, in a way it made me quite anxious, which is probably what Laugier was going for but, for me, it back-fired.

Surpassing this small criticism, I found "The Tall Man" extremely enjoyable and believe it has made a lasting if not nearly eternal print on horror and found it could not be mistaken for any other film. With a mixture of brilliant acting from Biel and superb directing (and writing) from Laugier I must commend this film and hope that if this reaches Laugier's ears, he would be content in the knowledge that I have seen almost every good horror film there is, and this can find a definite place among my favourites of all time.

I have just started a course in Psychology and was thrilled to hear that a movie was made on the life of Freud and Jung. Keeping up-to-date with the dates and actors etcetera, I greeted the choice of Viggo Mortensen as actor for Freud with great enthusiasm as I have found much content in his work in the acting business. The choice of Michael Fassbender & Keira Knightely greatly enthused me as well. When I heard that the movie was coming out I was overjoyed a rushed to see it and when I saw that it only had a 6.8 score, I was horrified. Whoever gave such an excellent movie a score such as this obviously had no love or enthusiasm for the field of Psychoanalysis, which I find this movie gives an epic and accurate portrayal of. If commenting on the film as a whole then I could not complain in the slightest but there are a few tweaks that could have been done; for instance, Miss Knightely seems to jut out her jaw when having psychological attacks, this is extremely un-becoming and she seems to have gone to much out of her way to impress the critics that so openly abused her and her contribution to the acting community. I believe however that Miss Knightely proved within her role that she is an actor of an extremely high calibre and should be treated as such; I take my hat off to the wonderful accent! Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of Freud could not be better and I believe that the director made a wonderful choice when he allowed him to play such a revered character, he has just gone from strength to strength having out done himself in his portrayal of The Man in The Road. The relationship and intimate connection between these three actors, within this movie (Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen especially) made this movie unbelievably watchable, I give my thanks to the actors, but especially David Cronenburg for his "oh-so" accurate portrayal of these legends lives and their legacy.