bobtherockstar

I can't say I am the biggest reader, but when I read "Less than Zero" it truly meant something to me. It spoke loudly with it's shocking situations and uncompromising depictions of the upper class youth gone wild/bored. The character of Clay was someone that I related to, and even at times when what he was going through was so alien to me I could still feel what he was going through. It was beautiful, and ugly, all at the same time. Then I pop this baby in and watch the rape of an amazing book! Wow, they completely missed the point! Not to mention: half of the characters, almost all the really shocking scenes, and just about the whole damn plot. What they did replace it with was a pile of drivel that focused on a more secondary character which was fairly half-assed and uninteresting. The acting was bad, the music was fairly bad, and the story was really really horrible. I'd say the only thing that somewhat paid off this hour and a half of trite attempt at adaptation was the half-way decent cinematography. Some scenes, if you didn't look at what was going on, you could get lost in the semi-interesting lighting, or the juxtaposition of off-beat objects. Maybe the director just didn't give a crap about what story was being told and just wanted to show some pretty pictures! Either way, it's not good enough as a visual piece (go check out a Fellini film for god sakes!) and the story is pretty damn horrible, especially in comparison to Bret Easton Ellis's beautiful book. Mr. Ellis must've been paid a lot of cash, or it must be really true what they say about Hollywood: "Writers are treated like crap!"

I'd say that Meet the Feebles is one of my favourite films of all time, up there with Dogville, City of God, El Topo, etc. It manages to take an over-the-top drug/sex/violence/any kind of taboo basically-filled puppet film and actually make a story out of it! Considering it's an hour and a half and there are so many characters/stories/situations, you still manage to get into it all! But here's a trick to watching the film, as most people will see the first 20 minutes and think: "Okay I've seen enough, another hour of just insanity and introductions to disgusting characters? No thank you!" But if you push yourself to watch till after the Vietnam flashback, you will definitely be hooked onto the film. The songs are all great, the puppets all look great, and just a fabulous story. This was an early indication of Peter Jackson's talent as a director. If this man can take an all puppet cast and add drugs/sex/violence AND then make it a completely enjoyable film, give him a billion dollar career right away! I cannot stress enough how much fun this film is, and what a great story it is. Please do yourself a favour and go buy this movie!

Why is this movie so effective? Because it hurts. The melancholic Goblin soundtrack, the creepy emptiness of the main characters large estate, and the motives of all the characters all mix together to make you hurt. The story follows a man who is deeply in love with his girlfriend and his nanny who is obsessed with him. The nanny, through a voodoo ritual in the beginning of the film, kills the mans girlfriend as she lays in a hospital bed on her last threads of mortality. The man, who works as a taxidermist, goes off the rails of sanity and begins to murder a few women while also trying to preserve his girlfriends stuffed corpse. His nanny stays by his side throughout his murders and insanity, so in turn he promises to be with her. It's a grotesque movie, with a great ending, and it just plain hurts. Even as cheesy it sounds, I just felt pain as I watched it. It's definitely up there with "Man Bites Dog" in terms of depressing horror. I think the most painful thing about watching this movie though is the fact that to my best knowledge Joe D'Amato (director) has not really followed up with more excellent horror films and instead has put out tons of gory porno flicks. Or just straight up porno flicks. Whatever it may be, he's chosen the wrong path as you can see in this film that he could've been up there with Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci as masters of Italian horror. One of my favourite Italian horror films.

A good concept, a good story, BUT it has horrible acting, horrible directing, horrible dialogue, horrible writing in general, and no scenes really work that well. I personally sat and laughed through the entire film, it was that bad. I'd say the worst film I've seen this year so far in the theatres. I think if this is what is considered as a new quality horror film, we're in serious trouble. Mind you it's not even that much of a horror film, it's a horribly idiotic and corny drama that spends half it's time in an "okay" horror story and the other half in the most atrocious made for TV/student film-ish courtroom drama. It was all drivel that came off really ignorant, I kept expecting Campbell Scott to say "Objection your honor, this is clearly SHENANIGANS!" It was a brutal film and unless you want a good laugh and you've just seen too many good quality films that you can't take one more then go see this. Otherwise spend your money on something else. I'm glad I only had to pay a matinée price for this piece of crap.

Well, certainly a lot better than Video X. And while the idea of the film grew tiresome, it still held onto some sort of substance. The acting wasn't really that bad, in some scenes it almost felt real. Which is really the most important part of these "fake found footage" films. The camcorder looked dirty, the movements were real, and in some ways it was a little bit like Boyz N Da Hood meets the Outsiders. One thing I couldn't stand was the dialogue. The slang/"gang speak", although realistic, made absolutely no sense. I think this is a film that needs subtitles, but that would ruin the "found footage" feel of it. Overall, it was pretty boring and the idea seemed a little clichéd but it had a decent storyline. Such a decent one that if the film took out the "found footage" angle and was just a well made film it would hold up a hell of a lot better. Rent it if you're interested.