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I watched this not knowing the comedian, so i can not measure this as a part of his whole catalogue of standup routines, but i was willing to give it a chance and rate it on it's own merrits.

The positives: Vir seems like likable guy. Surely someone i would love to hang out with. If he dropped all of what he was saying in this special during a guys night out, it would surely be a delighted.

The negatives: With that said, his "material" is something that is very ok to drop in a private round, but not not even remotely close to something you go public with.

I also understand that this is cut together from different settings, so i don't expect a rounded set and transitions and callbacks and everything, but it is a though pill to swallow that these are supposed to be the best bits.

This surely is quite nice to have running in the background, when cleaning your appartment, but it is not enough for an active watch.

Also i had to drop it from a 3/10 to a 2/10 i read that he was charging people for this "show". Yes, the money went to charity, but you can not possibly charge people money for this. Make it a free show with a donate button. Even throughout the pandemic there were comedy streams/releases that were actual stand up.

Overall, likable guy, couple of chuckles, but c'mon, dude.

When will we finally be getting a femboy island reality show?

The title got my hopes up and it could not deliver, when i looked it up.

Should have been called "beefcakes and barbies".

In general i appreciate this series. admittedly, it is a "good watch", despite all it's flaws. nevertheless unfortunately it falls flat on a couple of aspects.

Overall it is a somewhat solid "slideshow" through the history of horror and there you already have the first problem: it feels exactly like that - a slideshow. They start with shortly introducing the genre, which always spreads over one episode, sometimes 2 and then it just goes ... well we had this, then this, then this, then this ... very rapidly.

i am sure this is fine for people that are new to the genre, but i doubt that's the target audience, so filmwise it does not tell you a lot that you don't already know.

in between that you have the actually interesting part: the interviews. they brought in a huge amount of horror legends for interviews from all aspects of horror: writers, directors, actors, special FX people and musicians. some of them you don't see every day and some of them that you haven't seen in ages and are delighted to see back, which unfortunately leaves you BEGGING for more.

so first you kinda bore yourself through the actual movie footage and voiceover and then ... WOW, that's Heather Langenkamp from nightmare on elm street ... aaand she's gone, then movie footage again, then OMG, that's Katharine Isabelle from ginger snaps 1-3 and hannibal ... aaand she's gone, sequences of film footage again and then ... holy christ, that's TOM SAVINA ... aand he's gone.

it is almost like they throw those short interview clips in there as a reward. here, you made it through all that footage you have seen a thousand times bore with the voiceover of info that you knew already, have a little treat, gooooood boy.

and since we just were at katharine isabell, the choice of movies represented are at times extremely weird. i understand that they want to pander to a wide audience, that's why they chose films raging from the 20s until today, but sometimes you just shake your head in disbelief, especially in combination that every "genre" only gets one episode for the most part.

i am taking katharine here as an example, because at one point they have a werewolf episode and sure they bring up some movies that have to be in there, but seriously there was no space left for the ginger snaps series? like it or not, it had it's impact on the scene, was massively succesful and had it's own spin on the genre.

and on a later episode they bring katharine in, because of her film american mary. while american mary is beloved by many, it is not even close in comparison to ginger snaps. nothing against the film, but is that really a film that you have to have in a documentary where you give yourself so little runtime per genre to begin with? and then you just ignore a whole cult series, but bring one of the main actresses in for something with a much lesser impact.

and then we have the hannibal part for example. sure, the anthony hopkins film is the "most important", but not a single minute about the fuller tv series, that she was also in? but then you even have bryan in there talking about basically everything else. i don't get it.

what surprised me the most was when they talked about stephen kings "it". look, i get it, they want to draw in the younger crowd as well, but talking exclusively about the recent 2 films and acting like the tv-mini-series never happened, feels just wrong. i mean tim curry's clown has traumatized generations, what is wrong with you people? that's like talking about the 2016 rocky horror picture show as if that was the first and only version in existence.

as some other reviewers pointed out, this is even worse when it comes to the zombi(e) genre. first of all the film history of that genre would have AT least deserved 3 episodes. at least. and then they quickly rush through a couple of classics just to talk about the walking dead for ages, as if it was the be all and all.

at times you have some films in there that just don't belong. crimson peak? are you serious? that HAD to be in there? sure, if every episode runs 6 1/2 hours, you can throw that in there, but with a running time THIS limited? why?

shape of water? it is a great film, but this needed to be in the history of horrors?

twilight? really? i am one of the few male adults that actually enjoyed the series, but out of the rich and long history of vampire films, twilight had to be in there?

look, if you really have to make the genre coverage so short, at least stick to what actually counts as essentials to the genre. personally i would be fine with 5 episodes per genre, the more the better. i understand, they had to do a "crunchy" first season to test the waters and see how it goes to decide possible future series, but did they really do themselves a favor with this? would fewer people have watched it if this was a 15 episode run that only covers 3 genres? doubt it.

for me they painted themselves in a corner there, because what will they do once they run out of genres and people demand more season? just start over and be like "oh and what we also wanted to say about werewolf films.."?

let's also talk about the 3 hosts for a moment.

i could not find out who the actual showrunner for this series was, but it seems safe to assume that it was eli roth himself, being in the title at all. so it's legit that he'd be in there. i am also sure that he has all the right contacts to make the interviews we see happen. furthermore while a bit on the edge for me he counts as a cult horror producer for cabin in the woods and hostel alone.

then we have special fx guru Greg Nicotero. ok, legit. no questions asked.

but rob zombie? apart from the fact that i personally don't consider him that talented, is there anything he has done filmwise that he is a must for THE HISTORY OF HORROR? i mean, you already have one director in there and since you also have a special f/x guy, why not go with an actor as a third host. i am sure Kane Hodder would have been delighted to be there.

so yeah, as i said it is an entertaining overall watch, but at times almost unfferable superficial, you will at times choke because of some really off choices and it seems to be for the most part a vehicle to lure you into spending your cash on the hours of interviews that are included as bonus material on the BDs and DVD sets.

i had high hopes for this one and the first 15 minutes were pretty cool and from that on it turned more and more into the most illogical, pretentious, ridiculous crapfest i have ever witnessed. at half the film all i wanted was for it to be over and the only reason i watched it until the end was, because i wanted to know how they would conclude it, but that was a pretty dumb move from my side, because it just turned weirder and dumber and even more silly. afterwards i wished i would have just ended it at the half into movie mark and forgot about it, because the conclusion turned out to be even more silly. the basic idea for the story was great, but thy could not make anything worse out of it than this. terrible. insanely terrible.

dear reader, i have been waiting for the release of this movie quite a while and for the most part (80%) it delivered, even though it delivered something else than i expected.

first of all, this is neither kickass, scott pilgrim or suckerpunch, so if you are expecting anything in that area then be prepared to be disappointed.

this movie has more in common with watchmen, which also a lot of people did not understand. i would even go as far as saying that it had some haneke/von trier-esque feeling at times.

what the viewer should understand, is that this is no superhero movie. i repeat, this is no superhero movie. the two main protagonists are loners, one could even say losers, both with serious mental issues. the sidekick even would easily pass as a psychopath.

as the movie progresses the script makes both of them sympathetic, as we learn to understand where they are coming from. the guy has lost his wife through his wishy- washyness and the girl is simply a psychotic loner, that is obsessed with superheros. while the guy rather sees the superhero as the only practical way to solve his problems, for the girl it is simply reduced to the superhero fixation, with no will to do good at all.

at this point it should become clear that these characters are flawed and they are supposed to be. that's the point. their superhero actions are portrayed as senselessly violent acts, not like in other superhero movies like godlike acts of justice. there are no special effects or heroic music to underline that justice is done, because that is exactly what this movie wants you to question. the director wants us to see, that the protagonists are no superheros in any possible way. boltie was very committed to stabbing and then killing a guy that was a) not proved to be guilty and b) even if he did it, it was only a petty crime.

there is no usual Hollywood good vs evil scenario. we have a psychopathic chick and a deranged husband, we have a drug addicted completely shallow wife and a ruthless drug dealer. we are not supposed to cheer crimson bolt and boltie like they were the 100% good and upright batman.

the overall intention of this movie is to question our own views on good vs evil and our own views on the justification of violence in that context. they did a pretty amazing job in doing so for like 90% of the runtime. the movie is absolutely flawless from the very first second. script, acting, casting, lighting, sound, cuts, sfx, it all works out perfect.

(major spoiler)

just as we reach 90% into the runtime of the movie it ends perfectly. a short final conversation between the protagonist and his nemesis brings up the basic questikns again, that this movie wants you to ask. they literally spill the moral question out for you, without giving an answer.... and with a final "stab", it all ends and you are left to a satisfying ending that will make you think hard about the meaning of it all and your own views, on the way home from the cinema and maybe even a lot longer.

BUT, then hey decided to add another 10% of runtime, in which the protagonist takes your choice away and TELLS you, how you are supposed to see it. wtf??? a whole minutes long monologue of how we are supposed to see what happened. why? we aren't THAT Stupid that they had to spoon feed us a viewpoint. at least not if they take it as a given that we understood anything of the story before that point.

i would like to hear the whole story about this, as i can hardly believe, that the writer/director intended this to happen from day one. it rather looks like the last scenes were added after some screening audience did not understand the ending and gave it a bad rating, so that they had to make it a bit easier to swallow for a mainstream audience.

the synopsis of this movie reads pretty sweet, but don't be fooled. there has been a lot potential for sure, but this movie falls short on almost every level.

first of all choosing the genre of horror movie about people who do an amateur documentation is always a bad choice. one reason being that you instantly exclude a part of he target audience, because if you are a movie enthusiast then you can only take a certain amount of steadycam/surveillance cam movies. i accepted and not really liked blair witch project, but after blair witch one and two, paranormal activities one and two, rec one and two and uncountable other attempts i am not creeped out by this kind of stuff AT all. don't get me wrong, none of those named examples was truly good, but they were at least better than this.

only two movies come to mind that have a deserving place in that category: man bites dog and cannibal holocaust. the rest were unnecessary.

as for the movie itself it is basically blair witch project meets hostel, with a bit of cannibal holocaust thrown in and to round it up a grain of cabin fever.

also, they are concentrating too much on the protagonists Rather then the story of the two girls as the protagonists were badly written. they were boring, bland and unsympathetic.

i found the actual storyline a bit weird and hard to follow. or was there nothing to follow?

nevertheless, with all those flaws they could have made it into an overall enjoyable movie, but there are two points that eventually ruined it.

first of all the torture stuff. don't get me wrong, i have seen some sick movies in my life, some that might damage a fragile soul for life, but from an innovation point: why the hell does each and every horror movie today has to involve a good portion of torture? what's the obsession there? it is not like it guarantees an instant hit. most of hem totally bomb at the box office. also, torture is not "scary" in the classic definition of a horror film, it is only disgusting. a horror film lives by suspense and the viewers feelings toward the characters. in this case we have neither.

and now for the worst part of it all (huge spoiler ahead!!!):

this movie had the most predictable and boring ending that i have seen since the late 80s slasher flood. you will see this coming at 30 minutes runtime the very latest.

as a screen writer i am able to enjoy movies for multiple reasons, apart from the entertainment aspect alone. i admire great ideas, so i am able to overlook major flaws, just as long as the script is halfway tight and the idea to flaw ratio does not get out of hand.

MAJOR spoilers ahead!

my motivation to see this movie was ignited by the basic idea of the killer that forces you to "chose", which seems like a brilliant basic idea to start a script. actually even further i was convinced that it would be almost impossible to mess this up. oh, how wrong i was... for the second time even.

the very last time i got tricked by a great basic idea was the movie "die (2010)" (as in dice, not as in death), which has a similarity interesting "chose someones destiny" theme and interestingly falls apart just as early into it's runtime, as this movie.

"choose" manages to put off it's audience within the very first 2 minutes into the runtime, which is incredible. it is almost an achievement of some kind, as i rarely lose my interest so quickly. very few movies have managed to do that before. even the ridiculously euro- trashy "das komabrutale duell" kept me interested (laughing) for the first 30 minutes.

the problem with this movie as well as with "die" is, that the writers completely ignored all human factor AT ALL. since both movies kind of come off as cheap "saw" knockoffs i am kinda curious if they even saw (no pun intended) the original "saw" movie.

OK, long talk short: dear fellow screenwriters, if you feel the need to include into your story that one or more person is/are forced into choosing their own or someone else's fate, then for Christ's sake, write it in a way that the person you are writing about is forced into some kind of machine or chair or whatever force/tool that leaves them no inch of other movements than the ones that are needed to make said choice. even worse, don't write that the killer reaches them a deadly weapon. no, it does not matter if you write a gun or whatever into the killers hand. it does not matter, because every living person will discard the killers game and take his chance instantly.

this is why the "saw" movies worked for the most part and the named movies did not.

die/choose scenario: killer holds gun to characters head, hands over weapon, tells other character to hurt third character. all three people are in close range of each other. that does not work, people. e.g. in this movie they really expect someone to rather kill her father, while her mother watches with a knife, instead of attacking the killer? seriously? that does not make the script stupid, it also makes the killer an insanely stupid character.

saw scenario: voice of "killer" (who is not even in the room) coming from a tape tells character to hurt second character, who is immobile, to free third character, that is shown on a TV (person is also not in the room). additionally the room is sealed for the time of the game. this works, because there is nothing left to chance.

the second big mistake they made with this particular movie is, that they would not stick to their guns, which would be that the killers game is solely a choice of letting someone chose one or the other loved ones death, which is a very good basic idea, as i already pointed out, but they could not even do THAT. it switches to "chose your eye sight or your fame/career", which was the moment where i lost all remaining hope in this flick. it is double jeopardy since that also destroys any plausibility. serial killers don't change their ways such significantly from hit to hit. the unabomber did not suddenly switched to knife stabbing out of a sudden. know what i mean?

.... and it gets worse.

anyway, i really liked the cinematography, soundtrack, cuts, lighting and the acting was OK as well. nevertheless, the script killed it for me.

this TV series basically combines three things: all elements that were used to write the movie "TV set", just with less bitterness, two of the best British actors/comedians alive and joey from friends playing matt le blanc. no, it is not a mix up, i mean joey playing matt, not the other way around. know what i mean? ;)

oh and one could also say that quite a lot of stuff got borrowed off the wonderful steve martin movie LA story.

anyway it takes a while really get into the pilot episode, but after that it really unfolds in a great way. i was an instant fan after the pilot and couldn't wait for more. as i mentioned, this is basically the storyline of the movie "TV set" with some minor changes. while in TV set it is one American writer who's intention to do a great TV series gets destroyed in the US TV production blender, in this TV series it is a British couple, who get lured into remaking their hit-UK series for the USA, which THEN gets destroyed in said blender.

the main difference is, that TV set is a bitter bitter movie that aims to be a comedy, but fails as that and turns out to be an interesting drama, under a false premisse, while episodes deals with the same matter by ridiculing the hell outta it. it has this lighthearted "charme in bitterness" that usually only UK series like the early love soup seasons bring to the table. also it is set in LA, so all the clichés about LA will be thrown into the mix, so expect 60% of the "la story" stereotypes to get re-heated. to top it all off they force matt le blanc onto the protagonists as a lead actor for their series, which works astonishing well at the beginning.

as i wrote, the pilot episode was fantastic. not necessarily flawless, as a couple of gags didn't really work out at all, while some others were written brilliantly and some of the characters could have used some more work before calling it the final draft.

anyway, the whole concept kinda works until and including episode 3. i just recently watched episode 5 and very sadly i gotta admit that they seem to have no further idea as to what to do now with the storyline, which makes it a bit boring at the moment, because everything seems to be just repeating itself.

as for the other reviews, who seem to be very black/white for the most part i gotta say this: it is an at least mildly clever series, there is no doubt about it. it is solidly produced, written and acted. objectively you can not come to a different conclusion. it is not pretentious high brow attempt that terribly fails as some people stated.

on the other hand it isn't the supersolid, groundbreaking giganto-series that finally emerges British and American sitcom styles for the first time. it's moments range from brilliant to mediocre, with the occasional complete stinker-moment.

it is solid, the pilot was brilliant and in recent episodes it started to lose momentum. i hope the writer are able to recover the series and deliver us a mighty tasty and mighty funny season finale.

let me start by saying that it is hard to not be biased when watching this for the first time. all 4 protagonists actors have kind of made a name for themselves, each either as playing one particularly unforgettable character or always the very same kind of character. biggs as the pie guy, chalke as the unforgettable elliot in scrubs, labine as "the annoying friend that is always broke and hits on everything" in reaper and greer as "grumpy friend of protagonist" in like 30 different sitcoms.

well, here lies the main problem. all characters in this sitcom are halfbreeds of characters that the actors have already been known to have played.

biggs plays - the grownup version of his American pie character, just robbed of his soul and identity. i mean seriously, the dude that he plays here is so bland and boring that i would almost call him faceless. as a writer you just don't do that.

chalke plays - elliot from scrubs ... after one or two valium. they toned down the neurosii, but basically it is a carbon copy.

labine plays - you wouldn't guess it ... an annoying, broke protagonist that hits on everything. c'mon people, it is even the same beard and haircut as in reaper. same cheap clothes two, just like 10 years older.

greer plays - a grumpy, bland protagonist. well, look at the upside: at least she is a protagonist this time.

that alone is a catastrophe, but it could have been manageable with a good set, backgroundstory and good punchlines. didn't happen either. the material is overall weak, most of it is even old and weak.

i wish all 4 actors the best of luck in the future, especially chalke and greer as i absolutely adore their beauty and acting abilities, but until this will finally be cancelled, which can't take long, this should be considered as career coma.

well, this is a well made and visually interesting drama. before you check it out though, please make sure that you are generally into the following:

• long runtime - non-linear storyline - watch people suffer ... a lot ... for a long time ... repeatedly ... the same people ... i mean really a lot

don't get me wrong, i am a huge fan of well made drama. usually it is more the south Korean and European masters that i feel compelled to, but the USA also comes up with a gem on occasion. i am also not against non-linear time-lines in general, which my affinity for lynch is proof enough i guess.

the problem is, that once a particular element gets overused within a movie then it might start to wreck some of the more interesting parts.

as i already pointed out, this is a solid piece of work and i am also not opposed to the genre, but you got use everything in moderation. the first hour or so was OK, even though i already, by that point thought that it was at least two hours that had already passed by. by the end of the second hour i had the impression that i was watching this movie for 4:30 hours straight, maybe even more. second major downer for me was the amount of suffering that they forced into the movie. this was the second element that was completely overused. of course a drama feeds of tragedy, but if you put too much tragedy into a piece of art then, starting at a certain point, you walk risk of coming off as sarcastic. every two minutes you see someone dying, bleeding, weeping, crying ...etc until the impact gets lost for the most part.

same goes for the non-linear timeline. no problem in general, but where is the judgification? why was this element chosen? this movie bounces around in time, like it is the tardis, which gets almost unbearable towards the end. the story lines would have worked very well linear. combining the ole 3-strangers-fate-interconnect scripting with a non-linear timeline is never a wise idea, as the risk of confusing the audience and/or lose their interest is just too high.

bottom line: solid work, too much elements chosen, main elements overused, loses momentum and recovers enough towards the end to not make you ask for your money back.

OK, let me start off to give you a short summary of the storyline: bunch of teen to tween aged relatives and the people they make out with, meet in an area that has not aged well, for an evening of fun and narcotics. the main protagonist, who is the half sister, joins them after being away in the USA for longer amount of time. some kind of monster appears, hell breaks lose, people act stupid, surprise ending, curtains.

well, one could also list all the filler material sub plots that were needed to stretch it into the estimated runtime, but let's face it: what the writer had here was a good basic idea and a rather satisfying and almost clever ending, but he had no idea what exactly to do with it. the ending kinda works, everything before that fails eventually. funny enough, if you just watch the last 30 minutes as a standalone short movie, it works surprisingly well. unfortunately that lowers the first hour or so even more,as it renders them unnecessary.

anyway, on the positive side i can say that they have put a lot of effort into this and that i liked the last minutes very much. on the negative side though, all that effort went to waste.

the budget. not really as low budget as they want us to believe. funny enough i had a hard time to find confirmed informations regarding this ultra low budget. every homepage that covered this film seemed to have an extreme focus on the insanely low amount of cash that was spent, which seemed more like an attempt of fishing for advanced sympathy, without actually stating any hard facts. if have have any insight into the film business then you will recognize some stuff within the flick that swallowed up quite some cash. this is not clerks. this is not a risky indie project, based on a 36k USDA credit card loan. this is a small studio movie, so it has to be compared to other projects like aronofsky's pi and vincenzo natali's cube.

the characters. they were for the most part pretty unbelievable, as the dialog was mediocre at best. never heard young adults talk in such a strange manner. furthermore they all seemed to have been suffering from a different kind of mental problem, which left me rather confused, since i eventually got lost as of which of the characters i was supposed to like or be emotive about or dislike or whatever. they all seemed equally uninteresting and unsympathetic. the writers tried to give the characters more depth through their dialog and actions throughout the film, which backfired, as it only added to the confusion.

the story. well, as i already stated: they had a good and interesting ending and wrote a whole lotta boring story to put right in front of it. usually that saves the experience as a whole for me, but this time my interest was already hopelessly lost, so eventually the best part got wasted.

also, it is always a triple risk package right there, if you insist to include a monster of any kind into your movie. this goes especially if you claim to have budget restrictions. we have seen any type of monster that a human brain can come up with in like 10000s of versions. vampires, werewolves, aliens, ogres ..etc and all mixtures and hybrids of those. unless you come up with something that separates you positively from the rest then you are most likely to fail. and please let's not forget that this is not the 80s anymore, where you can talk about and run away and fight something and not show it for 70 minutes just to rely on the human interaction.

which leads me directly to my main criticism. it was an overall inconclusive experience. it starts off with the always wise for an indie flick confined space, the usual group of young mischiefs and a yet unknown evil. as soon as the monster arrives the whole thing completely falls apart. first person gets killed and the rest hides safely in the attic. now, keeping in mind that this is a restricted budget horror film and even keeping in mind all the clichés that such a movie usually almost guaranteed comes with, why didn't they take a nap and wait until daytime?

look, when you are writing a horror b-movie then of course reality is secondary, but at least you gotta use the tools that make such movies compelling. you don't even need clever answers. answers alone usually just do fine. in this case for example: why didn't they stay in the attic? because due to some freak incident a lamp fell over and everything started to burn. just an example.

bottom line: i can see the effort that went into this and i would for sure like a short film version of this, but as a full length release it is just too boring and too confusing for too long to let the ending alone make up for the rest.

i watched this movie yesterday because i saw that it had a rating of over 8 points here on IMDb and because it was categorized as comedy/romance/sci fi. both factors combined is usually a mixture that can not fail my taste. my mistake though was that i did not notice that only 34 people rated it so far, but i just noticed that today before i started writing this review.

OK, let's sedate this without revealing too much.

to my surprise this started off as a low-cost movie in a rather amateurish lab environment. the acting did not start off as bad as i expected, but the main protagonists felt somewhat hateable from the very beginning. anyway, i didn't want to fall into judgement too soon and watched it through the end before making my mind up.

the story of a guy who finds the formula for successful cryogenics in a lab that has like $65 dollars of equipment in it, who gets oppressed by his tyrannic wife, riduculed by his wheelchaired and completely soul-less assistant, and falls in love with a 14 year old girl he barely knows and thereby decides to freeze himself in a fridge until she's his age, can only described as "odd".

there are some alight ideas in there, which could have worked as an alright movie if done with a much better script. the final product does not really qualify as a comedy and even less as a scifi/romantic comedy. there is really nothing funny about it. also there is nothing in it that would even remotely pass as romantic. the characters are just sad, very sad. every single one of them and the whole plot line is just tragic. you don't manage to get any feelings for the characters, neither good or bad. it is more like observing the movie than feeling some kind of connection to the protagonist.

since the storyline is so out-of-this world they should have used this material and make 90% of all scenes completely over-the-top to give it the needed comedic spin, that this movie is so clearly missing.

this wasn't a terribly agonizing experience, since it didn't offend me in any way, but it was extremely boring and very misleading. i was expecting to get some good laughs out of it, or at least some chuckles, but as already stated, this is not a comedy.

i found the plot synopsis for this movie pretty interesting and for sure the basic ideas could have been easily transformed into an excellent movie, so i found it very promising to check out this flick. usually i try to stay neutral and don't get my hopes too high upfront and would for sure have been satisfied with an at least mediocre thrill ride.

it all starts with our main protagonist captured and been held captivated by a group of people that claim that he is a guest and is about to change. to archive that they want to take away what means the most to him. as soon as he gets tortured for the first time and they take his sense of taste away the viewer instantly knows what that is: his senses. since there aren't too many of those we it becomes clear very early in the movie what will happen within the next 90 minutes. as a movie buff it always worries me when they reveal most of the next events so early in a movie. there are very few directors to either manage to dig themselves outta that hole use that to their advance. Hitchcock would be one of those rare examples that even used this as a stylistic element. unfortunately we don't see such brilliance here.

we further get explained that his sufferings are being broad casted. by that they can only mean an internet stream as TV would be way too off. people can contribute money, write letters and vote his sufferings to stop. the main goal according to the kidnappers is to get together money for their operations.

our protagonist also gets some time with a seemingly innocent female that claims that she doesn't support the ways of the group she's in. this might have been believable in 1960 when this genre wasn't as overused as it uses to be, but nowadays this is simply not plausible.

to justify that exactly this guy has been picked for the operation we see some flashbacks and some explanations by the protagonist himself into the camera, showing that he has been a ruthless idiot without morals in his life. not, necessarily evil, but just not a good guy. i have no idea why that should be a justification for keeping him captivated, torture him for weeks and then cripple him for life, but alright.

all of this counted together makes what we see completely random. the main character is not sympathetic and not evil. the evildoers are simply villains without a reasonable justification. after 45 minutes it just gets mighty boring as it is completely random and pointless. as the graphic violence shown has no real meaning but to shock and disgust the viewer it gets extremely boring. i don't enjoy watching someone getting tortured for 90 minutes. there is no thrill in that, it's just stupid.

nevertheless i was hoping for a clever conclusion AND twist at the end to make up for my lost time. disappointingly this doesn't happen and the movie simply ends.

don't get me wrong, i am a horror movie fan, but this is not a horror movie. there is no thrill in it. i enjoy getting scared and i have seen quite a few Japanese extreme horror movies, but without justification there is no thrill. if this would have been an action movie it would have been transfered to this: i guy drives around in a car and just kicks the heck out of random people and shoots some other, without no reason or background story behind it.

also this genre of movie is not new. if it were there would at least been the justification of going beyond everything else that has been done in other movies just to prove a point. i know for a fact that this has been done much more extreme to prove those points. if you take a look at the guinea pig series then even in the genre of wannabe-snuff-movies this example is just a very lame attempt to even reach those limits.

overall this has been a very disappointing experience.

it is not a bad idea to a mocking movie about michael moore or liberalism, but it is for sure harder than choosing an obviously vicious celebrity or the close-mindness of conservatism.

two basic challenges have to be mastered and it is not easy to do that.

first of all for the persona michael moore. he is not basically a viciously person, even though his tactics might be corrupted. in his movies he shows up things that are basically wrong with the American social structure, politics and society in general. as every well informed reader/watcher should know he often manipulates some of the facts to make the final product look more bombastic, which takes hughe chunks out of his credibility and thereby his movie. nevertheless, there are a lot of facts in his movies. for example you can get a rifle by opening a bank account (bowling for columbine), that*s a fact. it doesn't really matter that you actually have to wait a week for it instead of getting it right away like shown in the movie. it has been proved that moore has hassled the bank people to do so for the camera, but nevertheless you'll get the rifle. does the time period really make a difference? that's just one example of a lot of example you can google for yourself.

also, he is not anti-American. if you want to improve the situation of the people that live in America then you are for sure pro-America. this is the same kind of twisted logic that politicians use when they state that everybody that is against a war is for the other side. that is manipulative BS.

as for making fun of liberals it is harder to do then with conservatives/ republicans. conservative people live by old rules and usually don't want to change them even when confronted with solid arguments. this kind of behaviour is easy to mock. as with liberals, they are, literally "liberal". if you can't nails a group of people to a certain point of view, it is harder to make fun of them. there are ways to do this if you take the ultra-left clichés and pump them up until they are funny.

anyway, the script writers did not keep any of this in mind. the result is a movie that does nothing else but tries to show that michael moore is an anti-American devil that wants to destroy America and gets his mind changed by the 3 ghosts like in the scrooge story which this movie is also trying to mock. furthermore we learn that questioning authority, improve a country's economy and social system is un-American, protesters are psycho-idiots and that America as we know it today is A-OK and still number one.

just one example: john F kennedy steps out of the TV to imply to moore that he might have gone to war in Vietnam. isn't it easy to rewrite history? apart from that moore is portrayed as a fat and dumb idiot, which is a pretty cheap shot. feels like high school allover again, doesn't it? and just one thought: isn't it a bit too late to make fun out of mister moore? if you'd have to do that wouldn't be the time period shortly after his mega success "bowling for columbine" the perfect timing? when do you see him even in the media nowadays? i guess they just weren't able to find a better scapegoat.

i am actually shocked that so many people seemed to enjoy this. the writing is exceptionally bad and it seems like no light laughs should be produced here, but laughs that have their roots in prejudice and hatred. somehow this reminded me of the way "minstrel" shows were made:pick a certain group of people and then just ridicule the hell outta them without any basis behind it. this might be appealing to the typical audience of larry the cable guy i guess.

first of all i want to say that i am a huge fan of British comedy, starting from the classics like monty python, fawlty towers, french & saunders, ranging over light comedy like coupling, darker territory like black books and black adder, weirder stuff like spaced and the mighty boosh and even enjoying stuff that is as drastic as league of gentlemen and little Britain. with that said and not mentioning every single one of the gazillions of DVD boxes i have at home, i must say that i am actually quite surprised if not shocked, that something like that can come from the land that basically invented most genres of comedy we know of today and started worldwide "franchises" like the office or IT crowd.

this is a series that completely and utterly relies on the use of CGI and overuses the element of "running gags". sadly enough the CGI is at best mediocre and the "running gags" actually backfire as they won't get funnier with every time they get repeated. they start off annoyingly and get to a point where you can barely take it without kicking in the TV screen.

one example: a giant robot is searching for his keys. that's it, no further gag, just a robot looking for his keys. repeated over and over again. not funny? damn right.

the writing has some pikes where it barely hits mediocresy, but for the most part just stays rock bottom. throughout the whole few episodes i wasn't able to laugh or at least enjoy what i was seeing. some of the sketches even had some sadistic elements to them.

i don't have a problem with toilet humor, but at least it gotta be in context. just mentioning certain words over and over again doesn't make them funnier.

it makes me laugh reading some comments around here telling people to "switch of their brains and enjoy" when it comes to this series. it is not about being too high maintenance, it is about laughing about every sh*tty gag in the book. i have nothing against light entertainment. i found movies like van wilder 1&2, naturally blonde ..etc etc very entertaining as i am able to switch off and let go, but this series is just agonzing and by far the worst British TV series i have seen in my life.

inspired by the high IMDb rating and being a huge horror film fan i went out to watch this yesterday and i was surprised beyond belief about the actual film.

the plot synopsis sounded rather fair and the cast was interesting as well. also i found the masks of the attackers compelling so i thought there could not go much wrong with a little bit off directors passion and an at least mediocre script. well, there i was wrong.

what bothered me first was that they started off with a side-plot that at a certain point into the movie stops. i guess it was meant to gather some sympathy for the main characters AKA victims, but for me this attempt failed. after 30 minutes into the movie i still did not care for the couple and i was slowly beginning to get bored as none to nothing happens in this film. approximately 60 minutes into the film still not much happened except for some panic and some b-movie typical screaming from liv tyler.

also, at this point the whole thing started to remind me of the movie them (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465203/) which at this point (60 minutes) already had me totally in its fangs, a total opposite of this movie. the main differences are that this movie plays in a much safer environment and that the victims in "them" seem to fight for their life the victims in "the strangers" just run and scream around in panic.

another reference that is obvious i michael hanekes's film funny games and if "the strangers" would have been released before "funny games" then one could have the impression that this was the actual movie haneke was criticizing as an example what is wrong with the Hollywood industry.

anyway, 60 minutes is still not the end and an amazing conclusion can safe nearly every movie, so stayed.

unfortunately there wasn't much coming after that. ultra-simple conclusion,no twist, no surprise, no whatsoever.

basically the conclusion was the same as with "them" which was written after this movies script, but directed and released long before this movie was even in production so basically, this is one of those typical bad Hollywood remakes of a great European movie.

basically there is 90 minutes of nothing happening at all.

as an art-house film fan i am missing the plot here. as a horror film fan i am missing suspense, storyline, basically everything. in general as a movie fan i am missing the sense here. why would anybody enjoy watching this? the rating to me is an absolutely wonder and kinda sad actually.

this movie can be categorized into my favorite genre: "x people find themselves stuck in a room for no apparent reason to find out that they are part of some kind of cruel game whose rules they don't know yet". unfortunately this "genre" so far has only brought too much lame attempts and so little interesting concepts. so far i have enjoyed cube, saw (1-x), red room (1&2) and house of nine. the last one gets kinda boring after a while, but seen in full length makes up for it.

there are some major flaws in this piece from the very beginning. the amateurish look, feel, acting, lightning, cut and scene building might amuse/annoy on the first look, but with a strong story could have been ignored. that on closer look is not the major problem here. the script does not work on a full concept basis, it either lives from scene to scene which loses it's thrill within the first 30 minutes. even though the players get hints about the rules and about the game itself, if you try to put the puzzle together you will find that there really is nothing to gain in this "game", which is a letdown. when compared to the other mentioned movies it becomes clear, that the rules themselves are bogus, the scenario is senseless and that even the choice of contestants is random. in the other mentioned movies there are clear rules, a more or less clear goal, every player has a function within the game, in most cases we even get explained what function each player has within the games. this is not the case here. even more the outcome of the movie should become clear to everyone that is familiar with this kind of movies. this lick mostly tries to live by the suspense how the writers explain everything in the end. i lost interest after 60 minutes as i already have figured that ending out and not to my surprise my conclusion was exactly what was shown at the end of the movie.

some of this flaws i have already seen in "house of 9" which also gets pretty annoying towards the end, but eventually makes up for it with a clever conclusion.

i find this movie too effordless on an objective level and it is even more disappointing keeping in mind that so many movies before already had that concept and that the writers still did not even try to make this conclusive or clever. movies like that up to a certain point live or die by the ending/conclusion. this one fails to deliver.

the intention the directors has for this films are quite honorable, but his history of his productions did get me aware that this might not get much to the core like other film makers would do it. keeping his great 30 days TV series in mind but also counting in his MTV production "i bet you will" that opposes his seriousness in any of the matters he documents and also counting in his rather disappointing production "supersize me" i did not had my hopes up high. sadly enough this movie disappointed me none the less. as with "supersize me" after a while i did ask myself what exactly the point of all this was. the main statement gets clear enough after half an hour but the rest of the playtime gets filled with rather pointless stuff and re-repeating stuff that were already shown in this way or another earlier in the movie, so it wears out and gets extremely boring towards the end.

i have just seen this movie and it was hilarious! i was kinda scared to watch it as i have read so much about it in advance, but this thing is not scary or disturbing AT ALL. there are a lot of drastic and disgusting IDEAS that this movie is based on and if someone would read the actual script or a short novel based on this script it would be disturbing as hell.

the thing that turns this film from a Japanese shock movie is the lack of budget combined with really terrible sound and special FX. i don't know what intention the director had with this movie, but it is for sure not scary or shocking. there is no second while watching that you forget that this is all "just a movie". none of the fx are believable and the over-the-top sound FX turn this into pure dark humor. intentionally or not.

the basic idea of the story when put into the right hands with the right budget and writers would make one hell of a scary movie. give this thing to the crew of "saw 1" and you would fear for your life while watching this at your local cinema.

as much as the final result made me laugh at some points, apart from the brilliant basic ideas, there are some events happening that you just won't believe happening. as ridiculous as those were and as much as i chuckled about them they were surprising as hell and there would not have been any chance in the world that anybody could have predicted them.

there are some things that are so ridiculous that you can only describe them as surreal. i have seen directors try to get away with really really unbelievable stuff, but this tops it all. this is so ridiculous that it becomes brilliant.

confused? watch it. i can't describe it any better. i don't think anybody can.

i just rented this for the weekend and i guess this will take me the whole weekend to watch it, because i will have to watch it in at least 3 steps.

why? because it is so freakin badly produced!! the story really sounds interesting, maybe everyone who has not spend already $5 for renting the DVD should stick to the book. i really tried to watch this, but after 15 minutes it was just too hard for me to stick to it.

the acting is way less than amateur level, the sound mixing is just meaningless, camera works is awful, the lightning is a joke as it is completely random and to sum it up it is impossible to watch. i have seen TV productions for local cable stations that beat this by miles. what kills me the most and ultimately drove me to turn it off was the acting. i could have lived with all the major flaws, just for the stories sake, but the acting is unbelievably bad.

where did the half a million dollars go? Darren Aronofsky's pi was made with 60.000 dollars and beats this movie one every level. $ 500.000 for this movie? for what? hopefully someone buys the script and makes another version of this movie. as i wrote i will force me to watch this through the weekend, because the story really sounds tempting, but this one ain't gonna be easy.