Television producer Tim Manfrey (Dominic Purcell) leads a team down to the Burundi section of Africa to investigate and try to capture a large killer crocodile dubbed Gustave, who has been killing and eating hundreds of natives.
After reading the plot synopsis, I was expecting something similar to Anaconda which was a cheesy, entertaining movie that didn't take itself too seriously. The preview did scare me in the sense that they didn't mention the alligator aspect at all. I don't get why the studio would hide that fact since it would be the movie's main draw. Also, the preview looked very underwhelming. However, my friend wanted to see it which we did and now I wish we had seen something else. Primeval is neither scary nor entertaining. Instead, it is dull, wooden and it doesn't have an ounce of personality.
Director Michael Katleman should get the blame for this. He kept the movie way too serious and the pacing was very slow which made the whole thing tedious. He added unnecessary social commentary and he didn't do a good job at mixing it with entertainment. He also didn't take advantage of shooting in Africa, failing to capture the beauty of the location. I thought it was impossible but he made Africa look ordinary. Also, everything was very dark and annoying. I don't mean the film was actually a dark comedy but everything seemed to be shot at night and it was hard to follow the action. I guess this was done to lower budget costs but it didn't help when it came to actually view the movie. The screenwriters (Michael Ferris (III) and John D. Brancato) were equally useless although this should not be surprisingly since this pair wrote Catwoman. The one good thing about the movie was the alligator and all of his attack scenes. They were somewhat entertaining even if they did look fake.
The acting was just as bad as the writing and directing. Dominic Purcell was horrible as Tim. He was very wooden and he showed no emotion. This was clearly a paycheck movie for him since he appeared to be reading his lines. Brooke Langton was enormously bland and just useless. Orlando Jones was surprisingly bad and I say surprisingly because he's usually pretty reliable in supporting roles. Here, he was wooden and bland, just like his co-stars. Overall, Primeval is simply terrible and it's not worth checking out unless you love bad films.
2/10 for this crap.
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror. Show all posts
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Dead Silence - Not bad
I had no interest in seeing this movie, but my buddy wanted to see it so we went to go and see it. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't so much scared, but it was indeed very creepy. This movie almost reminds me of Pennsylvania legend "Bloody Mary". Donnie Walberg definitely plays the guy you love to hate, and of course the ending is good. So hey if you want a good thriller, then I say check it out. If you know you're seeing a girl that's VERY jumpy, then guys definitely take her so she can jump into your arms because this is a good type of movie for that. Not as much gore as I would have liked, but it was definitely fun to see. And of course check out the Jigsaw Puppet.
Yes this is short, yes it's sweet but hey isn't less more? 7/10
Yes this is short, yes it's sweet but hey isn't less more? 7/10
Saturday, June 2, 2007
28 Weeks Later...
When I first heard there was to be a sequel to Danny Boyle's excellent 28 Days Later and that Boyle himself would not be directing it, I was less than excited. Then the reviews began flooding in and I was surprised, shocked even, that the majority of them were positive. It was then after the well respected film critic Mark Kermode said it was "very good" and "better than we had any right to expect" that I began to raise my expectations.
Im happy to report that they were exceeded by a sequel that surpasses the original in terms of tension and spectacle. Boyle remained on board with the project, albeit as a producer, but also directed some second unit footage and never allows it to veer away from the look or feel of his original. Not that he had cause to worry as the new director,Juan Carlos Fresnadillo obviously understood Boyle's vision and expands on it without getting too carried away.
The result is a faster paced, less reflective film, containing a very intelligent political subtext and some fantastic action set pieces that (and this is the most important part) delivers a large number of quality scares. It also dwarfs 28 days later in terms of gore, meaning true horror fans have much more in the way of visceral glee to sink their teeth into (pun intended).
Bring on 28 months later...
And I'll give it 8/10
Im happy to report that they were exceeded by a sequel that surpasses the original in terms of tension and spectacle. Boyle remained on board with the project, albeit as a producer, but also directed some second unit footage and never allows it to veer away from the look or feel of his original. Not that he had cause to worry as the new director,Juan Carlos Fresnadillo obviously understood Boyle's vision and expands on it without getting too carried away.
The result is a faster paced, less reflective film, containing a very intelligent political subtext and some fantastic action set pieces that (and this is the most important part) delivers a large number of quality scares. It also dwarfs 28 days later in terms of gore, meaning true horror fans have much more in the way of visceral glee to sink their teeth into (pun intended).
Bring on 28 months later...
And I'll give it 8/10
Hostel: Part II
Eli Roth is grossly overrated by 'horror fans' (probably just degenerates looking for more cinematic gore). I couldn't stand "Cabin Fever" and think of it as one of my least favorite movies of all time. I thought "Hostel" was a reasonably entertaining, average 'horror' film, but found that its 'gruesome' parts were laughable and brought its quality down a lot. For the most part, Roth is largely incapable of creating the most essential and important part of a horror film- a sense of dread. Or so I thought, until I saw "Hostel: Part II".
"Hostel" was cheesy, and that's a fact. It was nothing more than a slightly more light hearted and humorous recreation of a seventies exploitation film. It had it all- gratuitous violence and nudity, bad jokes, etc. It was camp to the extreme, and yet somehow it found an audience of people who apparently know a thing or two about film (including some fairly high profile film critics like Kyle Smith from the New York Post) and still thought it was a good horror film. Personally, I continually fail to understand why it was so acclaimed. "Hostel: Part II" is more of the same, except this time the backpackers are female (which caused a lot of controversy, of course, even though the film is actually a revenge flick and the males doing the torturing are aptly punished). Still, "Hostel: Part II" is much better.
Eli Roth has unquestionably grown as a filmmaker since his horrendous first effort "Cabin Fever", and it shows here. However, what's really important to note about "Hostel: Part II" is that it is by far Roth's best script to date. As I said earlier in this review, I thought Roth incapable of creating a feeling of dread in his films, and yet he does it here. This installment is far more serious than the previous one, and unlike the first, actually had me flinching at times, particularly during a scene involving a literal bloodbath and another involving a man suffering a particularly painful injury to his groin area. The gore here actually works, it's not scary, but it definitely is gruesome. The entire film is much more gruesome (more gruesome, not more gory) and far better than the first installment in every way.
"Hostel: Part II" isn't by any means a classic, nor is it the best horror film of the year, but it is a better film than "Hostel". Essentially, this is yet again a blatant copy of 70's exploitation, but it borrows from some of the better films among those. It's genuinely brutal at times, and overall a reasonably worthwhile horror film. More extreme than it needed to be, but still well made. "Hostel" left me laughing, but "Hostel: Part II" left me genuinely uncomfortable.
I'll give it a 6/10
"Hostel" was cheesy, and that's a fact. It was nothing more than a slightly more light hearted and humorous recreation of a seventies exploitation film. It had it all- gratuitous violence and nudity, bad jokes, etc. It was camp to the extreme, and yet somehow it found an audience of people who apparently know a thing or two about film (including some fairly high profile film critics like Kyle Smith from the New York Post) and still thought it was a good horror film. Personally, I continually fail to understand why it was so acclaimed. "Hostel: Part II" is more of the same, except this time the backpackers are female (which caused a lot of controversy, of course, even though the film is actually a revenge flick and the males doing the torturing are aptly punished). Still, "Hostel: Part II" is much better.
Eli Roth has unquestionably grown as a filmmaker since his horrendous first effort "Cabin Fever", and it shows here. However, what's really important to note about "Hostel: Part II" is that it is by far Roth's best script to date. As I said earlier in this review, I thought Roth incapable of creating a feeling of dread in his films, and yet he does it here. This installment is far more serious than the previous one, and unlike the first, actually had me flinching at times, particularly during a scene involving a literal bloodbath and another involving a man suffering a particularly painful injury to his groin area. The gore here actually works, it's not scary, but it definitely is gruesome. The entire film is much more gruesome (more gruesome, not more gory) and far better than the first installment in every way.
"Hostel: Part II" isn't by any means a classic, nor is it the best horror film of the year, but it is a better film than "Hostel". Essentially, this is yet again a blatant copy of 70's exploitation, but it borrows from some of the better films among those. It's genuinely brutal at times, and overall a reasonably worthwhile horror film. More extreme than it needed to be, but still well made. "Hostel" left me laughing, but "Hostel: Part II" left me genuinely uncomfortable.
I'll give it a 6/10
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