The Grudge:
"With Hollywood seemingly intent on remaking every single Asian horror
movie, there's something refreshing about The Grudge. Filmed in Japan, employing
a Japanese crew, and with the original film's director in
the big chair, this remake stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as an American care
worker in Tokyo who finds herself chased by evil spirits after a visit to a
haunted house. It's impressively faithful to the Japanese original - if you've
not seen that version, prepare yourself for one of the scariest mainstream films
in years.
Having already turned Ju-On: The Grudge into a short film, a two-part
Japanese TV movie, and a standalone feature (and sequels), writer-director
Shimizu Takashi has made something of a career out of remaking the same story.
Here, he hones the scares to near perfection as Gellar becomes the latest in a
long line of victims to fall foul of a supernatural "grudge" - a curse that
strikes anyone who enters the spooky suburban house the film is based around.
Where's Scooby and Shaggy when you need them?
"QUIVER, COWER AND LEAP WITH FRIGHT"
Delivering two ghosts for the price of one - a wide-eyed little boy called
Toshio (Yuya Ozeki) and his spooky mother, Kayako (Takako Fuji, clearly
suffering the effects of typecasting) - The Grudge delivers some impressive
jumps as the ghosts flout the laws of physics to chase Gellar and her (mainly
American) co-stars by emerging from overflowing bathtubs, CCTV camera footage,
and closets that contain more than just a few skeletons.
Like its Asian predecessors, The Grudge suffers from an overly fragmented
storyline (Gellar may be the film's heroine, but she's barely in it) that's
little more than a series of 'Best Of' horror moments. It's mechanical
moviemaking, but when it works you're likely to quiver, cower and leap with
fright."
The Ring
Japanese horror experienced something of a mainstream exposure in the early 2000s, with various films becoming so successful that they were remade for an English-speaking audience. While most remakes failed to live up to the quality and scare factor of their Asian predecessors, once actually surpassed the original. Gore Verbinski, latterly of Pirates of the Caribbean fame, took Hideo Nakata’s Ring, itself based on a novel by Koji Suzuki and remade it for American audiences as The Ring, bringing his unique sense of atmosphere to the now infamous plot.
Rachel (Naomi Watts) is asked by her sister to investigate the death of her niece after seemingly being ‘scared to death.’ She discovers through a series of impromptu conversations that her niece watched a mysterious video tape seven days before her death and this leads her on a path to find the tape and discover the truth to the urban myth surrounding it. She discovers the tape in a log cabin at Shelter Mountain Inn and sits down to watch it, only to receive a phone call afterwards from a little girl who simply says “seven days.”
What Japanese horror has always done well is combine the mystical elements of its culture with the supernatural elements of the genre. Ring, released in 1998, sets the scenes of investigation against a realistic backdrop of Japan, which makes the ending truly shocking. Verbinki’s version of The Ring dispenses with an mysticism and any sense of hope or light. All the colours are drained and a blue tint dulls the whole mood of the film to give a very cold, isolated world view.
The characters in The Ring, while a little two-dimensional (as is often the case in Verbinski’s work) are constantly in a state of panic and terror, and after a short while, it’s almost impossible for the audience not to feel the same way. At almost no point do you feel that things are going to work out for anyone involved in the proceedings, but it’s this sense of desperate hopelessness that leaves you chilled and shocked throughout.
The downside to this approach is that the final terrifying twist is not as impactful as it is in the more colourful original, but there’s plenty of quick cuts and screeching violin music to make up for it. Dark, moody and thoroughly devoid of hope, this is a masterpiece of horror from the man who is either excellent or dreadful, and just like Watt’s character, you’ll never forget the first time you watch The Ring.
Review from: http://www.thatfilmguy.net/the-ring-2002/
Insidious
The creators of Saw and Paranormal Activity have joined forces on this silly horror – which is good for a handful of jumps and guilty giggles before it quickly reaches for the slipshod, hokey contrivances you don't expect until number 2 or 3 in the franchise. You have to pity poor Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne, playing the parents of a young family; they must keep straight, serious actor faces while trapped in a haunted house movie, rejiggered into a possessed kid movie when their son falls into a coma – his soul trapped in a nether realm. Cue a cast of undead tortured souls: creepy twins; an old lady veiled in granny-net curtains; a demon luridly covered in black and red face paint like a juggler on ketamine at a rave, most preposterous and unterrifying of the lot. Perhaps aware that they have a largely scare-free experience on their hands, the film-makers insert a comedy sideshow: a psychic who is more Avon lady than exorcist, accompanied by two geeky assistants.
Review from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/apr/28/insidious-review
The Crow
"The Crow" is, of course, the movie Brandon Lee was making when he was accidentally shot dead during the filming of a scene. It is not without irony that the story involves a hero who returns from the dead - just as, in a sense, Lee has with the release of this film. It is a stunning work of visual style - the best version of a comic book universe I've seen - and Brandon Lee clearly demonstrates in it that he might have become an action star, had he lived.
The story begins with a resurrection from the dead. A rock star named Eric Draven (Lee) is murdered, along with his fiancee, on the eve of their wedding. His soul is escorted to the next world (according to the narration) by a crow; but when a spirit is unhappy there because of unsettled business on earth, sometimes the crow will bring him back again. And so a year later, on Halloween Eve, Eric reappears on earth, vowing vengeance on those who committed the murders - and the evil kingpin who ordered them.
That's about all there is to the story. Flashbacks recreate the original murder, and then Eric, led by the crow, tracks the mean, rainy, midnight streets on his lonely quest. He has fashioned for himself some death's-head makeup, and since he is already dead, of course bullets cannot harm him (except sometimes - which is always the catch in comic book stories).
The story exists as an excuse for the production values of the film, which are superb. The director, Alex Proyas, and his technical team have created a world that will remind you of the forlorn urban wasteland in "Blade Runner" and of the Gothic extravagances in "Batman," yet this world is grungier and more forbidding than either. It's not often that movies can use miniatures and special effects and sets and visual tricks to create a convincing place, rather than just a series of obvious sets. But "The Crow" does.
The visual style, by cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, obviously owes a great deal to the study of comic books (or "graphic novels," as they like to be called). The camera swoops high above the city, or dips low for extreme-angle shots. Shadows cast fearsome daggers into the light. Buildings are exaggerated in their architectural details, until they seem a shriek of ornamentation. The superhero comic books of the 1940s, especially "Batman," grew up at the same time as film noir, and borrowed some of the same visual language. But comic books were not simply drawn versions of film noir; for one thing, the films tended to use their extreme-angle shots for atmosphere and storytelling, and would hold them for a time, while comics are meant to be read quickly, and give the equivalent of cinematic quick-cutting. "The Crow," with its fast pace and its countless camera set-ups, evokes comics much more than the more good-looking but more leisurely "Batman" movies. It also reflects a bleak modern sensibility, with little room for the comic villians in "Batman." The actors are adapted in appearance to this graphic noir vision; their appearances are as exaggerated as the shots they appear in. For example: The bosoms of women in comic books always seem improbably perfect but sketched in - drawn by a pen, not made of flesh - and the villainess Myca (Bai Ling) in this story has the same look. As the half-sister of the villain, she represents a drawn image, not a person, and so do many of the other characters, including a thin, angular Brandon Lee behind his makeup.
The sound track is wall-to-wall hard rock (by the Cure, Stone Temple Pilots, Violent Femmes, Pantera, Nine Inch Nails, etc).
At times the film looks like a violent music video, all image and action, no content. If it had developed more story and characterization, however, it might not have had quite the same success in evoking a world where the bizarre reality, not the story, is the point.
The scene in which Brandon Lee was accidentally shot is not in the film, but the fact of his death cannot help providing a melancholy subtext to everything he does on screen, and to all of his speeches about death and revenge. It is a sad irony that this film is not only the best thing he accomplished, but is actually more of a screen achievement than any of the films of his father, Bruce Lee.
Both careers seemed cut short just as early potential was being realized. There was talk of shelving "The Crow," but I'm glad they didn't. At least what Brandon Lee accomplished - in a film that looks to have been hard, dedicated labor - has been preserved.
Review from: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19940513/REVIEWS/405130302/1023
Drag Me to Hell
Plot
Desperate for a promotion, kind-hearted loans manager Christine (Lohman) refuses an elderly customer, Mrs. Ganush (Raver), only to become the subject of a terrifying gypsy curse that will see her dragged to hell by a vengeful demon called the Lamia...
Verdict
Thrilling and often hilarious, it’s good to see one of Hollywood’s most inventive directors fully reinvigorated. On this form, Spider-Man 4 should be a belter.
Review from: http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/review.asp?FID=135998
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