Insidious Review

My friends and I decide to go to the movies late at night, and the movie they wanted to see was Insidious. Having no idea what it was about, they bring up the trailer on the phone and I automatically want to see it on the account of it being a horror film. As I am waiting in line to purchase my ticket, the small boy on the poster of the movie meets my eyes and stares with an immersed force, as if he was looking into my soul....

Insidious was created by the same makers of Paranormal Activity and Saw, and.... wait, Saw? Really? So that means this movie contains an immense amount of gore, right? Actually, no. Gore does not make a single appearance in this movie and relies solely on the scare factor. The cast for the film include Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, and Ty Simpkins.

Plot Synopsis

After moving into their new home, Josh and Renai begin to have unusual experiences in their home after their son slips into a deep coma. After close encounters with demons, the couple begin to think that their home is haunted and decide to hire a team to investigate. After a few short investigations, it's concluded that the house is not what's haunted... it's their son....

First Impression

As I stated before I had no idea what this movie was about, let alone existed, until our group went to watch it. So there's not much I can say about my first impressions with it. The movie poster shows a possessed boy outside of the house, gazing into your eyes. In my personal opinion the scariest thing in horror movies are possessed children, especially Japanese horror with their scary little girls. I love the opening credits, the music gave me the impression of classic horror films with black and white snapshots filling the background.

Review

The opening scene starts off with the camera going through different rooms of an old house, when we are greeted by this creepy old hag staring at us through a barely lit window.

And that's what I want to praise most about in this movie. No not the old hag, but it's ability to maintain a creepy, dark atmosphere throughout the movie. There were times I could hear some of my friends beg for a character to not go into a dark room where the noise was coming from.

Since the movie was just released, I'm gonna stay away from the storyline and not give away any spoilers. Instead I'll talk about the things I liked and disliked in the movie. With that said, I'll begin with the dislikes:

After the opening sequence, the movie gets slow.... in fact really slow. We watch the lives of our characters before us and it feels like it was dragged out for a while. Soon after, their son finally slips into a coma and everything begins.... the movie never really gives a background to the characters, or why they even moved in the first place. It's not until very later on the movie that we get some information, and only on Josh.

Another one I want to talk about is the film's use of "False Alarms". A false alarm is where a scene gets really suspenseful and you're ready for something to pop out and frighten you, only it turns out to be something completely different or nothing at all. I have nothing against false alarms, in fact I find them to be fun at times. However, this movie used the false alarm a lot. Even during the long, drawn out opening it was used a few times.

Now that I talked about some of the dislikes, it's time to talk about the things I liked about Insidious:

Despite the false alarms previously mention, the movie did contain a handful of scenes that made you jump. Horror movies don't really scare me anymore, but Insidious did a very good job at making me jump a couple of times. I already stated I don't want to give away anything about the movie, but let's just say that there are a couple scenes where if you play your cards right, you might be able to make your friends yell out in the theater. Just saying.

The concept around the haunting of the child is unique. Instead of regular possessions that involve "the devil holding the child hostage so now we have to get a priest to perform an exorcism. Exorcist is successful/failure. Movie ends", the concept used is astral projection. This means the person can separate from their physical body and walk around, pretty much the equivalent to an out of body experience. The traits were passed on to the boy from the father, so it is his duty to go save him.

Visuals/Effects/Audio

The visuals and effects for this movie were just astounding. As I stated before, the movie does a great job at retaining a very dark and very creepy atmosphere where at some points you don't want to know what's waiting around the corner. Even though one of the demons was obviously CGI (And looks a tad bit like Darth Maul from the Star Wars series), it still maintained a frightening appearance and it would make you jump every time he appeared on screen.

Whoever did the audio work for this film deserves an award. As I stated at the beginning of this review, the opening credits played a piece that was very suspenseful and had that classic horror feel to it. Speaking of suspenseful music, the tracks uses throughout the movie were incredible. Each one had the perfect tone and mood, and would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck right as something were to happen.

Final Thoughts

If you got the chance, I would highly recommend to go check this movie out. It is especially enjoyable if you have your friends or lover with you and scare them every time something pops out on the screen. The movie is highly enjoyable and I think you would not be disappointed by it. Insidious gets two thumbs up from me, and I would love to see the makers pair up again and make another movie like it.

ThanksKilling Review

To be honest, I don't know how to even write an intro to this movie. So I'm going to cut to the chase and say "I've got a real good movie here for you to watch", and this movie is called ThanksKilling. Now to be fair, I don't know many movies that are about a cursed Thanksgiving turkey out on a killing spree. In fact, I don't know any movie at all like that. So the idea is unique and it makes you wonder how can someone make a movie about a killer turkey.

ThanksKilling is directed and written by a man named Jordan Downey. Jordan's other films are shorts called Craw Lake, Suck, and The Cannibal Ad. The cast for the film include Lindsey Anderson, Natasha Cordova, Ryan Francis, Lance Predmore, and Aaron Ringhiser-Carlson.

Plot Synopsis

ThanksKilling is about a group of college students who decide to go out and spend their Thanksgiving break partying. When their vehicle breaks down in the middle of the woods, they decide to camp out for the night and have their party there. While setting up camp, Darren discovers a town sign that causes him to tell the legend of "ThanksKilling" to the group. Spooked at first, the group refuses to believe the tale... until strange occurrences begin to happen....

First Impression

My first impression begins with the cover art of the movie. I would of uploaded a photo of it but it's almost impossible since every cover art I could find had a big ol F-bomb written across it. That's why at the top I decided to use the opening title card for the movie. Anyways, the cover art shows the turkey with a weapon in it's hand. The turkey smirks at you while the title ThanksKilling is written underneath it. So my first instinct was I need to watch this movie, there's no possible way it was going to let me down. But geez, things start getting out of control as soon as you press play.

Review

So the first thing I want to talk about is boobs. Why boobs? After the opening credits, the first scene... in fact the very first second of the movie itself, we are greeted with a big pair of boobs. It's common to see nudity in horror films, but I guess the director wanted to grab the audience's attention immediately by opening the movie with a close-up shot of boobs. Soon after that we find out that the woman is being chased by the turkey. As she is being chased, the woman trips on the ground and the turkey catches up to her. Then... we see that the turkey can talk! And it isn't done in a CGI kind of way, the turkey is actually a puppet, and it's clear that someone is opening and closing their hand while they talk. But the turkey has a sense of humor, complimenting the woman's breasts before killing her.

All of this is only in the first 2 minutes of the film, so it should set you up on an example of what's to come. After the opening, we're introduced to our main characters of the movie. All five of the characters are portrayed in a stereotypical way, such as Darren the nerd.

The group is out of college for Thanksgiving, so they decide to celebrate by going out and partying. I have never heard of going out to party for Thanksgiving break, but from where they're from I guess it's a popular thing to do. Along the way, their vehicle breaks down so they decide to camp out for the night and have their party there. Darren discovers a town sign that causes him to freak out, and since no one else in the group knows about the location of where they're at, Darren tells them of the legend known as "Thankskilling". The group gets spooked out from the story, but they refuse to believe it. The turkey is awakened when a dog by the name of Lassie wonders by a totem sticking out of the ground and urinates on it. After that, the wrath of the turkey begins...

Now, apparently the turkey can pass off as a serious being. There's a couple of scenes where he fools the group into thinking he's a human being by wearing a disguise. Actually he doesn't even need a disguise, check out this shot where the turkey is hitchhiking and is picked up by a random car.

Even a friend of mine who was watching with a group of us shouted, "WHO IN THE WORLD WOULD PICK UP A RANDOM TURKEY ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD?". Apparently this person does.

The comedy is just hysterical in this movie. It's not just the jokes either, some of the things the turkey does, even just the scenes themselves will have you laughing. I'd tell you some of the scenes but I think the movie is worth it just to watch them. In fact, I'm gonna stop talking about movie all together. This movie is one of those "you have to see for yourself" kind of things.

Visuals/Effects/Audio

I decided to combine the visual and audio into one section since there wasn't a whole lot to say about the audio.

I shouldn't even have to emphasize about how much the movie looks and feels like a B-Movie. You can tell that the movie had an extremely low-budget cost, in fact the website of ThanksKilling proudly states, "The Ultimate Low Budget Experience". But even with a low budget, the movie has some pretty good gore effects. Not to mention that there are a lot of unique deaths in the film, and a few of them will even give you a chuckle.

There's not much to say about the audio in this movie. The sound effects of blood and gore are what you would expect. The opening and close theme music were nice but seemed a little too dramatic for this movie. Occasionally you'll hear a couple of rock songs through out the movie.

Final Thoughts

This movie so bad that it's worth watching for the laughs. From the bad voice acting to.... actually forget it, the whole movie will have you laughing from start to finish. If you ever get the chance, I would suggest watching it. Get some friends, get some snacks, sit back, relax, and enjoy the murderous tale of ThanksKilling. Gobble, gobble, everyone.

RoboGeisha Review

I love foreign movies, especially the ones that are fast-paced and give you over-the-top action. So let me introduce you to a movie that does that.... and more. This movie is called RoboGeisha, and it's a film like no other.

The movie was directed and written by Noboru Iguchi, the same man who created one of my favorite films, The Machine Girl (And I promise that I will write a review for that movie sometime in the future). The special effects were done by a man named Yoshihiro Nishimura, which is interesting to note that he also did the special effects for The Machine Girl and went on to create his own movie, Tokyo Gore Police (Another movie I will review sometime). The cast for RoboGeisha include Aya Kiguchi, Hitomi Hasebe, Takumi Saito, and Taro Shigaki.

Plot Synopsis

The movie is about two sisters, Yoshie and Kikue, who are abducted by a steel manufacturer and turned into mechanized assassins. The film opens with a brief fight scene as we watch Yoshie fight Kikue and the two members of the Goblin Squad. Kikue attempts to assassinate the representative of a rivaling company, but the assassination is foiled by Yoshie.

After the opening scene, we learn about the life of Yoshie. Kikue is a geisha and has her younger sister Yoshie work as her attendant. Kikue is always looking down on Yoshie and never gives her a chance. One day, a man by the name of Hikaru notices the potential of Yoshie and has her abducted along with her sister. His goal is to create an ideal world, and plans to train Yoshie and Kikue in order to achieve his plan. However, things change when Yoshie is sent out to assassinate a small group of people living nearby....

First Impression

Oh... my... word... just the opening scene is enough to leave you with an impression of "how did they come up with this?". Seriously, I mean we witness the Goblin Squad shoot shurikens out of their butts! Then Yoshie and Kikue have a face-off with shooting missiles and other projectiles at each other. All of this is only in the first 10 minutes of the movie as well, it almost makes you scared of what's to come.

Review

So this movie has a lot of unique action scenes, and I mean unique. As I already stated above, the first 10 minutes of the film we watch two girls shoot shurikens out of their butts. That's only the beginning as well, throughout the movie you'll see crazy action sequences like that.

And there's a few comedic ones like this guy getting shrimp shoved in his eyes.

After the opening fight, the movie gets kinda slow as we follow the life of Yoshie and Kikue. As stated above, Kikue is a geisha and Yoshie worked as Kikue's assistant. After their abduction, Hikaru wants to unleash their full potential, so he forces them to fight and release the anger within. With Yoshie being victorious, the tides of life are turned and Kikue then works as Yoshie's assistant.

I have to say that Noboru did a good job when choosing the cast for the two sisters. Both girls are very attractive and keep the male audience's attention towards the screen.

I mean look at them, they're so adorable.

Aww...

And of course with them being sisters, sister rivalry exists. Throughout the course of their training, Kikue tries to regain her status as the better one. This leads Kikue to be the first one to accept modifications to her body. The first modification that Kikue receives are guns... in her breasts. Remember in Austin Powers with the fembots, and they shoot from their breasts? Same concept, only one side actually shoots and the other side is the trigger. So needless to say, Kikue goes to show off her new modifications to Yoshie. While the girls are having trouble shooing their targets, Kikue comes in and dominates.

Oh, their target practice uses targets that are a little more.... life-like.

The movie just goes above and beyond with its action scenes. But if they're not crazy enough for you... then just wait...

Later on in the film, Yoshie is given some new modifications along with a shamisen. Needing to make it back to the city in time, Yoshie plays the shamisen she recieved to see what powers it contain. She begins playing when suddenly...

A tank??!

That's right, Yoshie transforms into a tank. She has no time to lose though, so she drives off and rushes through traffic.

As she nears her destination, it seems that the tide has turned...

Suddenly the Steel Manufacturer's building begins to ascend from the ground, and turns into a giant mecha.

The giant mecha walks into the city and begins releasing its wrath. It smashes one of the buildings and....

...it starts squirting blood?

Now... I've never destroyed a building in my life (nor do I plan to, just want to put that out there), but I'm pretty sure buildings don't bleed. Then again, after all the stuff that has happened in this movie, it wouldn't surprise me if they actually did.

So what now? We have an evil mecha on the lose, and it's up to Yoshie to put an end to it.

So yeah, the action gets pretty intense in this movie.

Visuals/Effects

RoboGeisha has that B-Movie look and feel to it, which fits perfectly with the action and content it brings you. Blood effects are done very well, even with the CGI blood spurt of the buildings being destroyed. Bullets and other projectiles are obviously CGI as well, but it fits with the movie so well and can be easily overlooked. The transformation scenes or when Yoshie or Kikue were to use another weapon had a smooth feel and were done in a great job. Overall, the visuals and effects are what you would expect from a B-Movie, but they fit so perfectly for a movie that was over-the-top.

Audio

The only version that I was able to watch was the English dubbed version on Netflix. The voice acting for the dubbed version is what you would expect for a movie like this, cheesy, crazy, and hilarious. Often times it would fit so well with the action or scene that was going on. I have seen clips of the original Japanese version, and from what I seen I can tell that the acting was done well. The movie used great sound effects for things such as guns shooting, explosions, and even blood squirts. The music selection used for the film fit the appropriate scenes and it drew you in even more.

Final Thoughts

This movie is probably one of the craziest movies that you will see in your life. As stated before, I watched it on Netflix so it is available for instant stream. If you ever had the chance to check out this film, I would suggest watching it because it is well worth your time, maybe even worth having the DVD/Blu-Ray in your collection. So if you're ever hanging out with your friends one night, get some popcorn and drinks and put on the movie. Oh... and enjoy the ride.

Pinocchio's Revenge Review

Everyone knows the story about Pinocchio right? A wooden puppet that was carved in a small Italian village by a man named Geppetto, and Pinocchio would dream about someday becoming a real boy. The version that I believe everyone is familiar with is the Disney cartoon created in the 40s. Pinocchio was one of the main stories that kids were familiar with growing up, even my elementary school would play the Disney cartoon from time-to-time. That being said, imagine my surprise (as well as your's I'm sure) when I'm browsing through Netflix late at night and I come across a movie with the title, "Pinocchio's Revenge"

Pinocchio's Revenge was directed and written by Kevin S. Tenney, who's more popular work include the Witchboard series and Night of the Demons. The cast of the film include Rosalind Allen, Brittney Alyse Smith, Aaron Lustig, and Dick Beals as the voice of Pinocchio.

First Impression

Should I actually even write a "First Impression" section? I'm pretty sure that the title itself got the same reaction of me for everyone else. Just.... what? Revenge? On who? That's what ran through my mind before I actually played the movie. Did Geppetto betray Pinocchio and now he's out for blood? Is Pinocchio on a journey to defeat Stromboli after all the things he put Pinocchio through? Or is Pinocchio on his way back to the sea, to have his final showdown with Monstro? It turns out to be none of what I just listed. When reading about the movie, the genre it is labeled under is "Horror", "Slashers and Serial Killers" to be exact. Now I'm really curious about the movie. The cover art was the last thing I saw before I finally decided that I needed to watch this movie. An evil Pinocchio... wow...

Plot

(Warning: Spoiler Alert)

The movie starts out with a night scene and a pretty bad thunderstorm is going on. The opening credits are playing as we watch a sheriff drive bravely through the storm, when he almost has a collision with a parked car. The sheriff gets out to investigate the car and he notices kid's clothing covered in blood in the back seat, so he goes down a trail to investigate more. Meanwhile, we witness a scene of a man burying a small, dead boy along with a wooden puppet.

Soon after, the sheriff shows up and forces the man to put down his shovel. The next scene plays, and this time its during the day. The CSI unit has the area blocked off and they proceed to dig up what the man was trying to bury. As they are digging up the body of the child, they dig up the wooden puppet as well. At first they assumed it was another body, only to lead to confusion when it turns out to be a puppet. Next we are in a courtroom with a trial going on. Our protagonist, Jennifer Garrick, proceeds to defend her client about the murder of the small boy. After the brief debate, we're at the home of Jennifer and we are introduced to a new character. The girl, Zoe, is the daughter of Jennifer and she has trouble going to sleep, mostly because of the nightmares that Zoe gets. After tucking Zoe in, Jennifer goes back to reviewing her case. The next day at the office, Jennifer begins examining the new stuff left on her desk when she turns the chair around and....

Okay, I'm not going to lie. That puppet is actually pretty damn creepy. If Chucky wasn't enough to scare the pants off you, now we have Pinocchio with huge eyes that are always staring right at you.

The puppet startles Jennifer and one of her co-workers come in, joking around with her about it. We then cut to a short scene of Zoe in her class. When one of the students fails to answer a question, Zoe answers it for her while giving the girl a smirk, signifying a hate relationship with each other. Then we cut to another scene, this time Jennifer is talking to her client through a phone and separated by plexiglass. Jennifer believes that her client is innocent, trying to prove that he is only protecting someone. Her client tries to make her believe otherwise by slamming his hand on the window violently to show hostility.

Soon after this display, he attacks one of the guards. While constraining and carrying him away, the client begins to scream "PLEASE KILL ME NOW!!!". We cut back to a scene about the school again, with Zoe handing out invitations to kids for her birthday party. After the girl from earlier takes her invitations and throws them in a puddle, Zoe attacks the girl and bites her on the ear. After a brief scene of Zoe talking to her therapist, Jennifer gets a call from the girl's mother about the girl being attacked by Zoe. Jennifer grounds Zoe for a month and she storms off to her room, with the Nanny following after. The next day we're back at the courtroom, and this time the judge gives Jennifer's client the death penalty. We then witness the execution of Jennifer's client as we watch him being tied up to an electric chair and blindfolded. After the preparations are complete, they flip the switch and electrocute the client.

At this point I would like to say that we're barely 30 minutes in the movie and so far there is no possessed puppet, not to mention we just had our first death (not counting the kid in the beginning) and it wasn't even caused by Pinocchio. So I'm going to skip ahead a bit to the birthday party scene. The scenes before are Jennifer talking to a priest after the execution about evil existing in the world and Jennifer hurrying home trying to set up Zoe's birthday party.

During the birthday party, the boyfriend of Jennifer mentions that Zoe discovered the puppet before he even had the chance to wrap it. Having no idea that it wasn't Zoe's real present, Jennifer uses the excuse that Pinocchio is only visiting them for a little bit and her real present would be here shortly.

After the birthday, we come to another scene. A love scene. As Jennifer and her boyfriend begin making out on the sofa, we notice Pinocchio creeping around the couple. Could this be Pinocchio's first chance to attack somebody? Sorry, not this time. It's only Zoe scaring the mess out of them with the puppet. Jennifer tucks Zoe into bed and the love-making resumes in bed with Jennifer's breasts showing the entire time. The noise keeps Zoe awake as she is forced to hear the sounds of sex coming from her mother and the boyfriend, so for comfort she talks to Pinocchio.

And at this point I would like to stop for a second and present you with this shot.

This has to be one of the creepiest shots that I have ever seen. Something like that would not have intrigued me as a child, I would of been scared to death of that thing. Yet this kid treats it like its her new best friend. Man...

After that we are treated to another scene of nudity, this time of the nanny. As she begins to towel off, she notices Pinocchio staring at her from a distance. Could this be when Pinocchio finally comes alive and begin his onslaught of killing sprees? Sadly no. In fact, Zoe comes scolding the nanny, thinking she took Pinocchio away from her. We're treated to another scene of Zoe and the therapist, talking about Jennifer's boyfriend this time. After that, we're back at home with Jennifer and Zoe. Zoe tells Jennifer about Pinocchio's curiosity of the female body after staying up all night listening to Jennifer and her boyfriend having sex. That night, Zoe asks if Pinocchio would ever leave her. As she falls asleep, Pinocchio finally shows signs of life as he walks over to her bedside.

Now let me ask you something. If this were to happen to you, would you happily allow that puppet to sleep in the bed with you? You gotta be out of your mind! I would have impaled that thing with a cross by now. I also want to state that we're almost a hour into the movie and Pinocchio's finally starting to show signs of life. Oh, and no body count either.

The day we are at school again, and the same three girls are teasing Zoe again. This time they take Pinocchio away from her and toss him over the fence. Meanwhile, the nanny notices a leg sticking out from under the bed. She pulls it out and it's a doll that has been stabbed repeatedly. As Zoe recovers Pinocchio, she notices that his hand is resting on a rake. She asks what Pinocchio is up to, and suspenseful music starts playing. The girl that teases Zoe starts riding up the road on her bike when the rake protrudes out of the fence, stopping the bike, and causing the girl to land in front of an incoming bus.

Dear God I thought I was going to have an aneurysm after such event had happened. Sadly I'm lead to disappointment, as the bus must of missed the girl since she is alright and only suffering from shock. Still, we finally get to see some action caused by Pinocchio.

After that scene, Jennifer gets a call from the therapist asking her to come by his office immediately. We get two brief scenes, the first one between the therapist and Jennifer about not separating Zoe from the doll yet, and the second one between Jennifer and Zoe about what happened to the Doll and the girl at school. Skipping ahead some, we come to a scene where Dave (the boyfriend) is watching over Zoe at night. This scene is the first time we hear Pinocchio's voice, and I have to admit I wasn't expecting the voice to sound like the classic Disney cartoon. Instead I was expecting more of Chucky. Zoe gets up during the middle of the night to go get Pinocchio from the basement, but Dave insists on retrieving Pinocchio himself since Jennifer "would kill him" if she came home and found that Zoe was still awake. As Dave goes downstairs, the lights shut off. Thinking it's a prank by Zoe, he goes back up upstairs, only to have the door slammed in his face and tumble back down the steps.

After a visit to the hospital, Zoe starts scolding Pinocchio for pushing down the steps. As Pinocchio claims that he had nothing to do it, a light passing by shows Pinocchio's nose as a shadow growing, leaving Zoe to claim that Pinocchio is lying. Zoe visits the therapist again, and when he steps out of the room Zoe starts talking to Pinocchio again. After getting into an argument with Pinocchio, Zoe starts screaming at the top of her lungs. The therapist walks back into the room, only to stop in his tracks because of what he sees.

Night comes and Zoe is talking to Pinocchio once more. Pinocchio claims that the only way he could be free is if Zoe cut him loose from his strings. She does so, which causes Pinocchio to run out of the house with Zoe following after him. We come to a first-person scene in the hospital, where we travel to Dave's room and witness someone off camera pull his plug on the life-support. Shortly after this, Dave dies.

After a depressing scene between Jennifer and Dave's mom, Jennifer talks to the therapist one last time. The therapist shows Jennifer a video of Zoe talking the Pinocchio, however, the Pinocchio does not seem to be responding back to her....

Could this mean everything was all in Zoe's head? Let's find out. At the home, the nanny is attacked and killed by someone off camera. Jennifer returns and the final showdown has begun....

After the fight, Pinocchio is thrown through a table, only to be revealed that it was Zoe the entire time.

So the film concludes with Zoe being committed to a mental institute, with Jennifer claiming "I know what I saw" and vowing that she will not stop until she frees Zoe.

Visuals/Effects

There's really not a lot for me to say in this section. For being a 90s movie, the visuals are great for it's time. Even the animation for Pinocchio was very well done. Blood effects were also nice and looked real, rather than looking like gobs of red stuff. Overall, visuals were great!

Audio

As I stated before, I was surprised that Pinocchio's voice had a kiddish tone rather than a demonic one. The music used made the movie highly suspenseful, and the sudden loud noises would give you a jump or two when something happened. Other than that, there's nothing to really say in this section either.

Final Thoughts

So.... the movie didn't turn out to be what I expected. Rather than a fast-pace, cheesy slasher where Pinocchio racks up a body count, we get a serious movie about a puppet that puts a curse over somebody. There are a few things I found enjoyable in the movie, such as keeping you on your toes and making you wonder if Pinocchio was real, or if it was all in Zoe's head. Then there were some that I did not find so enjoyable, such as taking a hour before Pinocchio showed signs of life and started attacking people. I have to admit that I was kind of disappointed by it, and it seems like others were as well since it only has a 2 and a half rating on Netflix. If you have Netflix, you can check it out since it is available on instant stream.