Reviews

Okay then, so people seem to want this to be a straight up alien invasion movie and to judge it by those metrics. Just like Stand by Me is not really about a dead body, Carrie isn't about a telekinetic girl and her crappy prom, and even Frankenstein isn't about a dead man reanimated, this is not about aliens.

No One Will Help You is about guilt and self isolation. As a young girl Brynne, in a fit of rage, did something terrible. Her own self hatred is reflected in how she sees the townspeople reacting to her. This was her own creation based on how she feels about herself. She feels unworthy of love and acceptance because of the awful thing she did.

The aliens and her abduction are the vehicle by which she is shocked into the realization that she can be forgiven and if she fights for her own life, she must be worthy of some kind of love.

There are several little nods to this throughout the picture. In all I found it compelling and well executed when considering this interpretation. I would have given it a 9 had there been zero words spoken.

I enjoyed the bulk of this film. People who bash it are, I think, looking for more than the movie purports to offer. It was a perfectly competent monster movie right up to the second before the credits roll. Now I love a good open ended story as much as the next masochist, but A Quiet Place II abused the privilege. You don't just end it in the middle of the climax. The audience gets nothing to even apply their imaginations.

I have certainly seen much better films in my life, but Exorcist: The Beginning was not THAT bad. I have two major criticisms of the movie and one minor one.

Major Criticisms:

1. I concede to those to have posted before... the CGI was awful and way overused... even in the opening scene much of the background and even some of the foreground is cgi... so much so that until you see live actors milling about in the marketplace, it could have been the start of an animated movie.

2. There are critical points left out. Characters do things and say things that there is no logical reason for them to do or say. I actually read the book (I assume that was adapted from the screenplay?) and I felt much more in the know than I would have been just seeing the movie.

Minor Criticism:

Again this is from my having read the little book. *** Possible Spoiler***





Jeffries' face... it was not nearly bad enough in the beginning to elicit the kind of responses it got. In the book it makes it as though his ENTIRE face is covered in these boils to the point of him being horribly disfigured. I know this is nit picky but the guy just wasn't so incredibly repulsive at first to warrant Merrins look of disgust.





End Spoilers

Anyway I really enjoyed the movie overall. I felt entertained and to me that is what a movie is all about. I get a little amused when people don't allow themselves to even enjoy a movie because they become so bogged down in the minutia of continuity from a movie that is decades old. I appreciate their fervor and dedication to the artistic level of the original film... but damn have a little fun.

It was almost closing time at the video store. None of the movies I actually had on my list were available. So I went picking through the horror section (my favorite) and came up with this gem that I had never seen before. This film has to be one of the best lower budget horror films I have seen in many a day. On my SpookyT bone scale it garners a phenomenal 9 out of 10 bones. Since many people have already reviewed this film... I would like to offer my answer to some of the criticisms. First, the blood was unconvincing. Well my fellow effects fan... it wasn't meant to be convincing as blood. What it did was further the effect of the dream like state in which the flashbacks occur. Carrying that through to the real time scenes, I felt enhanced the blurring of what was real and what was Simon's sometimes less than truthful telling. The second argument contains a bit of a spoiler so if you haven't seen the film read no further. Second, some have criticized his escape as being far too easy. One made the comment that if an inmate attacked a doctor they would be immediately restrained and beaten etc. I offer this argument for how the movie portrayed that. He was taken away immediately and he was beaten. He was thrown into a cell by two large and fairly abusive orderlies and was no doubt soon to be put in restraints. These guards were quite fast and loose with their handling of Simon. Contrary to what the other reviewers have said... There are currently very strict guidelines about patient treatment and I dare say it would take more than a choke these days to get the permission to have a patient restrained, let alone beaten. Lastly some have said that a few of the characters were too unbelievable. I disagree. I found all the characters to be much like people I have met. I would like for someone to have actually delineated which characters they felt were unbelievable and why. The only tarnish I found on this film was the sequence where Julie asks Simon about his mother. It seems implausible that she would not have known about that bit of history.