Change Your Image
CoPSwords
Reviews
Crushed (2009)
Low-Budget, Low-Quality
Not all Low-Budget movies are Low-Quality however, it is the case with She's Crushed(2009). I don't want it to be bad, but it is. It had a great concept that is not often portrayed in American films, but the lack of good equipment, and lack of talent destroyed the movie.
The biggest flaw I saw, or heard rather, was the sound quality. It was ridiculously loud, and grainy for every single scene. The grain of the audio almost overpowered the speaking parts entirely. I have seen much older movies with better sound equipment. As for the video quality, it was OK. Just a little out of focus at times, and it did look a bit grainy, but I've seen worse.
Almost every single character was cliché and poorly written. The acting didn't save it much, although Natalie Dickinson was fantastic in this movie. She really captured Tara's instability. It's just that the writing was absolutely terrible, and it felt that even she was aware that the lines were garbage.
I really, really wanted this movie to be good. Had they got their hands on some good equipment, and replaced half the cast, this movie would have been awesome and unique. But, they did not, and now it suffers the fate of fading away in the dark depths of low-quality horror.
The Stepfather (2009)
Best 80s Remake So Far
Even though The Stepfather was a remake, it was pretty good. It is probably one of the better remakes, because it does not do so much re-imagining, as it does updating. It takes a genuinely scary concept from the eighties, and makes it work for modern times. Now, the movie does not use much CGI, it tries to stick with older techniques. There are actually far more compliments than complaints with this movie. Even though the plot is laid out from the beginning, it is interesting to watch. It was enjoyable to watch as he lied, manipulated, and murdered. It used a lot of dramatic irony, probably more so than most movies I have seen recently. Not that it is a bad thing, it was actually quite refreshing for a movie to not really hide anything from you, but hide it from its characters. In the current market, it seems that, movies are trying to leave the audience stumbling around trying to figure out the plot, while this movie comes around and just lets the audience enjoy the ride. The dialog felt very real, even with the stepfather's bizarre emotions and actions. It did not really feel like it was trying too hard to sound legitimate, it just was what it was. That may seem like a given, but when you watch a lot of really bad movies, it is refreshing to have a group of writers who know what they are doing. The only really problem I have with the movie. The older son is supposed to be in high school, somewhere before senior year. The problem is that he, and his girlfriend, look and act like they are in college. Now that seems like a small issue, but it kept drawing me out of the movie because every once and a while he would comment that he still needs to get his driver's license or something, and that would immediately pull me out and beat me over the head. The movie really is pretty good, I might even say that it is better than the original, but I saw the remake first. Other than a few continuity issues, the movie is really well done. Definitely worth watching if you are into thriller, or horror.
Jennifer's Body (2009)
Straight Up Comedy
After watching this movie, I am not entirely sure how I feel about it. I liked the comedic elements, but it seemed like everything else was lacking. Almost like they created a straight up comedy instead of a comedy-horror. For the most part, The movie does not take its self serious. However, There are about three parts that get painfully slow, because they expect the audience to care about the characters, after they spent the whole rest of the movie trying to destroy all sense of caring you may have for them. The entire ending sequence was painful, right up until the credits. The credit sequence was actually done really well. Really, everything from the climax afterwords felt like filler. Although the climax was the funniest scene in the movie. The dialogue was hilarious. It's really hard to describe, the made up words, the random word replacement, just kind of works for the feel of the movie. That being said, the dialogue does not fit at certain points, characters will point of the obvious, or comment on something completely unrelated. On top of that, almost no one reacts in a reasonable way. The only one who acts relatively realistically is Needy. The CGI was obvious, it was better than a lot of lower budget movies, but I felt it was really distracting. The only stunt that worked were the levitation scenes, but that was wires not CGI. At the end, I can't really decide whether or not I liked it. It was really funny, but it took itself too seriously, at certain points. It had broken dialogue, and too much CGI. Really, the negatives outweigh the positives, but it was amazingly hilarious.