The Cabin in the Woods

Sorry for the brief hiatus. I can now say majoring in Information Systems is probably not the smartest decision I've made in my life. While I was away, I did get an opportunity to see a few movies. The first (because it is motherfreakin awesome) is The Cabin in the Woods.

It is so rare to see a movie that is actually original and entertaining. Unless you have Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard writing and directing it. I already know this movie isn't everyone's cup of tea. I will say we can all agree this had the best marketing strategy I've ever seen. The previews showed the bare minimum and any plot descriptions were general. Also it had the balls to say it was just like Shaun of the Dead or Evil Dead. That right there made me not want to see it.

Thank god I thought twice.

Holy crap, this is one of the best horror movies I've seen in the last 5 years. Typical plot with an atypical result. And...that's all I can tell you. Yet another movie where if you dive fully into the plot it gives everything away. I'm not going to do that to something this perfect. I've seen it 3 times in a week. I didn't even do that for The Dark Knight. I'm more than happy to give this 5/5. Trust me, folks. Go see it now. You'll thank me later.

Ghosts of Goldfield

I'm coming to terms with the fact that for every good movie I watch, there are two bad ones that will follow. The trend continues with Ghosts of Goldfield.

The first thing I have point out it that it has one of the actors from Twilight: Kellan Lutz. If you have no idea who he is, don't worry about it. I believe he only has 7-8 lines in this movie, and he also dies rather suddenly. I just love the fact that the cover for the DVD claims "he outshines his performances from Twilight and Prom Night. And I know why he said that. In both those movies, his characters only get 2-3 lines. So, the 7-8 mark must be like hitting the lottery to him. It's a sad day when the character with the least amount of lines ends up being the most memorable. Brace yourselves. This is going to hurt...

We start the film with the cheap and choppy float away credits. And this pretty much sets the entire course of the movie: cheap and choppy. There's zero continuity and I think the budget was $250. Nothing really happens for the first 15 minutes other than a slutty kleptomaniac. I'm not kidding. 20 minutes in we find some resemblance of a plot: idiot college kids doing a documentary on ghosts so one of them can get a TV show on the Discovery Channel and extra credit for her Psychology class. Now, the last time I checked ghosts are not part of any college curriculum, but I digress. The peanut gallery decides to "investigate" Goldfield Hotel, a place where a double murder of a mother and infant occurred. Did I mention it took ANOTHER 20 minutes to describe what I just said?

Before we can get to the motherfreaking point, we have to have a convoluted plot point about how the main chick's ancestor (a maid of the hotel) tipped off her employer (the owner of the hotel) that his mistress (the ghost) was cheating on him with a bartender in the hotel, and that the baby wasn't his. So the owner of the hotel went into super rage mode, killed the baby and then tortured the woman to death. Confused as hell? Too bad, because they don't really try to sort it out later.

30 minutes of the movie is just them walking around, and the main chick having flashbacks of her bitchy ancestor. Oh, and the ghost possesses slutty klepto so she'll sleep with the main chick's boyfriend, prankster douche. Why does the ghost go through the trouble of making that awkward scene happen? You're funny if you really think they'll resolve any of the plot points in this movie. Anyways, slutty klepto and prankster douche are caught in the act in one of the funniest scenes of the movie. I say funny because it is so over done, and Mr. Twilight looks completely lost throughout the whole thing.

Nothing happens for 5 minutes, and then everyone dies rapid fire. Slutty klepto gets her head or jaw chopped off. I say that because it's so damn dark that you can't see anything except blood spurting from the wound. Prankster douche gets scratched to death. Slutty klepto's boyfriend falls down some stairs. Mr. Twilight gets thrown around like a rag doll under his skull gets crushed. And finally the main chick gets killed by the ghost of the owner. I think. All you know is he burns her eyeball with a cigar and she keeps screaming. Seriously. That's how the movie ends. No final showdown, nothing is resolved. The climax is over in 5 minutes. Even better? The end credits are 7 MINUTES LONG. The movie would've been less than 80 minutes without them.

I'm not even mad at this movie. It's just boring as hell. It doesn't go anywhere, the cast is completely forgettable and the lighting is so bad that you have no idea what's going on 90% of the time. They couldn't even make the ghost some kind of tragic figure that was a victim. No, she was just a skank that cheated on the wrong dude and it came back to bite her on the ass. There, I said it. This gets a 1 out of 5. I only give it a 1 because I was able to laugh at how stupid the characters are. Other than that, stay away from this one and just watch Ghost Adventures. At least the host is hot...

Hellraiser: Revelations

Just so we're on the same page, I have no system for my reviews. I just pick the first movie that catches my eye on Netflix. Now that you know I have no freaking clue what I'm doing, let's get into the latest dog turd from Dimension Extreme: Hellraiser: Revelations.

Let me start by saying, I'm actually a big fan of Dimension Extreme. 80% of their movies are just 85 minutes of gore and penis jokes. I live for that stuff. That being said, I would still like a story and character development to go with gore and tits. This movie has none of those qualities. We start with the lazy formula of two teenage boys that take a trip to Mexico to get laid. To add to the originality, they're filming their exploits, making you think the whole movie is going to be that whole shaky camera thing I can't stand. Then out of nowhere it shows one of them opening the puzzle box from hell. He gets his face stretched out by hooks while a very fat and short Pinhead gives his whole spiel about pain and pleasure being one and the same.

While all this is going on, you're lead to believe they're showing the end of the story at the beginning. That probably would've been a vast improvement over what actually happens. For the sake of bringing 5 very annoying people together, we learn the families of the teens are close friends and have tried to bond over the "tragedy" of them missing. Don't ask me what any of their names were, because I didn't give a rat's ass. Anyways...we cut to the mother of one of the boys looking at the tape of her son's friend being skinned alive. I think we're supposed to feel bad that she has to see it, but you never do. Her daughter aka teen that is slutty for no real reason walks in, and tells her mother to suck it up because her son is probably dead and there's no point in mourning over him. Sounds like a sweetheart, huh?

We're then introduced to the other family. Less annoying, but you still look forward to their inevitable deaths. 30 minutes of flashbacks that add nothing to the story except that the son that opened the puzzle box is a mean little puke anus that feels the need to bang anything with a vagina. He screws a hooker, then kills her by bashing her bead on a toilet and leaving her to die. Keep in mind we're supposed to feel sympathy for all of these people. A random bum gives the teens a puzzle box, then out of nowhere we cut back to the families arguing about whether or not they should bring up the memory of their probably dead sons. No time to bitch about that because not so asshole-ish son shows up, bloody and confused. It took 30 minutes for him to show up. The movie is only 75 minutes long. The only scene that is worth mentioning during this whole sequence is that he tries to bone his own sister. If it wasn't for the fact that there was a jump scare of him ripping off her tit, we probably would've been subjected to a full incest sex scene. Thank god for small favors...  But wait! We're now reaching the climax of the story. I must've missed the "foreplay" of the story, but moving on...

After an explanation that still makes no sense to me, asshole son found out his mom was having an affair with not so asshole-ish son's dad, and the two decided to run away to Mexico to escape their harsh realities. Asshole son made not so asshole-ish son kill random hookers so he could absorb their blood to get his body back. Then he stole his skin, thus sending the only real likable character to get tortured by Pinhead. Asshole son then torments what's left of both families until Pinhead shows up again to take him back. Dumbass dad shoots the kid before Pinhead can have his super happy torture fun time. For reasons I still cannot understand, Pinhead takes the mother away as payment.

Slutty daughter and dumbass dad are then back in their living room. He dies of a gunshot wound that I don't remember him getting. The final scene is slutty daughter crying, reaching for the puzzle box and then staring at the camera seductively. And that my friends... is Hellraiser: Revelations. Holy crap on a cracker, this was bad.

Now there are movies that are so bad, they're good. This ain't one of them. You hate every single character and you want them to be slaughtered. Pinhead has apparently not aged well, and instead of being creeped out when he shows up you just laugh. And the hell was the damn "revelation" supposed to be? The whole affair thing that was only brought up once and no one was really upset about? The kills weren't even good, and most of the gore happened off camera. If you want to see this just to saw you've seen all of the Hellraiser movies, knock yourself out. But...this gets a big fat goose egg from me. Just because you have the ability to add to a franchise, doesn't mean you should. How could Clive Barker let this happen? The world will never know...