Blade Runner (1982)

Having seen Blade Runner in its several different incarnations around forty times over the years, I may have been forgiven for getting a little tired of the film. However, after viewing The Final Cut of the film at the cinema last night, I found myself covered liberally in goosebumps and left in awe of the brilliance of what I was watching. The opening scene of a fast, fire-breathing industrial landscape combined with the haunting Vangelis score, had the same effect on me as it always has - amazement.

 From the start I was seamlessly immersed in the intoxicating atmosphere of a rainswept, polluted, and over crowded dystopian Los Angeles. Very loosely adapted from the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep the film maintains the basis of the books story and the questions it asks the reader. The question of life to put it simply - what is it, can man create it, should he - questions we will no doubt one day have to answer. Whilst the plot of the film is quite simple, the film is full of ambiguous overtones, both philosophical and ethical. There is one fundamental question asked by this dark dystopian story, where men have practically become gods with their mastery of genetic engineering: what makes us human?

 Rutger Hauer’s performance is outstanding. As a replicant seeking to live longer, he ironically seems to be the most alive of all the characters in the film. In contrast with Deckard, who seems to be in a constant state of apathy. The "Tears in the Rain" ending of the film always has an effect on me, but in the cinema it was an altogether different experience - the greatest experience I've had to date.

 The combination of dystopian sci-fi and film noir blend perfectly to create a dark, melancholy atmosphere. The city itself has it has a life of its own - probably the most effective vision of a dystopian city ever brought to the screen. In my opinion, Blade Runner is the greatest and most influential sci-fi ever made. It set the benchmark for all proceeding non-space based sci-fi, and remains a timeless masterpiece.

 In a world where technology has taken over, we have destroyed the environment and most animals are extinct and corporations have become gods, one can only wonder if Ridley Scott has made an accurate predication of the future.

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The Gambler (2014)

I don't know what message the directer was trying to get across with this mess but I hope it's remains neatly buried in his lower intestine.

A wealthy and successful writer and university professor, Mark Wahlberg, transforms into a compulsive gambling waster every time he steps foot in the seedy and sanitationaly questionable backstreet gambling dens he frequents in his spare time.

While he's not spewing out his self-opinionated absurdly contrived sewage at his students, he tries his best to lose as much money as possible betting ridiculous amounts on games of blackjack, whilst pissing off gangsters, loan sharks and his millionaire mother in the process. What the motivation is for his behavior is anyone's guess: rebelling against his wealthy upbringing, living inline with his chaos theory-like, nihilistic, bullsh1t philosophy of life..? Whatever his motivation, he comes across as the most loathsome little sh1t imaginable.

 To cut a long story short, he pays off his debts and decides he's not a gambler anymore, making most of this terrible tripe a pointless build-up to nothing. I was hoping his creditors would at least castrate or torture him to death, what a shame.

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Chappie (2015)

It was a good idea directed badly. For most of the film I kept asking myself if it were all a joke or if I was hallucinating, surely no one could have intentionally created characters as ridiculous and a script so lame as this. And so the plot goes: Dev 'Slumdog' Patel plays a scientist who has created a robot police force which has cut crime in Johannesburg by 90% Hugh Jackman, his rival in the same robotics company and is himself looking for approval to deploy his own much larger robot. It's just like the plot of Robocop, but instead of having Clarence Boddicker and his gang to deal with, the robot police have a collection of unlikely and brightly coloured villains, who look like characters from 90's video games.

 After an accident, one robot in the factory is due to be scrapped, but Dev Patel saves him and implants his new breakthrough artificial intelligence software into the droid's memory. The mindless automaton becomes self aware but has the mind of a child, at which point the young scientist is kidnapped by a gang of criminals, who intend to use 'Chappie' the newly conscience robot, to pull off a daring heist. Now most of the film is wasted with the attempts of the inept and quite frankly ridiculous looking criminals to teach Chappie how to be a criminal. These bad ass gangsters have an affinity for brightly coloured things, crap haircuts, and even worse tattoos. That, and the acting from the trio of crims leaves a lot to be desired. Hugh Jackman, who looks just as silly as the criminals in this weird film - looking like a cross between Indiana Jones and Steve Irwin - eventually turns bad, and tries to kill everyone in sight with his huge battle robot , 'The Moose'.

 If it weren't for the battle scenes I'd have 2-starred this film. The entertaining and impressive special effects during such scenes was just what I was expecting from Blomkamp. It's just a shame that he didn't pay as much attention to the rest of the film. It could have been the new Short Circuit (or a least a very violent Short Circuit.) I liked the ending, which leaves you wondering about a possible sequel. All in all, a bit of a misfire from Blomkamp who, as he proved with District 9, is capable of a lot better.

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Dead Snow (2009)

This low budget Norwegian zombie flick shouldn't really work, but it does. Filled with every single horror movie cliche and trope, it's one of those films that are ridiculous in a good way. The story revolve around a group of medical students on holiday in the remotest part of the Norwegian wilderness they could find.

The characters are the biggest cliche of all, from the deadlocked women who looks like a predator, the quintessential attractive blondes, to the fat film geek guy - who is the source of many a horror movie reference during the film.

After the unlikely group settle in, the not so unlikely drunken party starts, a party which is soon interrupted by a knock of the door of the cabin...The knock is the local weirdo with a scary tail to tell. The man proceeds to tell the group about the legend of a lost Nazi battalion whose evil presence remains on the mountain.

Well it doesn't take long before the man's fears are realized, and the group soon start dropping like flies, and it drops to a few remaining to survivors to face the ravenous army of Nazi zombies. The group of remaining characters, one resembling Ash from Evil Dead, with an amputated arm and chainsaw combo, dispense with the zombie horde in more and more over-the-top and super gory ways.

The special effects are pretty convincing for such a low budget indie film, and each zombie death is more original and mega gory  than the next. Dead Snow is good old-fashioned comedy horror fun. A little indie gem which is up there among the best comedy horrors that I've seen.

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Dead End (2003)

On Christmas Eve Frank Harrington (Ray Wise) is driving  his family to his in-laws for Christmas and decides to take a shortcut. Things soon start to go wrong, as the road they are on seems neverending and they are terrorised by the ghost of a young woman.


The film is described as a 'horror thriller' on its IMDb page, but to me it seemed more like a comedy, mainly due to the hilarious antics of Frank Harrington himself. With constant over-the-top reactions and wise cracks, Ray Wise is hilarious in this film. With his dum daughter, annoying son in-law and crazy wife nagging him all the way, he soon starts to crack up.


The family members soon start disapearing one by one, and the last you see of them are their faces stuck to the back window of a mysterious black hurse which drives past them in part of some morbid death ritual.


The film feels like a horror version of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. By the way they are set up, even the scares seem like they are meant to be funny rather than scary. Dead End isn't to be taken seriously as a horror, even if that was what the director intended.

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Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

When I first saw the trailer for Edge of Tomorrow pop up on TV, with that cheesy music and slow motion battle scenes, I thought "oh god..not another Battle L.A!". But how wrong I was. This sci-fi action film has come out of nowhere into to my Top 3 films of the year, and will probably stay there till New Year.

Tom Cruise plays the unlikely role of a coward turned savior -- we are normally used to seeing this 5 foot 5 inch action dynamo playing the hero -- so it was a little strange to see him play such a character; his performance, however, was top notch.

Edge of Tomorrow is a rarity when it comes to summer blockbusters in that it is smart, well-written, funny,complex, isn't made by Marvel or DC, and most important, it makes sense. The main point everyone was discussing about the film was the time loop element, which I first thought would have made the film repetitive and boring, but the way it was incorporated into the plot created the opposite effect.

 The visuals are outstanding. From the first D-day style battle scene to the thrilling final battle. The design of the soldier suits looks fantastic, giving it all a very near-future feel. I really liked the design of the aliens as well. But where it truly excels is in a handful of action sequences and some stunning set pieces.

The cast was pretty good. Emily Blunt was very convincing as the bad-ass soldier hero and Bill Paxton should of had more screen time - he was hilarious. Cruise was Cruise - great. He may have acted in some poorly written films recently (Oblivion not included), but he always puts in a solid performance.

Edge of Tomorrow is the surprise of the year. A well-made, fun, sci-fi action film, which has cult classic written all over it.

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The Quiet Ones (2014)

The Quite Ones is one of the most ridiculous films I've seen in a long time. The story is ludicrous. A mad professor and his assistants (two posh boys and a slapper with a nice arse) set out to perform an experiment on a young mentally ill girl, who was recently released from a nuthouse. After losing funding from Oxford University for his ridiculous experiment, the professor moves it out to a large dilapidated country house.

The fact that Oxford Uni would have anything to do with such an experiment is what makes the whole premise of the films plot so ridiculous. A young girl, who has previously attempted suicide, is subjected to a series of invasive experiments, which, according to the professors theory, will summon not only an ancient demon, but also awaken the girls dormant telekinetic powers..

The film tries to pay homage to the vintage haunted house films of the 70's, and succeeded in its style and theme, but ruined it with the inclusion of found-footage.

The films trailer was actually scarier than the film. The were only two scenes that actually made me nervous, but the rest were mindbogglingly tediousness. The found-footage element was unnecessary and only used to create the contrived attempts at jump-scares which were, for the most part, unsuccessful. Lacking any original ideas as regards scaring the viewer, the filmmakers just resorted to strange noises, screaming and cheap CGI effects.

Character development was rushed and forever perplexing, the performances were pretty good, but the characters were just dumb and annoying.  The only convincing character was the professor himself (Jarid Harris) who convincingly portrayed a narcissistic madmen.  The film culminates with a cheap CGI set-piece, which is as underwhelming as most of the ninety eight minutes proceeding it.

The Quiet Ones is not very original or very scary and has a completely vacuous plot. I'm guessing most hardcore Hammer Horror fans won't be pleased with this mess. That said, it may prove entertaining to the late night Netflix viewers of the world.

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