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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Godzilla (2014)

Well, where to start?  To be honest, I’m still in shock. I was so looking forward to this after seeing the trailer, but what a monstrous disappointment it’s turned out to be (pun indented)

The title of the film should have been: Cloverfield Monster vs The American Army plus Godzilla. In the whole 2 hour running length of the film, Godzilla appeared 4 times, and for a total of about 20 minutes. The first half hour involves Bryan Cranston’s character searching the world for the monster that killed his wife when it attacked the nuclear plant she worked at 15 years earlier… He eventually discovers that the mysterious beast is being held captive at secret base, run by an annoying scientist played Ken Watanabe.

Watanabe and his scientific college (an annoying women who looks like a frog) advise the army throughout the film.  They both seemed to have contracted ‘locked jaw’ because their response to any crisis or question, was to look down at their feet, move slowly and dramatically towards to camera (jaws trailing on the floor), and state the obvious.

Everything happened at a thousand miles per hour, leaving no time for character development, or a discernible plot of any kind. There was the usual cheesy one-liners,  ridiculous posturing American army, lots of grunting and saluting – what you’d expect from an action film this – only worse.

The only highlights were the battles between Godzilla (in his rare appearances) and the Cloverfield monster. I have to admit, Gareth Edwards actually did a great job with the look of Godzilla . He looked much more like the classic beast we know from the Japanese films, and not like the giant iguana that Roland Emmerich crapped out.

Great monster battles and CGI don’t make up for a horrendous plot. At times, I actually thought I was watching a Transformers film. Gareth Edwards may have been out of his depth with this, seeing as his previous films were low budget indie films, which is a shame because I really liked his first film: Monsters. I hope that, if there is to be a sequel, they will learn from their mistakes .

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At The Devils Door (2014)

So, the film starts with a young girl and her boyfriend hanging out with a bunch of devil worshiping weirdo’s who talk her into playing a game of “keep your eye on the cup”, the result of which will decide  whether or not she has been chosen to be possessed by the devil. 

Needless to say, the girl wins and is told by one of the cult members to stand at a road junction and say her name and the devil will appear.  She is possessed and forced to do evil things, but eventually kills herself. The devil’s spirit remains in her house and tries to find a way back into the souls of whoever lives there.

The rest film is set some thirty the years later (present day) and follows a real estate agent trying to sell the possessed house. Things take a bit too long to get going for my liking with practically nothing happening for the first half hour. The scene when the real estate agent discovers that she has just been talking to the ghost of the girl who committed suicide in the house, is just ridiculous to me.
The natural reaction would be to get the hell out of the there, but she follows the girl around the house. I mean she’s just asking for trouble.

The evil spirit passes from person to person during the film with some great shock scares along the way. The scenes where the sisters each search the house in the dark with torches are really creepy – I was just waiting for something to jump out. I found the scene with the girl standing in front of the mirror the creepiest of all -  with that sinister voice.

Altogether, this wasn't a bad effort. It slowed down and dragged in parts, but there were plenty of scares and creepy moments; and the ‘floating in the air’ possessions scenes were very convincing. This film brings something different to the possession sub-genre.

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