Case 39: Ugh

Netflix has really been slacking in the awesome department as of late. It keeps suggesting I watch movies called, "Naked Vampires" and "Zombie Whores" or some similar sounding name of sexually transmitted terror. Therefore it was no surprise when Monday night rolled around and I started watching Case 39. Although to be fair, the main reason I began watching it was because I forgot if I liked Renee Zellweger or not. Is that how you spell Zellweger? Oh well, I'm over it.

So anyways. Case 39 is pretty terrible. This isn't even going to be a real review I'm just going to talk about how ridiculous and terrible this movie was. Which I guess is no different from how I do regular reviews. Hmmph.

Emily is a social worker who has a lot of cases and she's swamped. She has 38 cases, and then her boss tells her she has to do one more. Which tada! Equals 39. Ding ding. Case 39 involves a young girl named Lily? I forget actually and now I'm too lazy to look that up on IMDB so I guess I'll just make up names from now on. Alright so Lily seems like an abused child, afraid to speak up against her extremely weird and apparently religious parents. Emily however has a feeling and luckily her feelings turn out to be right because in the middle of the night Emily catches Lily's parents trying to burn her alive in the oven!

Now with Lily parentless, Emily temporarily adopts her and soon learns that her parents may have had the right idea.

Honestly, I lost it when the parents put her in the oven. Of all the methods of quickly dispatching some evil demon child, you pick the slowest and most ridiculous way ever? What happened to slitting someone's throat? What happened to stabbing? Suffocating? Really? An oven? That's what you got? Oh yeah sorry SPOILER Lily is actually some weird and evil demon that kills people in ominous ways. Sorry to ruin the surprise.

Actually the oven incident reminded me of something awesome believe it or not--THE THING.

It's just like in the beginning when the Norwegians are trying to shoot the dog and you're all like nooooo noooooo not the dog! But then later you're all like----well shit, they should have shot that fucking dog. Yup, same deal here.

The thing is---Lily seems to turn into the evil demon that she's apparently always been seemingly overnight. There's no gradual change of her character. There are literally NO hints that we would ever think she was anything but a sweet angel. It's not until she has an insanely awkward therapy session with Bradley Cooper that her meanness starts to come out. Yes, Bradley Cooper is in this. I think his name was....Steve? No that's not right.... D......DOUG! That was definitely it.

So the skinny on Doug is that his biggest fear is wasps. Of course he tells demon child Lily this, who uses it against him. This scene is perhaps even more ridiculous than the oven incident. Doug hears buzzing somewhere and then takes a Q-tip to his ear.....

only to unearth a wasp!

Naturally the scene progresses for like 15 minutes and involves wasps coming out of just about every single one of Doug's orifices. I mean we don't see them come out of the butt, but let's just say I'm sure they did okay?

This scene gives a whole new meaning to NOT THE BEES.

Oh and they're super CGI-fied so it makes it even more ridiculous. They even swarm on his back and kind of look like an Ed Hardy shirt.

No? In the end, they fly out of his mouth and start attacking him and then somehow, Doug breaks his own neck (?) I'm still confused about it but at some point the entire sink fell out of the wall, so I guess things were serious.

Anyways the movie progresses steadily into laughable realms of insanity. I guess the main thing I can't get past, is that Case 39 in a round about sort of way kind of....encourages child abuse? I mean okay, I know Lily is the devil but you must admit there is something odd about a social worker rescuing a young girl, taking her on, and then agreeing with the maniac parents that the only solution is to kill her. It just seemed so..............what's the word I keep using? Oh yeah, RIDICULOUS. It's like Case 39 just wants to explode into all different levels of under the radar inappropriateness. There's something unsettling about seeing Emily waiting for Lily to come home from school while she hides a knife behind her back.

So yeah. Case 39? Not good. Don't see it, unless you are using it for comedic purposes only.

Here is the wasp scene for your viewing pleasure.

The Ward: Broke My Computer

The Ward is not a very good movie. In fact, it's a terrible movie as evidenced by the fact that once I was done watching it, my water bottle, acting out of its own free will, decided to douse my Macbook with water and destroy it. Now because of The Ward, I have no computer and am forced to use Emmy Doomas' Dell which likes to randomly highlight things and also the keys are too close together so I'm typing like a 4th grader or a really really old person. Seriously, thanks a lot The Ward. Thanks.

In all honesty, I knew that John Carpenter's long awaited return to horror in the form of The Ward, was not met with a lot of happiness. I however like to give things a chance and therefore I decided that before I refused to ever hang out with The Ward, it would do me good to get to know it on my own terms. My own terms have now been achieved and the verdict is of course that The Ward totally stinks. Here is why.

The Ward centers around Kristen, a girl who gets picked up by police after burning down a house. She has no idea why she did it and has no memories of anything prior to the house. She gets put in a mental institution with other girls and soon finds out that a mean corpsey ghost is haunting the ward and killing off the girls one by one. Who is this corpsey ghost and wait a minute, aren't we supposed to be finding out why Kristen is there?

See, that's one of the main reasons The Ward does not work for me. We are set up thinking that we are watching a movie where little by little we come to find out the truth of our heroine's past. This however gets immediately shoved to the side by the existence of a ridiculous and stupid "ghost". Suddenly, The Ward falls from being an eerie psychological thriller, to an Asian movie with a ghost. This is forgive me for saying, stupid.

Stupid because the parts with the ghosts AKA the entire movie are centered around the very idea of cop outs. There is NOTHING scary about The Ward and we know this because the "scares' are represented by jumps and things that force us to be scared. Instead of building up the creepy atmosphere of the ward, the corpsey hands and stupid face of the ghosts are crammed down our throats. It's so disappointing. Any movie that completely wastes the atmosphere of a creepy mental institution is an asshole in my book.

Additionally, the acting is entirely unconvincing, complete with lines like "No! Noooo! Not that!" really awful stuff. The ghost also apparently studied torture at the school of nonsense because honestly--why is a ghost taking the time to strap someone down and use various forms of psychotherapy to kill them? It doesn't make sense.

Which brings to my final point---The Ward does not make any sense. Once the twist is revealed, the Ward becomes one of those movies that suddenly loses all of its creditability. It almost seems to come as a sort of disrespect for the audience in a way--to completely negate every single thing they have just watched. It's so ridiculous that it makes you laugh out loud. If you want to talk ridiculous involving the plot twist, do so in the comments section and I will join you.

So in closing---The Ward is horrible. Please do not watch it unless you want to waste an hour and 30 minutes of your life. And since The Ward is so sucky and because it destroyed my computer, you can expect posting to be minimal until payday when I can buy a new computer. I'm not sure how much more of this Dell I can take...............

Dead Silence: All The Things She Said Running Through My Head Running Through My Head ALL THE THINGS SHE SAID

Sometimes Netflix plays tricks on you. One minute you're waiting in eager anticipation for The Baby to be delivered to you and the next, Dead Silence is being sent to you because The Baby decided to fall into the dreaded, "Long Wait" land. I keep forgetting to populate the top of my queue with films that I actually want to see in case this ever happens but darn it--I FORGOT. This is why I was subjected to an hour and 30 minutes of terribleness. Curse you Dead Silence and all you Saw loving people that made it.

I will tell you all right now that I hate movies like Dead Silence. I have many reasons for this so don't worry but I'm letting you know right now that I hate it. Actually, I just ate a pretzel and changed my mind. Instead of a review this post is going to be a list of reasons why I hate Dead Silence.

1. Sloppiness

Dead Silence, like many of the more current horror films being released is interesting in its idea yet poorly executed. Dead Silence falls victim to bad story telling in this case and is populated by the ever pressing need to cram as many ridiculous things into it at once. We start with a simple premise of a woman who was mysteriously murdered by what appears to be a ventriloquist dummy. We then catch wind of some broad named Mary Shaw who happens to have her own creepy nursery rhyme. THEN there's some old town history. THEN the real story behind Mary Shaw and THEN the idea of all of her ventriloquist dummies being her children, THEN the fact that Mary probably killed some kid and how her dummies all can come to life yet she only decides to use Billy and then oh right if you scream, she kills you and blah blah blah then PLOT TWIST. Right.

The plot of this movie is perfectly aligned to the image of Mary Shaw's tongue licking people.

It feels stupid, it looks stupid and it is stupid. There's simply too many ridiculous things happening at once that it becomes hard for it to hold your attention.

2. Improper Use of Creepy Dolls

Creepy dolls are one of those things that is not hard to mess up. By nature, dolls are creepy, and putting them in any movie is usually a sure way to win a lot of scares. The problem with Dead Silence is that it completely abuses that power. The dolls are not scary in Dead Silence because they look too current, feel kind of Gothic (Billy's eyeliner was a little thick), and are often assisted by use of CGI. Not only that, they just don't do anything creepy other than move their eyes to the side.

I expected Dead Silence to scare the pants off of me in the doll department. I was once so terrified of a Daisy Duck marionette puppet I had received as a Christmas present, that I threw it in my closet and never looked back. Dead Silence however, made me laugh. What a waste of some real creepy potential.

3. Improper Use of Donnie Wahlberg

I came to a sad realization today. Donnie Wahlberg briefly had some true potential in his acting career. Take a look at the Sixth Sense--his role as Vincent Grey was one of the most chilling things to happen in the entire film.

Pop Quiz:

Donnie Wahlberg is cast in a movie, what part does he get?

A. Detective

B. Guy with Boston Accent

C. Detective with Boston Accent

D. Douche bag with Boston Accent

E. All of these, usually.

The correct answer is obviously E. Take a look at his IMDB credits. I was pretty unsurprised to find that about 80% of them involve the words Detective or Lieutenant. Movies like this only enforce the stereotype that Donnie Wahlberg can only play one character. Characters like this that have to carry around an electric shaver in their pocket--turn Donnie Wahlberg into a farce. A FARCE. Get this man some normal roles that do not involve being a cocky douche bag. I know he can do it.

4. CGI

Mary Shaw had the potential to also be really scary, seeing as how she could float all over the place and seeing as how her face looked scary and stuff like that. But really good make up was often times replaced by terrible CGI, which diminished her scare factor quite a bit.

Not only that, but the victims' faces were terrible looking. The first time I didn't know what it meant. Did Victor Crowley rip their face in half?

It also wasn't even a little bit gross which is quite surprising seeing as how this film comes from the Saw people. But this problem also goes back to the film's overall sloppiness. Seemingly important details about how or why Mary Shaw does what she does is conveniently left out till crucial parts later in the film. Like how suddenly, we aren't suppose to scream and oh FYI the victims look like that because their tongues got ripped out...? CGI ruins everything.

God, even the buildings were CGI. I have a really hard time believing that a structure like the giant sized theater existed in the 1940s. If you want to creep people out use a real creepy building that doesn't look like someplace Jigsaw took his latest victims to.

5. Boring

It took me all day to watch this movie. I stopped it about 50 times because it was incredibly boring. Slow burners are great, but Dead Silence doesn't do anything in the time that it is being slow. Nothing happens that builds the suspense. Nothing happens that excites me. And nothing makes me feel like cowering behind a blanket. In fact the number one offense that Dead Silence truly commits--is that it really isn't scary in the slightest. There are fake scares, also known as jump scares--but that's about it.

One of the more annoying things that I noticed was that the audience was often given too much of a look into what was happening. Because we already know that people were killed in some brutal way (because we saw it), the whole idea of the victims' "voice" calling out to the main guy (I already forget his name because I hate this movie so much) was completely useless as a means to create suspense. We have to sit there and watch main guy search around an empty building for god knows how long till he figures out that the person is dead. WE KNOW THEY ARE DEAD. It was just a really strange choice. Suspense and anxiety could have been utilized in a much better way--like more shots of Billy being somewhere, and then not--Or maybe taking a more classic route--scary noises! Anything is better than what happened here.

6. I Don't Get It

I don't get why Mary Shaw is strangely gifted with a supernatural power of limitless proportions. Or why her tongue can get that long and gooey. Is she a witch? How does she do things? Why can she do those things? To me it isn't warranted. As far as we know she was just a batty old lady who had an unhealthy relationship with ventriloquist dolls. She made no deal with the devil, she wasn't dabbling in VooDoo and she actually was kind of a shitty ventriloquist (I could see your lips moving too Mary). I agree that bad guys don't necessarily need explanation but all those bad guys are so terrifying that we don't need to know. Their evil creates their power--Mary Shaw however is just a scary old lady. What's her schtick really? She's just not defined enough as a "bad person".

I also don't get the whole perfect doll business. That woman's a doll? Really? I don't buy it because she is not created with the use of CGI.

7. Ugly

I admit I'm not a fan of the Saw generation of film making. It's such a huge leap away from the kind of horror films that I love. It feels so ugly to me. Like no care is taken in the film making. It doesn't have to be literally beautiful---but just appreciated, respected. No care is really taken here at all. There's an attempt maybe in showing one really bright red car in a landscape of filth but it isn't pulled off.

Industrial, gritty, blue, grey, black. It's drab, it's kind of nihilistic and I don't like it at all.

Okay I'm tired. Look. Dead Silence could have been somebody-- but it's not. It's poorly executed, it's too all over the place, it's not scary and it does nothing for me. It's fine if it does something for you--really, I'm happy for you but unfortunately I think it is pretty terrible. It's just the less talented, less attractive cousin of Saw--which isn't saying much to begin with. I also did not appreciate that blatant Saw rip off at the end there. I think they may have even used the same music for the big reveal! And nice try...sneaking in the little Saw doll into this shot.

I'm not fooled.

So.............yeah that's all. I mean it's saying something if I wanted to go watch Frogs instead of this right?

In other news...

Remember t.A.T.u? Fake lesbians! I just noticed they aren't even making out in half of these shots. Fake lesbians. Fake Kissing. What's next? Fake feelings?

Pigs: Turns Out Is NOT About Killer Pigs. Disappointing.

The cover of this movie says it all as clear as day. A hungry and vicious looking horde of pigs attack a woman, their pig teeth (?) snarling, the tag line reading, "Once the pigs tasted blood...no one could control their hunger!" So immediately one would think- Yes! Pigs that kill people. Yes! But sadly no- Pigs is really just about some fucked up woman and an old man who covers up her crimes by feeding the bodies to pigs. Not as cool as it sounds believe it or not.

Lynn was sexually abused by her father- until one night she brutally murdered him with a knife and was sent to a psychiatric hospital where she under went shock therapy. One night a nurse and the doctor get frisky- giving Lynn the chance to don nurse clothes and get the hell out of there. She steals a car and makes her way into some backwoods town where she takes a job as a waitress at a shady looking place. Mr. Zambrini runs the place and is rumored to kill people, and/or pillage cemeteries and feed the bodies to his pigs. One night, Lynn gets almost raped by a customer which sets her off. She feigns sexual attraction the next night and then brutally kills him. Zambrini helps her by cleaning up the scene and feeding the body to the pigs. Unfortunately the town, which seems to have a growing population of 5 people- starts catching on- and the only cop tries to put a stop to it.

So I won't pretend I wasn't sorely mislead by this movie's poster, title and tag line. I also won't pretend that I was positive this move was going to turn into a 70s low budget porn movie. I suppose the title could be used in a kind of Cannibal Holocaust way- who are the true pigs? The men who try to rape Lynn? Or is Lynn a pig in disguise? It's a strange idea that is in no way shape or form backed up by any part of this movie. Even the whole pig situation is the dodgiest thing in the world. Apparently the pigs become dead bodies because they eat the dead people? Or the pigs are actually people?

Basically pigs have nothing to do with anything. Lynn is a psychopath who is dealing with some PTSD and kills every living man imaginable. I actually kind of came to resent that fact that they represented Lynn in such a psychopathic way- because you aren't allowed to kill your father who has been raping you for years? What? You're not allowed to do that? Are you? Anyways- I guess getting raped elicits psychopathic tendencies and makes you lose any hope of recovering your true self again. I guess that's kind of an over the top analysis but I did think it was a strange choice.

The movie isn't great in case you haven't caught on by now. It's really dark. And I don't mean dark in a depressing meaningful tonal way- it's just dark as shit. Half the time I was squinting at the screen and trying to turn my brightness up more until I realize the movie was just fucking dark. Also the pig's squeals were probably the worst sound in the world. I'm talking a heard of elephants being run over by Optimus Prime with Miley Cyrus playing in the background-awful. I wanted to saw my face in half.

It was interesting to see this sort of spin on a back woods tale- where the supposed psycho hill billy is actually normal and the visitor is the psycho. Although- Zambrini really did feed dead bodies to pigs so.... yeah. I don't know anymore. This movie was all kinds of bad. Perhaps it was wrongly placed in the "Classics" section of Netflix or maybe I ate too many snowman cookies today and cannot appreciate classic cult film because of it. All I know is- I wanted to see some pigs fuck some people up and I got nothing. Instead I got an hour and 19 minute look into Lynn's therapy session.

So basically- I'd rather just watch this pig.

Paranormal Entity: The Feel Good Comedy of the Year.

Paranormal Entity is the latest creation from the production company we all know and love- The Asylum. Most popular for their capitilizing on a blockbuster technique (perhaps you've heard of Snakes on a Train) Paranormal Entity is an attempt to mooch off Paranormal Activity and ends up being the same exact movie except with richer main characters.

The best part about Paranormal Entity is that everything that happened in Paranormal Activity is attempted and one upped. Although Micah and Katie had an abnormally nice apartment for one working person- they still could only afford one camera. The family in Paranormal Entity however, is able to put a camera in every single room! A camera on a tripod nonetheless. This makes it much easier for the demon to make his presence known. Which is a relief because I heard that during Paranormal Activity, the demon was constantly frustrated because his disturbances in the living room were never recorded- thank god he moved onto a richer and more annoying family. This family also has two ovens- which doesn't have anything to do with the movie but it's just more proof that they are rich and begs the question- why does anyone need two ovens? Seriously, I hate the concept of two ovens more than I hate that annoying commercial with those twin girls advertising two ovens.

The other hilarious part is that there is a horrid undertone of incest. The brother's first words to his scantily clad sister are something along the lines of blah blah here is my sister "isn't she pretty?" what brother says that? And then if that wasn't worse he later video tapes her "by mistake" coming out of the bathroom in her bra and underwear. And then of course in the last frame we get her naked body. Lovely. Which actually begs another very important question. Although the constant camera work of Micah was annoying in Paranormal Activity- most of the things that happened are caught at night while the camera is on the tripod. In Paranormal Entity, when the sister is screaming bloody murder and being raped by the devil- the brother freaks out and grabs the camera immediately. Really? Is that really your first impulse? I guess all beliveability goes out the window with these kinds of films.

The final hilarious thing that happened in relation to Paranormal Activity was instead of demon footprints in baby powder on the floor- this demon breaks open the father's urn- and uses his ashes to walk ON THE CEILING. He's so resourceful.

So pretty much- if you want a really good laugh and view this movie as more of a spoof rather than an actual attempt at a movie you will be OK- otherwise this one is best left alone.

Darkness Falls: Right. Add That Movie To My I'd Rather Die Than Watch That Again List.

After sitting through Darkness Falls I would really enjoy it if I could have that hour and 20 minutes of my life back. What is this shit? I feel like someone just tied me down and forced me to watch 10 hours of Saved By the Bell the New Class. Completely and utterly pointless.

Let's start with the opening. A calming man's voice tells us the story of how the tooth fairy came into being. The guy told the story so sweetly I thought we were listening to a delightful story told by a nice little grandpa- or possibly the opening of a Disney movie. Then comes plot hole number one. This incredibly nice woman who gave children money for their teeth- gets burned. She can only go outside at night and wears a porcelain mask. Then 2 kids go missing. The town knew it was the woman and hung her??? ????? Ummm did I miss something? How did they know it was her? Because she only goes out at night? Yeah I guess. So now this tooth fairy woman seeks revenge by killing anyone that looks at her. Ok...

So fast forward to the present day- some kid loses his last tooth- catches a glimpse of the tooth fairy and then she kills his Mom. That's nice. Only- the Mom didn't look at the tooth fairy. So there goes that theory! After the Mom gets killed the police suspect it was the boy and send him off to a mental institution. Are there police investigations in this town? Possibly a little thing called evidence? There is no way the boy could ever have been held responsible for that. Oh and right before this all goes down the kid shares his first kiss with this girl he has a crush on. Which is another thing. This kid is probably about 12 maybe 13- and he's only losing his last baby tooth now?

Enough about this dumb plot. This movie just makes no sense at all. The characters are undeveloped, there is little to NO atmosphere created- we have no idea what the town of Darkness Falls is like because it's never even shown to us. The title girl has been fixated for her whole life on the kid she had her first kiss with when she was 12? Get outta town! Not to mention the acting is bad, the writing is atrocious and the plot holes are so numerous I lost count after 20 minutes. No character's actions are justified- they seem to be just doing things because it's in the script- and worst of all the movie relies entirely upon the scare tactic of a jolt. There is a surprising jolt probably every 5 minutes- and I'm not exaggerating. The ending was horiffically laughable- and FYI if you ever need to get rid of an evil tooth fair, just stick your arm in a lighthouse's broken flaming light and stick it in her face- call her a bitch too while you're at it.

Yikes. I can't believe I just watched that entire movie. I feel like I need to detox that heinousness from my head. Now for your enjoyment get a load of these killer lines.

Caitlin: It's okay, Michael. It's okay.
Michael: Caitlin, come on. It's safe.
Caitlin: Get out from under the bed. Come on, this is ridiculous.
Michael: No, you get under here.
Caitlin: Come on, Michael. Get out from under the bed. There's nothing to worry about.
Michael: Caitlin, No!
Caitlin: Okay, let's stay under the bed.

Nurse: What is wrong with you people! What's he doing here? I'm calling the police.
Kyle: Police are dead.
Caitlin: All of them?
Kyle: Pretty much.

Hahahahaha......ahahahaha....oh it just cracks me up!

See? I Told You Gimpy People Can Have Sex Too...

This is probably the worst movie I have ever seen. The only reason you should ever watch this movie is to confirm the absolute insanity and horror that somebody actually made and put this film out there.

Lindsay Lohan plays 2 people, stigmatic twins who don't know the other exists. One girl is named Aubrey and is a good student who plays piano-she gets abducted by a serial killer. Later, Dakota Moss, a trashy stripper who's arm and foot fell off one day turns up and everyone thinks it's Aubrey. Ummm soo Dakota knows who is killing her other self and tries to find her other self before it is too late. Oh and the killer is the creepy piano teacher.

It's just bad. The story doesn't make sense, they try to do cool color signifiers that don't work, there is an awkward porno style sex scene, the possibility of Dakota's limbs falling off because Aubrey's are being cut off is very strange and absurd. And I don't know it's just bad bad bad.

I don't want to talk about it anymore but this is really not worth anyone's time. And although many people say that blah blah blah it only happened in Aubrey's head because when she's in trouble she gets so consumed into her story that she's written about Dakota that it's like an alternate personality but whatever even if that was the case it wasn't well done-And like a bad twist ending it completely ruins and cancels out everything that happened in the movie...not that there was much to ruin anyways.

Here's that awesome sex scene I was talking about, and yes that cheesy porn music is really in the movie.