Weird how I hadn’t seen this one yet. I thought (particularly after the super-obscure Cathy’s Curse) I pretty much knew where all the devil children were I have to admit I was a little disappointed first when I realised Brooke Shields wasn’t the Alice of the title and then when I saw her vanish entirely from the cast within about 15 minutes of the runtime, lol; but it didn’t deter me too much from sticking with it. Shields’ performance has nothing on, say, her work in Pretty Baby a couple of years later, but really none of the performances here are particularly noteworthy – though there’s something particularly haunting about the face of the girl who does play Alice, I’m sure Brooke would’ve done just as serviceable a job.

It’s kind of like Don’t Look Now meets Mystic River at the start, with a tone similar to Mommie Dearest (but maybe that’s just the deceptively innocent sounding title working its incidious charm, hehe). In the end it’s one of those 70s horror movies that “just works” despite its flaws, and I could’ve pretty confidently told you as much before even putting it on. I know that I say that often, but somehow I can’t help it. It’ll be interesting in 20 or 30 years to see if people 20 or 30 years younger than me start saying the same of the crappy teen “horrors” of this decade, that’ll be a real noodlebaker, but for now, I can just repeat what I’ve said before, that though the technical stuff was often sprayed on the wall like so many guts in these productions, they really knew how to up the freakout factor and haunt you, be it with music, images, blood, or sound.

As I said the performances are lacking – it’d be easy to call the whole production frankly shocking, in fact. But such is the story that I’d prefer to call it abysmally stylised. Like Happy Birthday to Me, Bloody Birthday, the Slumber Party and Sleepover Camp movies, I’m even willing to give Black Christmas another shot … it was more worth my time than a lot of things lately.

This was a very odd viewing experience – I remembered this being talked about quite a while ago but I didn’t actually realise they’d ultimately made and released it, lol. I loved the first Hitcher movie, the whole storyline is one of those magical basic few like conmen and heist movies that works (just about) every time – see The Vanishing, Breakdown, Duel. As such, the only downfall of this production is really that it seems too familiar, to the point where I actually had to check back over my reviews and see if I hadn’t actually already seen it and forgotten about it (if I’m honest, after a particularly vague weekend, the jury’s still out on that one lol).

Anyway, like I say, there’s not much that can truly be done to break these stories beyond redemption and for me this hit the beats perfectly. Sean Bean is a perfectly fine substitution for Rutger Hauer, the kids in the car are a comfortable step below the glossy teens that usually populate these remakes; even the guy who plays the sheriff, a character who even in the original I seem to recall struck me as particularly creepy in his outright level-headedness lol, though his performance is annoying as hell it somehow works anyway. The “moment” at the end – it would be the hugest spoiler if I even hinted at it especially if you’ve not seen the original – it still made me nearly fall out of my chair and make an embarrassingly audible gasp (in fact, gasp is the wrong word, it was more like a combination of, “Jesus Christ!”, “No!” and gugggghhhhhh lol). Really, I don’t understand any review of this movie that doesn’t at least give it props for going all the way, just like the Texas Chainsaw remake that Michael Bay also had a hand in bringing to the screen, it’s frankly eons above the likes of Prom Night and April Fool’s Day, for god’s sake. I’m giving it an extra heart just for the sake of balance here, lol.

“He’s right. As a species we’re fundamentally insane.”

I want to get to my Mamma Mia! review so this might end up a bit short and sparse lol. I didn’t know a lot about this movie, had never read the Stephen King novella, and I guess the best way to begin here is to say: if the critics of The Happening were so negative because they were coming straight off the back of seeing this, then, I guess I can understand where they were coming from. If it’s fear, nightmare, social commentary and sheer hopelessness you were looking for, then The Mist is absolutely the movie to plump for.

Like The Happening, this is clearly not without its influences – in fact, if anything they’re only more obvious. The Fog is clearly there; that the movie restrains itself to the confines of a mall only a few minutes in immediately recalls Dawn of the Dead. But from there onward – I really can’t detail it because of the joy I got from not knowing what was coming – it’s really quite on its own.

Anyway, I’ve been a little lax in my movie watching of late due to the overwhelming distraction of TV and Second Life – I haven’t even felt comfortable in watching movies in “background mode” ‘cos my attention’s so much in the virtual world, lol. So I guess it’s high praise for me to say that I couldn’t take my eyes and ears off this one. The business of the opening scenes is superbly handled by Darabont introducing us to all the different characters we’ll be stuck with for the next two hours. When the weird happenings start happening, I was far more unsettled than I was by The Happening. And when the, uh, “other stuff” started happening later on … I really didn’t know whether to laugh or hide, and I did plenty of both.

A lot of people have talked about the ending and how down and unpredictable it is. I have to say, I didn’t find it so much surprising as it was inevitable. You kinda know what’s gonna emerge from the mist when that time comes following the incident everyone’s so shocked by. But that second vehicle that passes … that’s the one that really killed me. It’s still a cornier ending than I expected, rather like that “alternate ending” of the man with the X-Ray eyes when he plucks his eyes out and yells, “OH MY GOD, I can still SEE!” lol … but it’s still handled superbly by Darabont. It’s definitely Halloween viewing, that’s for sure.

It seemed a little crazy of me to watch this following two ‘08 movies I’d actually had a little hope for (yes, even Prom Night) and been let down so bad over. But, I don’t know, I never really stopped liking M. Night Shyamalan as some did – the furthest I drifted from him was over Unbreakable which I didn’t like at all on the first viewing. A second viewing remedied that entirely and I never entirely distrusted him since.

And you know what? After these 90 minutes, I’m still with him all the way. No – this movie is not terrifying as some people seem to have been led to expect, and if you go in with those expectations then, yes, you’re liable to wind up laughing. I’m guessing this is bad marketing – I don’t know because I don’t put myself in the position to be overexposed to such things. But if you do want to talk about the fear factor of this director’s movies, then at least compare it to Lady in the Water and The Village (two of the movies not oh-so-subtly mentioned on the poster tagline, lol) and realise, in this department at least, it’s still a slight return to form (if you like such phrases). I found the opening immediately arresting, the later scenes like with John Leguizamo and the two boys truly nightmarish, Zooey Deschanel of course stunning (what on earth are those eyes made of? lol) and the ending really quite moving.

It’s hokey and wobbly sometimes, but, y’know, I’m willing to trust that none of this is entirely unintended. Shyamalan’s shown so many times that he’s clearly a Hitchcock fan and so many of the moments particularly in this movie feel a lot more like the master of suspense’s frequent tongue-in-cheek moments than just a hack who doesn’t know what he’s doing. Whether that’s true or not, it still works for me better than the gigantic pile of crap I’ve had to expose my retinas to so far this year.

I’ve seen the original Prom Night but once – actually relatively recently, it was one of those movies that when I finally sat down to watch I felt like kind of a traitor to my film-loving reputation. It’s not a movie I’d rush to see again, but I know this: it had atmosphere, whereas this version is so full of commonly beautiful blondes and fratboys so shiny you could shatter it with the tap of a toffee hammer. There’s just nothing to speak of here – it’s as background-watchable-missable as this year’s remake of April Fool’s Day saddled with the baffling fact that someone thought it worthy of the big screen. It’s stuff like this that makes me realise no matter how bad I think I waste my time sometimes, there are always people out there doing worse with theirs.

I’m up for just about any horror movie, even the recent teenage remakes that can’t even manage to be gory enough to get a scary rating, lol; and from what I’d heard of this one, I was even more excited than usual. When Jena Malone’s name appeared in the opening credits, wow. This has a familiar set-up and story in the end, but its real selling point that, yes, it’s proper scary, proper nasty, to the point where I almost actually had to look away in places, all that cracking bone etc. Jena Malone is absolutely fantastic throughout, and as a horror movie in this day and age … you just couldn’t hope for more. Short review, but hey, it’s a simple movie

Well, colour me surprised. I thought this was my least favourite of the series, had believed some recent talk about the annoying Short Round, borderline racism etc, but none of it holds. This is riproaring from the Bugsy Malone meets Blade Runner start to the simply stunning rope bridge finale, passing through genuinely creepy crawlie, jump round every corner, horror and mine rollercoasters midway. I personally find Short Round hilarious, and John Williams adds even more catchy themes to the series score. The whole thing is just breathtakingly non-stop, at times almost hilariously so – it’s still semi-episodic in structure but rather than the episodes starting and finishing in their entirety they just keep on coming and flowing into one another. I absolutely loved it this time around, I think it’s this one that Crystal Skull will really have a hard time topping for me.

Last Alice movie for now, lol, I promise – normal service will resume soon. Oh and I did watch this yesterday – well, early this morning – I just, y’know, had to sleep eventually Most of this was written while watching anyway.

I was worried at first here because I have an horrendously dubbed version of this perhaps the creepiest of all Alice adaptations. Luckily, it’s really more about the images and sound effects than anything, the dialogue being mostly either sparse or redundant (I’d say at least 50% of it consists of “said the rabbit” lol which in the end becomes very annoying) – which makes the very first line, “this is a film for children. But remember to shut your eyes, or else you won’t see anything!” deliciously ironic in addition to being a fine warning for those of a sensitive disposition (I’ll just say it was probably unwise of me to add this to the schedule at the last minute as the last thing I watch before bedtime at 4 in the morning, lol – I’m writing this while watching because I’m sure in the morning I’ll either plainly think I dreamt it or will have merged it inseparably with whatever nightmares I might have after a full afternoon and evening of Alice …)

In short, it’s “Alice: The WTF Edition” – the images are so arresting and nightmarish that you genuinely can’t take your eyes off them; the sound and pace so visceral that you genuinely fear for the actress in the lead, for example when the mouse (actually it’s more like a rat here) in the pool of tears sets up camp on her head thinking it’s an island, hammering sticks into her scalp, her only protest “That’s too far!” coming as he tries to set fire to her hair. Perhaps surprisingly given the wacky means by which it’s done, the movie actually stays pretty close to the story – which makes it even more amazing that it feels so unpredictable compared to other adaptations. Each time, for example, that Alice breaks into one of the tiny desks that litter her journey, I found myself seriously not knowing what might come out of it or where she might be taken next or what might happen to her. It somehow lulls you into a state of anxiety, something that’s perfectly understandable when it comes to Alice but that none of the other adaptations really do so well as this one.

At 90 minutes the jerky motion and incessant sound effects certainly start to grate towards the end – I’ve a feeling this might be something that’s not so bad in the original Czech language version with the truly horrible dubbing girl’s voice taken away … in any case, it’s still another great interpretation of the story that’s worth watching if you like seeing things you’ve never seen before.