A list of bad movies I’ve seen recently:
I was wondering why I have reviewed so little movies recently, despite the fact that I watch 2 or 3 movies per week. Then I realized that not many of them are any good. They’re not bad enough to motivate me into a tirade but not good enough to inspire me to write about them. Anyways, here’s the list, and the skinny on each film.
Just to be warned, the DVD box covers and posters are scarier than the films. Naturally, this is just my opinion, actual results may vary.
Hollow (2012)
There is no reason for it to be a found footage film; the story could have been told more effectively without all the shaky camera and POV. Even among FF films it was sub-par – the shots cut every 8 seconds – are you telling me someone videotaping is going to have that many cuts in their footage? No way! There is a giant old tree with a legend/back-story on this young woman’s family property – something about the spirit in the tree makes people commit suicide. I wanted to commit suicide about halfway through this movie.
Intruders (2012)
This started out decent, a reaper looking entity stalking a young boy in his apartment in Spain. Then we switch to a family in England and a little girl seeing the same entity. Then the film switches back and forth a half dozen times between these two stories with no explanation. The suspense and creepiness established in the 1st scene falls by the wayside… so does my patience. Didn’t get to the end. Fell asleep, then turned it off. Never looked back.
Let Me In (2010)
A young boy, who is often bullied, is befriended by a vampire girl. I don’t see what is so great about this story. It was more like a Sunday afternoon movie about first loves than anything horror. So the girl has a bad habit of killing people and drinking their blood? Don’t we all have some bad habits? How many inane vampire stories can I tolerate! Let me OUT!
Dread (2009)
This film took quite a bit of time to make you familiar with some likeable characters, just to chop ’em all up and destroy them at the end. The thing about torture movies like Hostel and I Spit on Your Grave, that makes them worth watching, is the victim/hero finally gets revenge in the end, and we cheer when the sadist/torturer meets his demise. The ending of this film was just too dismal and after all that time (over an hour) of character development, the ending just doesn’t pay off. The dread comes when you realize you spent nearly 2 hrs. watching this dreadful movie.
The Presence (2010)
If I wanted lingering shots of the countryside lake and the beautiful wooded cabin interior, I would have watched some vacation/holiday home videos. A ghost appears but just stands there. He doesn’t look like a ghost – he looks like a person. He never does anything, am I supposed to be scared? The woman’s boyfriend shows up at the cabin, they argue, they bicker. They bore me to death – maybe I’m a ghost now.
parlor of horror 
The Presence and Intruders were sooooo boring. I liked the way they both started and the way they were shot but jeez try to entertain us somehow. I’ll steer clear of the others. Thanks and good post!
The cover and trailer to Hollow looked so promising but it outbeats the other two in the boredom factor.
oh wow. really? haha 😀
“They’re not bad enough to motivate me into a tirade but not good enough to inspire me to write about them.”
I often have this same problem. Your solution of writing a bunch of mini reviews is a good one.
I can’t believe you didn’t like Let Me In! It’s so much more complicated than a story of first love. Were her feelings genuine? Or was it just part of her mind games since she was actually preying on the boy’s innocence, loneliness, vulnerability, and poor socioeconomic lot in life, seducing him because she needed him to replace her ‘servant’? The older man who seemed to play a fatherly role in her life was merely her slave—he was the previous poor lonely kid she seduced decades before—she’s eternally a child, so she dupes some kid with a tragic life into needing her and professing his dedication to her. Then this kid spends decades taking care of her, bringing her food, living a nomadic life to protect her identity, getting older while she remains young, and eventually needing to be replaced. And to complicate the depth of their relationship, it was hinted at in the original foreign version of the film (Let the Right One In) that she wasn’t actually even a girl, and the complicated truth about her gender is explicitly detailed in the novel. It’s really a somber, dark, psychological, humanistic tale of vampirism, both paranormally and emotionally.
yeah, I got all that about replacing the old guy servant and her manipulation but I’m not reading a text book on psychology, I want to be entertained. That same idea was touched upon in Anne Rice’s Intv. w/a Vampire – Claudette finding a new mother… This movie was just so slow. With all the moral, social and psychological matters dealt with in the Anne Rice novel, she still managed to be entertaining to me, and the movie, too.
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