Tag: Horror Movies

Hide (2008) Film Review (with spoilers)

Love is hell.

Rating 15
Length 1h37
Release 05.06.1998
Director K C Bascombe
About Billy and his lover Rachel set out to find the money they had hidden seven years earlier. However, as they are on their mission, an unseen killer targets them..
Moon: no moon sighting
Where to Watch: Amazon Prime
Trailer:

The Good

Christian Kane does what he has always done best in this film and he plays a conflicted soul. Okay, so I didn’t know just how conflicted or tortured that soul was until the final act, but Kane gives a performance that gives an idea of what is driving him. The performance also gives way to the question of nature versus nurture. He’s a man who wants to be good, but whether it is him being inherently evil, or a persistent childhood in which he’s told as much, he is unable to commit to that.
Kane is the strength of this film and why he should be a bigger name than he already is.

Heading into the third act, the film becomes much more of a standard horror/slasher of the mid-naughts. It’s pretty awesome, particularly as we start to figure out the importance of the cut scenes that randomly (it is not made clear that the woman abducted is any way connected to Billy and Betty) intersect the previous two acts and witness Billy putting all the pieces back together.

The Bad

Rachel Milner works well with Christian Kane as the partner Betty. However, her accent, while consistent, is a tad over the top and broad. Almost as if it was geared towards a theatre performance. The worst of it all is that she didn’t have to be Texan, so she could have used her own.

Okay, I get the need to literally mention the namesakes, but Betty?! You want to name your two children Bonnie… and Clyde? Two siblings, related in every way possible, named after the two most volatile LOVERS in criminal history?! Yeah, fuck that! Bat shit crazy thinking there.

The Ugly

I do love what the film is trying to achieve; a Bonnie and Clyde meets Jekyll and Hyde. Grand, I get it, but the plot makes no god damn sense when you consider it for even a moment too long.
Billy is Clyde, Hyde and all the Jekyll in-between. In an attempt to distract, the audience are given scenes of a shadowed Hyde that make it impossible for Billy to be the sadistic killer. Which is a bit shit given that the title is the biggest giveaway that he’s going to be behind the mask. Yes, the final rug pull, does slot the flaws into place. However, it doesn’t feel like they were made on purpose to make the audience doubt, but instead it feels sloppy.

As for the rug pull of the final scene, in which it is implied that this Billy’s Hell-scape. Damn, I want to like it. However, while it is cool that this man who was wanting to go straight has died and being eternally punished, it is still the ‘… and it was all a dream’ ending and a bit of a cop out.
The vibe I’m feeling is akin to 2003’s Identity in which there’s a massive “oh fuck” moment in the final scene, which you can clearly see a thread of during a rewatch. This doesn’t have that skill, or a big enough cast to pull it off.

Final Thoughts

A pretty decent story that needs a bit of reworking.

Halloween Kills (2021)

Rating 18
Length 2h23
Release 26.4.2012
Director Joss Whedon
About Nick Fury is compelled to launch the Avengers Initiative when Loki poses a threat to planet Earth. His squad of superheroes
Moon: no moon sighting
Where to Watch: In cinemas and on some home streaming platforms
Trailer:

Trick

  • It can’t keep the momentum of the first of this timeline and it certainly doesn’t hit the bar in terms of quality. 
  • There are almost too many character threads being followed. In a similar way to Halloween II (1981), Laurie is hospital bound and has little to do, there’s Anthony Michael Hall’s Tommy and a few other returning characters from the 1978 original, but how they’re used makes their inclusion too much like fan service than a need for them in the story; almost as if casting and characters were prioritised over telling the story.
  • In a similar sense, this instalment feels like a set up to the next film. They knew how they were starting, they knew there were two more sequels and how this was going to end, the rest just feels like padding. 
  • I really hate the immortality aspect of The Shape/ Michael Myers. It’s fucking stupid because that is part of the legend of him and undermines the believability of a mob mentality.

Treat

  • The body count and kills are unrelenting and imaginative. From the first responders, to the final showdown this film really earns its 18 rating. 
  • Jamie Lee Curtis will always be impeccable in everything she does. Ever since seeing her in A Fish Called Wanda, I’ve trusted that anything she’s in will be something I’ll enjoy. 
  • Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy is quite a genius bit of casting and characterisation. To see how those 40 years have gone for Tommy, how much it’s effected him is not something I’ve really thought about. His ability to move and motivate a crowd into a mob is incredible, and something I’m not certain Joseph Gordon Levitt would have been able to pull off. 
  • There are Call backs and Easter eggs to many of the other films in the franchise. I particularly loved the nod to the third film that didn’t even feature Michael Myers. 
  • The scariest thing out of all of the violence is the mob. Michael Myers, due to his apparent immortality, and known volatile tendencies doesn’t have the same shock and horror as the group of ordinary people; doctors, citizens and police who are all but frothing at the mouth at the thought of killing Michael. It’s all within the realms of possibility and the fact that they all ignore the harm they do to others and actively ignore the voice of logic and reason is the sole bit of this film that chilled me to the bone. 

Final Thoughts

I found aspects of the film interesting, but it just didn’t quite live up to the expectations the 2018 offering gave me.

Halloween II (1981) Halloween Advent

Rating 18
Length 1h32
Release 26.4.2012
Director Rick Rosenthal
About Myers, a horrific murderer, spends 15 years in an insane asylum after terrorising the people in his small hometown on the eve of a Halloween. As soon as he gets out, he hunts down his sister.
Moon: no moon sighting
Where to Watch: Netflix
Trailer:

Trick

  • The opening is rather clunky and almost feels like I’ve missed a scene or two. I understand it starts off directly after the first film, but I think that puts this film at a disadvantage because of the first being resolved.
  • The tone of the film is off. It has the Horror elements, but there’s also lines of dialogue and the way they’re delivered, that will reduce most viewers to fits of giggles. The biggest laugh is when a Michael Myers is hit by a police car. The sequence, I’m sure, is meant to be shocking. It most definitely isn’t.
  • Michael Myers has a whole new silhouette. They must not have been able to get the original guy back, and it shows. It’s hard to not notice and it really takes you out of the film.
  • The time of day is really unclear. In some scenes it appears at if it’s at least gone midnight, in others it appears like its not even past 7pm. Add to that, the fact that the hospital Laurie is taken to is unusually empty for a peak evening, the film just feels disjointed.

Treat

  • The new theme remix is cool.
  • Some of the deaths are messy and genius, particularly the one in the hot tub.

Final Thoughts

To make this work, it really needed to go the way of Alien/Aliens and not sit in this middle ground of a tonal shift. Because the original is so good, it was never going to match it, so it needed to offer something completely different.