Reviews

Wow, what a movie ! With his debut as a director, the often underrated Bill Paxton delivers one of the best films I've seen in the past few years. If you ask me, this is the best movie about serial murderers since John McNaughton's "Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer", although it takes quite a different approach at the topic. The acting is strong, the script is tight, Paxton's direction is incredibly crisp and the movie as a whole holds up beautifully after multiple viewings. Easily the best horror I've seen since "Jacob's Ladder" was released in 1990. Paxton should be incredible proud and he deserves a round of applause...

This Bond film commits the greatest sin ANY movie can commit: It's boring. Yep, the boat chase is a nice start, but after that it goes downwards... lot's of talking, very little action. You know, I can forgive the casting of Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist (Now, can I suspend my disbelief, or what ?!? :) ), 'cause she's really easy on the eyes. What I can not forgive is that Robert Carlyle's villain is badly underused. If you've got such a rally cool bad guy like Renard with lots and lots of interesting possibilities, and then you really do nothing with him, that's just a shame. The showdown is just lame, too. However, Brosnan's fine as Bond, it's just the movie around him that sucks. Final pun is atrocious, too... Bond Rating: *1/2 out of ****

I really didn't believe the franchise could reach greatness again (after all, "The World is not enough" sucked... a lot... OH GOD, HOW MUCH DID IT SUCK ?!?!?!?), but "Die Another Day" does prove me wrong. And I'm happy about it. This one has it all: Great action and One-liners, cool gadgets, foxy women, spectacular set pieces and excellent villains. Great, great showdown, too. All in all the most satisfying of the Brosnan Bonds yet, who has grown nicely into HIS role. I liked this movie so much, even some admittedly cheesy visual effects couldn't ruin it for me. It's pure fun from start to finish. Bond-Rating: ***1/2 out of ****

... that deserves to be mentioned alongside the great ones like "Silence of the Lambs" and "Seven". Each actor in this movie is a pleasure to watch (especially Ed Harris, who's convincingly scary and crazy, without hamming it up too much) and the plot offers lots of unpredictable twists and turns. Yep, it's a great movie, go see it !

...but, man, I love those sandworms ! All hail the sandworms ! They rule !!! :) They almost make this bomb worth watching, but just almost. So, if someday you'll feel the desire to watch some cool images involving huge, @$$kicking sandworms with absolutely no plot attached to them, check this out...

Really, this movie borders on the line of horror more than one time. I mean, look at all this voodoo stuff and the gratuitous gore (eye gougings, a great arm snapping, one guy gets a sword where you pretty much least want it before Seagal decapitates him etc...). And I for once think that's pretty damn cool :). The plot itself is pretty pedestrian, but the over the top violence makes it work beautifully. The cast is mostly good too (Tom Wright, Keith David, Joanna Pacula) with the notable exception of Seagal who's, come on, Seagal, so cut him some slack there. I mean, he's here to break bones and kick @$$, not to act. So, all in all, this is one of his best movies, but a pretty good movie on its own too, if not judged by the "Seagal-Suck-Scale"... compared to "Ticker" and stuff this is Oscar material...

... 'cause once that guy has your head, he won't give it back ;) This is an odd, bizarre little movie... the whole thing is as anticlimactic as it gets and there's no excitement or suspense at all. However, I prefer to take "The Borrower" as a look at society's problems seen through the eyes of an alien convict. This makes for some funny bits. There's one scene, where he sits in a coffee shop, doing nothing at all, and all people around him suddenly grab their guns and start killing each other. Then he he just gets up and walks away, like nothing what happened matters to him. The whole movie's like this. So, if you're going to watch this, think less of a horror movie, more of a social commentary and you know what you're in for. Recommended...

Ok, this is quite your ordinary, typical 80s slasher fare, but it's fun and entertaining nonetheless. The last 5 or so minutes are just great and I won't even dream of spoiling the ending for you (you probably know it by now anyway, if not DON'T READ ANYTHING ABOUT THIS MOVIE BEFORE YOU'VE SEEN IT ! Giving the ending away really ruins the fun of watching this...). "Sleepaway Camp" also features some impressive special effects by Ed French, who did some really cool stuff with what must have been very little money. Worth a look, I'd say...

Ah, the 80s, when Full Moon/Empire/Whatever movies still had a budget and were actually watchable. This one does it's best to remind the viewer that he has seen this story countless times. However, "Shadowzone" is competently made and directed, the cast is o.k. and the special effects are EXCELLENT for what they must have cost. It delivers the gory goods, too (nice exploding head...). Monster movie fans will surely get a kick out of this...

You know, the German dubbing for this movie was so awful, it almost made me turn it off. This rap-stuff in this movie really didn't translate that well. But I'm sure this is a perfectly good movie when watched on English. I'm currently thinking if I shouldn't get this on DVD... however, even with that terrible German dubbing, it was INFINITELY better than that piece of crap "Wag the Dog"...

Thankfully, this was David Hannay's one and only try at directing a movie and it's pretty obvious why he never directed a second one (though he seems to be responsible for producing every awful Australian horror movie that ever graced the screen...). This one pretty much spells "S-U-C-K" from start to finish and has nothing, really NOTHING going for it, except maybe a fairly cool scene involving a severed head towards the end... oh, and what an ending it is! Is there anybody out there who understood it? I mean, I know who the killer is (I think I know it...), but I really didn't get how he was related to the goings on... and what's up with that spear gun ??? Please, if you've seen this mess and it made sense to you, MAIL ME !!! Boy, this movie makes me feel so stupid... :(

A pity, nobody seems to know this little thriller-masterpiece. Where bigger budgeted movies fail, "Terminal Choice" delivers lots of thrills, shocks and bloody violence. A little seen gem, that deserves being searched for in your local video shop. That anonymous guy beneath is quite right, when he says, you'll never trust hospitals again... it IS that effective ! Good ending,too, not really a twist, but it doesn't end the way one thought it would. Yep, that's Ellen Barkin in an early role...

"Nature of the beast" is one of those "Never-ever-pick-up-a-hitchhiker"-thriller/horror-movies and it's probably a good example of this genre. The cast is terrific (you just can't go wrong with Henriksen and Roberts, even Brion James is in this for two minutes) and the movie is pretty exciting and fun to watch... until the last 5 minutes, when the writer/director manages to gloriously mess it up with an incredible stupid and forced twist-ending, that isn't just unlogical, but annoying as hell, too. Pretend it doesn't happen...

Damn, this movie is so poorly made and so cheap, it loses all potential impact it could have had. Performances may be good all around, but nobody involved is able to save this turkey. Lot's of violence, but surprisingly little blood. Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left" started it all 30 years ago and the world has seen LOTS of bad Rip-Offs, but I seriously think this one is the worst. Better watch the original, of which I always tought of as a pretty good movie...

Good god, this movie is terrible beyond belief. I really, REALLY like movies about hyper-intelligent serial killers, but this... "The Bone Collector" is one of those movies that don't feature a single person with anything resembling a brain. These guys are SO stupid, you want to jump into your TV set to give them a good smack for being such INCREDIBLE idiots. Well, maybe if the movie was exciting and entertaining and kept me guessing about the killer's identity, I could overlook the fact that the characters are dumber than your average smurf, but: IT'S IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO GUESS THE KILLER'S IDENTITY DURING THE FIRST 20 MINUTES !!! Really. You start watching this mess and somewhere around minute 15 or so you think to yourself "Huh, I think it's ..." and it really is who you think it is ! The film makers didn't even try to give the audience some other subjects... ah, forget it. Bloody awful movie, just skip it... and if you happen to meet Phillip Noyce on the street, please, kick his lazy butt for being responsible for this headache-inducing awful mess and not having made a good movie since "Dead Calm".

Hey, who would have thought, this movie is actually pretty good and fun to watch. Performances are good all around, too, especially Prochnow as the main bad guy (it's definitely a bit of a typecast, but hey, he's cool). And it's really nice to see Andrew Divoff playing the role of the hero for one time. The budget wasn't that high and you can see this on the screen, but a high budget doesn't guarantee a good movie ("Air Force One" anyone...?). This one's alright, watch it.

Well, there's no real plot to speak of, it's just an excuse to show some scenes of extreme violence and gratuitous sex (which can sometimes be fun, too, but it's not in this case). What else can I say about this...? The action, when happening, is inventive and there's a cool scene where two characters are falling from a skyscraper (one that has to be several miles high), but overall there's not much to recommend "Kite". Watch it if you want, but you're not missing much if you skip this one...

I'm sorry I have to say this, but "Starman" is the only Carpenter movie that sucks. Is this really from the director of such outstanding movies like "Halloween", "The Thing" and "Assault on Precinct 13" ? I mean it's competently made and features good performances by its cast, but it really lacks that "Carpenter-Touch" (don't ask me to explain this, because I can't. All I can say is, even "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" had it, "Starman" has it not). I probably would have liked it more, if it was directed by somebody else. But as it is... avoid.