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Justice League (2017)
loved the team, let down by the reappearance of superman
i really enjoyed this film but was most excited by the development, wonder woman and aquaman especially who would make good team leaders if bruce wayne were knocked out or left. barry allen aka the flash provided the best humour, cyborg was very interesting but needed moretime. i liked the effects and action but wasn't completely sold on steppenwolf as a villain, maybe making him all cgi was a mistake, he didn't seem quite real, quite there, this diluted the effect of his appearances. using a real actor would have made for something much more menacing, but some fatalities might have had to be added to increase the threat. i was bored when superman appears, he overpowers everyone else and answers the threat far too quickly almost by himself, which depletes the development given to the other team members and turning the later scenes into another superman movie. they might narrowly, very narrowly have done better on their own without him and the movie might have been more gripping and edge of the seat which it was until then, due to steppenwolf's power. the two extra scenes in the end credits, the very last in particular, were good and set things up nicely for the next movie. hopefully superman will be a team player and will really need the help of the others, maybe he can be rendered powerless in some way (kryptonite?) or given some real problems to solve which he cannot do alone. he really needs to struggle or else the outcome becomes predictable.
Jigsaw (2017)
worth seeing some nice surprises though the ploy may seem familiar
i went to see jigsaw last night and it was worth the effort, tobin bell was excellent, the leg trap was really uncomfortable and the way the bicycle trap went wrong was very nice, i also liked the final laser trap and its outcome. the woman who appeared with the weird obsession was a nice bizarre touch, i am trying to describe some of the things which happened without giving away their outcomes. several scenes made me cringe, aside from the leg scene i felt that maybe some of the horror had been toned down to create more of a thriller than a pure horror film. i think jigsaw was very entertaining but could have been even more horrific than it was. the plot twists worked very well, the final revelation made sense and was a real surprise. the characters had some nice development, their crimes were certainly worth challenging making the film morally ambiguous. one female character did something really bad which turned out to be a really disturbing moment, she meets an appropriate fate. i thought i had figured out who it was, the final minutes proved i was wrong on one very important score there. the practical effects were very good, one cgi moment near the end stood out as being obvious cgi though it was a nasty idea. i was glad to be able to watch an adult horror movie for a change, it is also very good and worth catching, as is the ritual. in some ways these two are better as they are less used, saw has now run to eight films and is running out of original ideas, some of jigsaw seemed a bit samey even though it was well made it seemed like some old and familiar ideas. i would be prepared to watch more sequels, though saying that they will all follow similar structures, which is really a given with this series.
Inseminoid (1981)
Decent alien clone with some nice surprises
I remember seeing the trailers for this film on TV when I was far too young to see the movie itself, so I was happy to finally get hold of it as a VHS release on the Vipco label. Read the novelisation by Larry Miller, which was fairly gripping for pulp sci-fi horror. The budget of the film seems a bit low, but it works surprisingly well, and the alien is used sparingly, Geeson herself does much of the work and is very convincing, changing constantly between scared, vulnerable and helpless and homicidal and cannibalistic, when she goes mad she is very scary and intimidating, and shows sadistic relish for her victims, eating dead bodies and even eating a man's intestines just after shooting him while he is still alive and watching. There are plenty of murders and a fair bit of cannibalism so it's never boring. The mine set is a good choice, this is enhanced by lots of running/creeping around dark corridors and tunnels, which adds a certain intensity, the sets look a little cheap but it's forgivable. There is a startling sequence in which Geeson flashes back to her alien rape which is fairly explicit, but it's the murders which score. One scene in particular, not a murder but self mutilation, is fairly shocking, but the film can also be understated yet very nasty, for example when Geeson looms evilly right over the dead bodies of some of her colleagues, ready to feed. There is plenty of violence and creepiness, even if some moments look low budget. Stephanie Beecham is fair support as a Ripley look-alike, the rest of the cast play more convincingly than expected, no real character development but they all look dirty and stressed, which plays well, there is a certain feeling of conviction to it if you accept that they are all workers on a long-term space mission. A fairly good low budget shocker, with a parental subtext, the mother is both the killer and the victim. She's only trying to protect her young in the end.
Night of the Living Dead (1990)
same basic plot, better gore and better barbara.
just watched this and thoroughly enjoyed it! same basic plot as the 1968 original, so not particularly surprising, but very well done. savini does some great work here, and the move up to colour enhances the gore effects, which are certainly more gruesome than the first. music is not so good, the original had a better score, and goblin's work is also better, nothing wrong with the score but nothing catchy/moody as could be. one of the best aspects is, of course, watching how quickly people's civilised exteriors fall away under pressure. tallman is notable as a very different, much stronger barbara, another one of the good differences, there is also more time spent on the aftermath as we see more of the rednecks and the remaining humans. recommended.