The Neon Demon (2016)

"When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has."

Imagine, if you will, "Zoolander" without the intentional comedy, or "Starry Eyes" without the horror. Got those fixed in your mind? Good. That's pretty much what "The Neon Demon" is, but it's not as good as either of them. In fact, it's just not good.

There are two major problems with "The Neon Demon" which render it absolutely worthless even for the Millennial dripsters who would normally gush over similar products. First, it's slower than molasses going uphill in January. Second, Elle Fanning has neither the looks, height, or demeanour to be a fashion model. The latter would make the whole movie unintentionally hilarious, but for the fact that it's also tedious as shit.

If this movie is really supposed to be a horror movie, Nicolas Winding Refn has no idea what a horror movie should be. Granted, it's a horrible movie, but there are no scares, no surprises, and not really much of anything of interest once you take out the mildly titillating lesbianism and necrophilia.

While boobs and blood used to be all that was needed for a movie to qualify for the genre, things have moved on a bit in the rest of the real world. Audiences now like subtle things such as a compelling story and decent characterisation too, neither of which you'll find here.

As "The Neon Demon" is contrived to be very Elle Fanning-centric, it's a pity that she doesn't have the "X Factor" or any screen presence whatsoever. As a girl-next-door type, I'm sure Elle has her devoted, horndog fans, but based on her performance in this movie, I'm not likely to ever be one of them. It's hard to tell if her acting is good, bad, or horrendous because every character in "The Neon Demon" is unlikable and seems to be affected by some kind of Asperger's Syndrome anyway.

Keanu Reeves stands out in his two minutes of screentime, but he's last-billed for good reason. In what can only be described as an extended cameo where he's still channelling John Wick, he's not much more than a miserable so-and-so, albeit with all the best lines. I would say more, but I've already written more words than his character has. If you're a big Keanu mark and want to see "The Neon Demon" purely because he's in it, be prepared to be disappointed.

If you're looking for a movie which satirises the fashion industry, you would obviously be better off with "Zoolander" or even the unfairly maligned "Zoolander 2" (which is almost as great as the first one). Sadly, "Showgirls" did all the seedy stuff better many years ago, and both "Eat" and "Starry Eyes" did the horror properly.

I was asked if I had seen this movie last night, and my reply was, "Seen it, hated it." That doesn't make for much of a critique, but it's all that really needs to be said when anyone mentions this pretentious arthouse crap in future. I wasn't even going waste my time reviewing it because, like most new movies, it's not worth the effort of sitting through in the first place, but I suppose I've done it now. "The Neon Demon" is complete and utter shit.

Vacancy 2: The First Cut (2008)

"Three young people check into the Meadow View Inn for a night's rest, fully unaware of the inn's sick-minded employees and their nefarious intentions."

Well, after four attempts to make it through this below average prequel to a slightly more than average original, I finally watched "Vacancy 2".

I'm not sure why I kept falling asleep to this movie other than it obviously being quite boring and routine after the 40 minute mark, but I'd also blame the fact that it wasn't really anything more than yet another slasher with all the usual tropes.

Although it started off quite well, had a good setting, and even the acting was pretty decent for something put out by Sony Entertainment, it all felt like a made-for-cable movie rather than even a straight-to-DVD release.

There weren't any scares (or shocks even though there was plenty of blood everywhere rather than gore) and that was probably the deciding factor for my brain to switch off. Some of the effects were good although completely unoriginal. The suspense scenes, however, were handled very poorly which was a shame.

I'm not going to pretend that I know who anyone was in this since I barely even recognised Agnes Bruckner from "The Woods". I sort of wish that she'd taken her clothes off properly (and that the potential shower scene hadn't been completely wasted) but another part of me is glad that she didn't. As an aside, she is now in the allegedly much better film, "The Pact" (2012) which I still have to pick up.

If the characters had been more likeable or attractive then I probably could have coped with all the close-up shots right on their skin pores and moles, but they weren't. I also found the "shakycam" nonsense to be annoying considering that the rest of the film had mostly quite high production values.

The bad guys in this film were slightly more interesting than their victims but not by much. Nobody went for well-rounded here especially not the script writers. It was all somewhat superficial with the stupidest financial motivation for the motel owners and no explained motivation at all for the main killer apart from him being a psychopath.

Everybody and everything was just disposable in this film and it makes me wonder why crap like this is made at all. They must have had some idea that it wasn't going to be all that great going in to the project as I know that I did before even putting the DVD in the player.

At least I had pizza before Suzi got to it which kept me going during the badly filmed chase through the woods scene. I'm still wondering why the killer's camera was obviously so crappy though as even the $20 Jazz cam which I own takes better shots (as you can see above).

The ending of "Vacancy 2" wasn't completely predictable but it was still awful and the spinning camerawork of the final minutes almost made me throw my dinner back up. Fortunately, now that I've completed my review, I will never have to watch any of it ever again.