Arrival (2016)

"When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team - led by expert linguist Louise Banks - is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers - and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity."

So, I watched 2 hours or more (trust me, it felt longer) of this utter shite based on a novel about alien octopusses which look like the Cloverfield monster, and I can now safely say that it was boring as shit and didn't make any fucking sense whatsoever.

I'm not some fucking thickie who can't decipher movies, but "The Arrival" is such a fucking artsy-fartsy, tangled mess that there's no explanation possible for what it's supposed to be about without drifting into some obscure philosophical bollocks which nobody normal knows about or has ever read anyway. No moral, no message, none of the most obvious questions answered, nothing memorable, just piss poor storytelling. It doesn't even have Charlie Sheen in it!

Here come loads of spoilers because fuck this movie.

She looks about as happy as I did watching this horseshit.

Basically, some ovaloid spaceships appear all over the world, and the aliens inside look like scary octopusses, or walking hands, or spiders. Take your pick, they are all nasty. The ugly motherfuckers walk like disembodied hands and squirt ink. Whatever the fuck they are, you wouldn't want one swimming up your arse.

A woman linguist (played by Amy Adams) with no make-up (because she's a scientist and clever, yawn!) and a bunch of other nondescript scientists go aboard one of the ships and attempt to communicate with the octopusses, but because the military are involved, someone (predictably) sets a bomb off during one of their missions, and the story starts again, and again, and again. Not like "Groundhog Day", but like someone fucked up editing it all together.

There's a little girl involved and a baby who may be the same person, and both are the linguist's daughter or the linguist herself. Both or all of them are destined to die of some horrible incurable disease which probably came from the octopusses. I'm fucked if I know. By this point, I'd developed a serious case of Forest Whitaker eye (yeah, he's in it too) and didn't care about anything. No action, no ray guns, no boobs, no blood, no cats. Why does something like this even exist? Oh yeah, because nerds and cucks like sci-fi.

After a scene more of less straight out of "The Abyss" (another slow movie which is also boring as shit), the aliens communicate with subtitles then leave. The linguist phones a Chinese scientist guy to tell him what his dead wife's last words were, and we're back to the linguist, and the little girl, and the baby again. Apparently she's married to the Jeremy Renner scientist guy now too, because that isn't predictable at all.

And none of it makes any fucking sense!!!!

Why are they here? Fucked if I know.

8.4 on the IMDb? Give me a fucking break. It's not even worth 1 out of 10. This is complete and utter shit from beginning to end. Allegedly, it rips-off Samuel R. Delany's "Babel 17" too.

I can't wait to see how badly director Denis Villeneuve fucks up the "Blade Runner" sequel with more style over substance now. Actually, I'm not. I won't be watching it.

It Follows (2014)

"A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after getting involved in a sexual encounter."

I've tried several times to get all the way through "It Follows" in one sitting, but I can't do it. Either I don't have the attention span anymore (which is unlikely) or it's just too boring as shit for me to want to. Thus, this isn't going to be a review as much as it will be some general bitching about the parts of "It Follows" which I noted before hitting fast-forward to get the torture over with.

From reading through what some of my online friends had to say about this movie, I understand that "It Follows" is supposed to be all "faux retro"—and it clearly seems to appeal to the hipstery "millennial" demographic who ironically weren't even alive back in the '70s, '80s, or even the '90s—but surely it should be meant for people my age (mid-40s) in that case too? So why doesn't "It Follows" generate all those happy nostalgia feelings for me? What's wrong with this picture?

The simple fact of the matter is that "It Follows" isn't to my taste as a movie. Not only are its non-specific retro qualities forced, pretentious, and inconsistent, but the slow-paced story is a load of meaningless and padded drivel with no satisfactory explanation for the "creature" or any danger of a cathartic payoff at the end.

Although the acting and dialogue is fine, the characters are somewhat flat, unlikeable, and sexually unappealing, and are too young and from the wrong country to have any cultural relevance to me even with my obligatory suspension of disbelief. As I can't identify or sympathise with American teenagers, there's no development of pathos possible.

Most importantly, however, as is the case with all new horror movies, "It Follows" is not in the least bit scary!

You'd have to tie me to a chair to make me watch this movie ever again.

I've often encountered arguments where someone says that "scary" is subjective. Well, it is to a point. Some people have varying degrees of phobias about certain things, for instance, big hairy spiders, and some people don't have any fear of those things at all. But in the case of any "scary movie", it's pretty much failed in its purpose if it doesn't have a percentage of scary for even the lowest common denominator. There are also universals which can be identified as potentially scary for other people even if you aren't scared of those things yourself, but "It Follows" doesn't contain any of them. It may be R-rated, but it's not even worth bringing the extremely sparse and still not scary "gory bits" into this discussion.

What "It Follows" does have is a decent score which sounds like John Carpenter composed parts of it (except he didn't, it was Rich Vreeland), and some initial visual similarities to "Halloween" (1978). Of course, you can film nearly any residential streets in America during Autumn and they'll look a lot like the ones in "Halloween" because nothing architecturally important has changed in the last 40 or more years. Arguing about that aspect is clearly redundant. "It Follows" is set in Detroit, Michigan, rather than Haddonfield, Illinois (or really South Pasadena, California), which only reinforces my point that America looks the same everywhere anyway.

Another big homage is to Jacques Tourneur's "Cat People" (1942) which is apparent with the indoor swimming pool scene, but it's hardly an exact match and isn't meant to be. In fact, "It Follows" owes way more to "Final Destination" (2000) for the core of its narrative, plus Brundlefly's vain attempt to delay the inevitable from "The Fly" (1986), than anything which it tips blatant nods towards. Let's face it, if you really need an allegory about sexually transmitted diseases, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" will always be the classic. It doesn't exactly take a genius to see the similarities between vampire legends and "It Follows" either.

It needed more cats. Any cats. Cats would have made it better.

I'm not the kind of philistine who would ever be stupid enough to argue that David Robert Mitchell doesn't know how to make a movie or hasn't done a great job with "It Follows" when it comes to the outstanding cinematography (which only has a few glaringly ragged handheld shots), but it's the languid pace of this thing which kills it. I'm not joking when I say that if I had to watch this movie more than once, it would soon become my go-to fix for insomnia.

One final little rant and I'm done.

I've read a ton of stuff about Maika Monroe being the new "scream queen" of horror and all that usual crap, but I don't get it. Yeah, she's an above average actress as well as being a pretty-ish blonde with only occasionally annoying lapses into vocal fry and all that jazz (for those who care), but she's certainly no Fay Wray, Ingrid Pitt, Delphine Seyrig, or even an Edwige Fenech (who wasn't blonde). I think many people need to think before throwing that "scream queen" title about willy-nilly.

And since I've accidentally mentioned it, I couldn't care less about the nudity and "sexy bits". For one thing, I'm British and nudity doesn't bother me in the slightest, and second, even the tamest porn site on the internet will show you more than "It Follows" has to offer. I have to admit that Leisa Pulido playing Greg's mother is quite the MILF though.

There are simply some movies which you know right away aren't meant for you, and lamentably, I'll have to concede that "It Follows" wasn't meant for me.

If you feel like pointing out exactly which parts of "It Follows" an adult should find shit-yer-pants-scary, you can post them in the comments section below.

The Conjuring (2013)

"Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives."

I've finally done it! I may be two weeks behind everyone else in the world, but I've now seen "The Conjuring"! I even managed to avoid all the spoilers on Twitter and Facebook beforehand, which wasn't easy considering how overhyped this movie has been.

Supposedly based on a previously unpublished case file from paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who I've never actually heard of before, "The Conjuring" starts off like an episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series", turns into a clone of "The Amityville Horror" for an hour, and ends up as a twenty minute version of "The Exorcist". As you can imagine, I was not impressed.

In fact, I was so disappointed with "The Conjuring" that I was tempted to only write the following for my review:

BORING CRAP!

If someone perusing the aisles next to me in a DVD store were to ask me what I thought of "The Conjuring", those two words would be the most honest initial reaction I could come up with other than adding whichever choice expletive I might deem appropriate to the situation. I'm not saying that this has happened, although it certainly has done with other James Wan movies in the past, and the response of the person asking has also been equally negative. I'm sure that similar conversations have transpired between other people in various locations.

Maybe I live in my own sheltered little bubble where everyone shares the same good taste, but I've never known of a director other than James Wan whose movies are so consistently underwhelming apart from Christopher Nolan. Even Zack Snyder has double the amount of good movies on his résumé. I'm not going to acknowledge Dario Argento, Uwe Boll, Lloyd Kaufman, or Ulli Lommel because, let's face it, all their movies are guaranteed to be crap from the get-go.

A metaphor just waiting to happen.

The reasons why "The Conjuring" is such boring crap are very easy to list. For a start, the story is unoriginal and clichéd, and it's a messy fusion of far better films that came out over 30 to 40 years ago. We've seen it all before ad nauseum. "The Conjuring" brings nothing new to the table and doesn't even present what it has got in an entertaining manner for adults.

Thus, the second huge problem with "The Conjuring" is that it might as well be a PG-13. How and why it got an R-rating is beyond my comprehension. There's no nudity, no swearing, no sex scenes, no gore, and it's not scary in any way. So how the Hell did it get rated as an R? "R for Rubbish" is my assessment although I'm betting on failed bait and switch shenanigans behind the scenes with the MPAA just to get asses on seats in the movie theatres.

The big giveaway that the target audience was initially meant to be braindead teenagers is the amount of grammatical errors in the script. Both Lorraine and Ed get away with saying "hung" instead of "hanged" without anyone correcting them, and if that's not bad enough, there's Ed's immortal triple-negative, "We ain't never seen nothing like this!" which you can see in the trailer along with all the other "good bits". The terrible dialogue is almost as bad as the "I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do" line in the shitty "Evil Dead" remake. No wonder the mumble-mouthed younger generation are the way they are!

Thirdly, there's no characterisation whatsoever. I couldn't tell you the names of any of the characters even though they were given, what they might be interested in other than ghost hunting or being the victims of a demonic haunting, or any details that would make them more than two-dimensional. The best I can come up with is that "The Conjuring" stars Patrick Wilson with sideburns, Vera Farmiga looking far more beautiful than I've ever seen her look before, the Peter guy from "Office Space", the plain-looking girl who played Nell in "The Haunting" remake whose name I always forget, and a bunch of other people who I've never heard of poncing about in a badly maintained American house. If you think I'm joking, try telling me the names of the family members without looking them up on the IMDb. While you are at it, what are the names of the cop or the Warren's assistant? No idea? Case proven.

Without characterisation, what's the point of a horror movie? If you can't identify with the protagonists, empathising with their situation and feeling the catharsis when it's resolved is completely lost, isn't it? Or is this something that kids today just don't care about? As much as anyone born after 1989 is likely to be a complete moron in my estimation anyway, there are exceptions who must have left the cinema as disappointed as us older guys. Even the ones who only went to see some scary effects must have felt cheated of their $10.

Vera Farmiga is so hot in her granny clothes!

I wish I could find something good to say about "The Conjuring", but it's a typical James Wan movie. There are a couple of overloud jump scares which don't work, the usual creepy dolls which aren't creepy at all, some guy in a latex witch mask which is supposed to be scary, horrible shaky camerawork (but with lots of zooming this time just to be very '70s!), irritating child actors, poor CGI effects, plotholes everywhere, no atmosphere, no tension, total chaos at the end with a lame resolution, and nothing original whatsoever. The tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of Blumhouse Productions' formulaic style of composition when the family mentions birds hitting their house (as in "Dark Skies") is realised when the birds repeat their kamikaze attack near the end, but you can't make in-jokes like that when you do the same damned thing yourself!!!

I suppose the period setting in 1970s America is well done, but that's not exactly a difficult thing to achieve. Apart from the cars, America looks much the same as it has done since the 1920s when it comes to the crappy wooden sheds which people jokingly refer to as houses. Every house in my town looks like the one in "The Conjuring" only in an even worse state of disrepair! Forget nostalgia, these firetraps need to be knocked down and replaced with some proper bricks and mortar! I'm sure that I've mentioned that several time before on this blog though.

I'm not happy about James Wan using a cover version of "Sleepwalk" with lyrics either. The original Santo & Johnny instrumental from 1959 which is such a signature feature of Stephen King's "Sleepwalkers" (1992) just doesn't belong anywhere else! The guitars in "Sleepwalk" even sound like cats meowing for God's sake! But, in spite of having a witch in the story, there are no cats in "The Conjuring"! There's a collie dog called Sadie who meets her maker off camera, but no cats! Oh, that makes me so angry!

The word on the street is that James Wan is giving up horror movies now to make the next homoerotic installment in "The Fast and the Furious" franchise. I wish him the best of luck, but after "The Conjuring", I can't say that he will be missed.

Black Swan (2010)

"A ballet dancer wins the lead in 'Swan Lake' and is perfect for the role of the delicate White Swan - Princess Odette - but slowly loses her mind as she becomes more and more like Odette's evil sister, Odile, the Black Swan."

In spite of being labelled as a "psychological horror" by some misguided individuals, "Black Swan" is an overhyped, boring and tedious waste of time. It's just a nonsensical drama with elements of much better films thrown in and some titillating scenes just so that you don't nod off completely.

Vincent Cassel and Barbara Hershey both look really old, Natalie Portman has horrible feet and plays with herself a lot, and Mila Kunis gets to do some fantasy lesbian action for anyone who cares. Everybody seems to be filmed in extreme close-up too much and all look as if they need a good wash. You can almost smell the stench of the sweaty, anorexic ballet dancers.

On the plus side, there's some nice set dressing with lots of black and white objects for the hard of understanding.

I absolutely hated this film on every level.

No Country For Old Men (2008)

Whoever votes for turds like this to win Oscars needs to be locked up for their own protection.

This was the worst thing I’ve seen for the last 20 years. Boring, slow, tedious, monotonous, plus contrived, derivative and shitty all rolled into one.

The assassin dude with the bad hair had a couple of amusing moments but everybody else sucked.

The cinematography was terrible, the dialogue was pitiful, the story was as mundane as possible with plotholes everywhere, the Tommy Lee Jones parts could be cut out entirely and have no impact on anything, and the worst thing of all - there was only one pretty girl in it and she didn’t even get her norks out!

I watched this straight after "Revamped" (2008) and both share the same deadly slow pace, a collection of actors well past their sell by dates, and are completely lacking in interest or entertainment value to anyone with more than two brain cells (or Jonathan Ross - who has three brain cells, one of appears to be programmed specifically to asslick anything by Tarantino, Rodriguez or the Coen brothers). The difference is that you’d hire "Revamped" just knowing that it was going to be a crappy independent, you don’t expect the same effect from an illustrious yet seriously overhyped Oscar winner.

Cloverfield (2008)

I absolutely hated it. It's just "The Blair Witch Project" but in New York with monsters.

Not only was it yet another kiddie-rated PG-13 unscary monster film, but it sucked on all levels. The acting was pure Hollywood drama school stuff where everyone pauses and tries to convey as much emotion as possible with eyes and teeth before delivering a line, the dialogue was poor and as unrealistic as could be, and the camerawork was so bad that I imagine a lot of people would throw up in the movie theatres or suffer some kind of epileptic seizure from all the whirling and spinning.

It was 18 minutes of wedding party, 30 minutes of "Oh my god... oh my god... oh my god... oh my god... boom... bang... shriek... boom... oh my god... oh my god", and then the rest was all "Run... oh my god... shriek... boom.... rarrrr... boom... boom... shriek... bang... run... run... oh my god... rarrrrr... oh my god... oh my god.... oh my god... boom..."

I give it 1 out of 10 for the ability to con so many people into watching it. It's just another crappy motion-sickness-inducing-shakycam film with about 5 seconds of CGI monster in it. It's more overhyped and poorly executed rubbish!

I can see it being used for the "Oh my god" drinking game in future though. Alcoholics will love it!


OMG! The Blasphemous Cloverfield Drinking Game

Here are the timings so you can print them out and keep track.

18.14 "Oh my God"
18.18
18.30
18.40
19.43
19.56
20.28
20.40 "Oh my God, Oh my God" BONUS!
20.48
21.09
21.10
21.21
21.22
21.48
23.00
24.20
28.00
29.21
29.29
30.17 "Oh my God, Oh my God" BONUS!
30.43
35.19
36.24 "Oh my God, Oh my God" BONUS!
37.41
43.22
43.26
50.10
51.28
51.38
51.42
51.46
54.06 "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God" 4 in a row DOUBLE BONUS!!
55.40 "Jesus" (If he is your God - BONUS!)
56.23
56.53 "Jesus" (If he is your God - BONUS!)
56.54
56.55 "Oh my Gosh" PENALTY! Eat something!
57.28 "Jesus" (If he is your God - BONUS!)
59.13
59.25 "Oh my God, Oh my God" BONUS!
60.35
61.17
61.39
62.00
62.01
62.13
62.22
62.37
62.42
63.59
64.02
64.40
65.14
65.21
65.30
65.39
66.00 "Oh God, Oh God, Please God, Forgive Me" BONUS!
68.13 MONSTER CLOSE UP BONUS! Say "Oh My God" for him!
69.59
70.00

Extra drinking BONUS for spotting the "Blair Witch Project" line at 70.32 - "I'm so scared, I'm so sorry!"

There are 66 OMGs in "Cloverfield" yet when the monster appears full frame no one says it. The audience.is encouraged to say it because the character with the camera keeps saying, "Oh... oh.... oh...."


I think the whole film is a work of the Devil to get everyone to worship the Beast! :)

Revelation 13:1 “And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.”

Seriously, it has to be intentional! The devil is a master of chaos and confusion which is pretty much the subject and the style of the film too.

Just look at the timing for the "God forgive me!" line. 66 minutes in!!!

And clover? A four-leafed clover is a good luck charm, i.e. it's witchcraft. Anything "lucky" derives from the word "Lucifer" which is again equated with the Devil! We only see the monster's face at sunrise in the film. Lucifer is the "bearer of light". The monster is therefore the DEVIL!

We're all going to HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!