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I Review: Bound to Vengeance

Bound to Vengeance has a 20% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is bizarre. I’m not saying it’s the greatest movie ever made, but in a long line of shitty slasher/exploitation flicks, this was mostly a pleasant surprise.

The review over at The Dissolve is particularly scathing, as it seems to be more interested in figuring out if the director ”sided” with the protagonist or not, which is an…interesting way to review a movie, I guess.

Anyway. This movie is about a kidnapped woman who manages to break free and capture the man that held her in his basement. She makes him lead him to all the other girls his ring of degenerates is holding captive.

This type of movie isn’t really my kind of thing. Victimized women, whether they’re getting revenge or not is something I’m not really interested in. I did stick around however, mostly because it seemed competently shot and acted.

The movie is overall a bit hit and miss. The violence (almost exclusively dealt by the heroine) is brutal and satisfying (What, they’re horrible people, they deserve what they get), the dead women less so. I’m not sure why the screenwriter went with that.

The minor plot twist near the end isn’t really that good. I’d call it pedestrian.

All in all, this is only a recommend for people who like shit like I Spit On Your Grave.

2 out of 5 creep vans

Review: Young Ones

young-ones-posterSet in a near future when water has become the most precious and dwindling resource on the planet, one that dictates everything from the macro of political policy to the detailed micro of interpersonal family and romantic relationships. The land has withered into something wretched. The dust has settled on a lonely, barren planet. The hardened survivors of the loss of Earth’s precious resources scrape and struggle. Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) lives on this harsh frontier with his children, Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Mary (Elle Fanning). He defends his farm from bandits, works the supply routes, and hopes to rejuvenate the soil. But Mary’s boyfriend, Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult), has grander designs. He wants Ernest’s land for himself, and will go to any length to get it.

From writer/director Jake Paltrow comes a futuristic western, told in three chapters, which inventively layers Greek tragedy over an ethereal narrative that’s steeped deeply in the values of the American West.

I enjoyed this a lot. I admit to being a little disappointed that the PR material for it gave me a completely different idea of what the movie would be (I guess I was expecting a new A Boy and his Dog or Mad Max, while this is more or less a sci-fi drama. Still, it’s a well made film and the director/screenwriter made some interesting choices that I appreciated it.

Ernest is a poor old farmer that owns land but not water. He has a job delivering supplies to the men working to bring water to the fields, but not his fields; the water is going to industrial farms further away. His attempts at convincing or bribing the boss to throw some water his way are unsuccessful. In the meantime, his daughter is dating this really douchy kid who needs to get smacked a lot. Ernest doesn’t trust me and refuses to help him with whatever scheme he’s trying to run.

All this comes to a head when Ernest’s donkey, which is instrumental for his work breaks a leg and has to be put down. He invests on a robotic donkey. When Ernest refuses to loan it to douchy guy, it gets stolen and used to smuggle contraband across the border. This is where shit goes bad and where I stop lest I spoil ya’ll.

There’s not a hint of melodrama as I would probably have expected in a movie about a down on his luck farmer trying to provide for his family (crippled wife and all). Things are mentioned (perhaps sometimes bluntly, like when Flem accuses Ernest of crippling his wife in some kind of accident he likely caused because of his drinking) and then never expanded on, but left to shimmer in the background. There’s no need for them to be brought up again later on when Ernest’s daughter is freaking out and screaming at him. I appreciate the economy.

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I rarely review good movies, because reviewing the bad ones is much more amusing and let’s face it, lazy as hell. It fits my personality, so to speak. After watching this one and checking out some reviews online, I just felt that I had to give my 2 cents as well. In fact, let’s look at this review so that I can make fun of it.

Young Ones makes use of brilliant cinematography that is instantly wasted in the hands of a director who is without a shred of talent, an editor who must have been a butcher, mediocre sound editing, and a cast that is almost as misguided and inept as the screenplays author. A story that had true potential was crippled by a lack of character development, and the nonexistence of focus. The directors lack of skill is clearly seen in his failed attempt to (I may be paraphrasing) give the character of the machine, a robotic donkey, a sense of having a soul (not even a glimmer of this is seen in the film), and his somewhat unsuccessful try at implying that there is prosperity outside the boundary of where the characters live. The film is without any sort of outstanding performance by the cast, and lacks even a single character that the audience can empathize with. Personally I believe that this feature was a waste of a perfectly good cinematographer, and I wish I had spent my time at another premier.

— Cossette-mark

This is the only review they have posted on IMDB, and they joined roughly 2 months before they posted it. A bit suspicious, but whatever, I can’t imagine why someone would want to do such a hatchet job on it. Pretty much the whole thing is bullshit, but I’ll try and play along.

Young Ones makes use of brilliant cinematography that is instantly wasted in the hands of a director who is without a shred of talent, an editor who must have been a butcher, mediocre sound editing, and a cast that is almost as misguided and inept as the screenplays author.

That’s pretty bizarre. I think the director did a pretty good job, managing to avoid any unnecessary melodrama of the kind the reviewer seems to be after. The editing was adequate, it didn’t really stick out. The cast includes Eddie Fanning (she was pretty great in this) and Kodi Smit-McPhee who plays the son is an atypical actor and was also great for the role. Then we have Michael fucking Shannon, who is good in everything.

A story that had true potential was crippled by a lack of character development, and the nonexistence of focus.

I’m gonna go ahead and say that Young Ones is very obviously a bit of a fable, a kind of old time western, just updated and moved into the far future. I mean the story is classic: A farm that’s dying or dead, the pioneer father trying to take care of his family and the asshole who wants to fuck them all over and steal their land. Hell, it has a lot of overlap with The River (starring a young Mel Gibson), if you just switch out the flood for the drought and the rich banker guy who wants to sleep with Gibson’s wife with the kid in Young Ones who is sleeping with Shannon’s daughter.

The directors lack of skill is clearly seen in his failed attempt to (I may be paraphrasing) give the character of the machine, a robotic donkey, a sense of having a soul (not even a glimmer of this is seen in the film), and his somewhat unsuccessful try at implying that there is prosperity outside the boundary of where the characters live.

Why the fuck would a robot have a soul? It’s not even an A.I, it’s literally a donkey robot that walks around. Do you expect cars in films to have a ”sense of soul?” This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard and shows how far removed the reviewer is from the actual movie and what it set out to achieve.

The film is without any sort of outstanding performance by the cast, and lacks even a single character that the audience can empathize with.

Even the bit roles were interesting and had a little bit of depth, even if they were on screen for a few seconds.

Anyway, fuck you.

4 out of 5 robot donkeys

7 Awesome Made-for-TV Horror Movies

I unironically love trash TV movies. We got a lot of those growing up where I’m from and sometimes it was all you can get outside of video rentals that were few and far between. Some of these I only saw as an adult and thus I didn’t enjoy as much. Sometimes the medium is the message, and staying up late on a school night and watching a scary movie on TV is probably the best medium there is for less-than-stellar acting and cinematography.
Salem’s Lot
”Vampires are invading a small New England town. It’s up to a novelist and a young horror fan to save it.”

Based on the fantastic Stephen King novel of the same name, it’s probably my favorite made for TV horror flick. Of course it takes the #1 spot. The scene with the kid floating outside his friend’s window is iconic for a reason (and still terrifying today).

Dark Night of the Scarecrow
”In a small town, a wrongfully killed man exacts revenge on those who murdered him beyond the grave.”

It’s been a while since I’ve seen this, but it’s a pretty solid revenge/horror flick.

Dont be Afraid of the Dark
”A young couple inherits an old mansion inhabited by small demon-like creatures who are determined to make the wife one of their own.”

Has aged remarkably well, in all honesty. The remake was terrible, so I’d rather watch this instead.

It
”In 1960, seven outcast kids known as “The Loser Club” fight an evil demon who poses as a child-killing clown. 30 years later, they are called back to fight the same clown again.”

Hey, another King adaptation. Arguably the TV movie that has scared more kids than any other. I like the book a lot and while I don’t love the movie, Tim Curry is pretty cool and it features some creepy ass scenes.

Duel
”A business commuter is pursued and terrorized by a malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer.”

Langoliers
”Most of the passengers on an airplane disappear, and the remainder land the plane in a mysteriously barren airport.”
I’m gonna get flack for this one, but I enjoyed it as a kid, back when I worshiped King. It’s goofy as hell, but hey, this was Lost before Lost.

Body Bags
”Three short stories in the horror genre. The first about a serial killer. The second about a hair transplant gone wrong. The third about a baseball player.”