Bait (Kimble Rendall, 2012)

The idea of making a movie about killer shark munching on hapless people has been done to death, I really mean it. Here, BAIT is a colloboration of Australian/Singaporean produced movie about shark attack, and I have to admit it has quite an interesting but sort of are-you-kidding-me concept: a freak tsunami strikes a small costal town of Australia, floods a supermarket while the survivors takes shelter inside. They are trapped in it no thanks to part of building structure collapse and blocks the entrance. Just as the survivors thought the situation could not be worse, beneath the flooded water is great white shark's new hunting ground . . . . . .

For the wrong reason, the prologue scared the hell out of me. It freaked me out not because
of how scary the shark attack sequence was, but I shuddered by the sight of very shoddy CGI effect of the shark (maybe due to the fact that I was not watching in 3D version). At that moment I thought I was surely in for a dreadful "so bad it is good" movie. But, the movie turn out marginally better as it progressed.

Visually, BAIT has enough suspense and bloody moments to to satisfy killer creature movie goers. The stranded people trapped at the top of the supermarket shelves while the shark is patrolling the submerged aisle, seeking for cgance to pick them one by one. In other words, it lets movie maker to show the gory images of mutilated human body. Giving how the seemingly huge appetite shark keep coming back for human snack after devouring some, I was a bit suprise by the rather smaller sharks portrayed in the movie compare to those other movies usual godzilla size. The portrayal of shark is a combination of the old school animatronic (yay!) and CGI (duhhh....can a great white shark swim that fast?) ) mainly for underwater sequence.

So, who are those potential shark meal? sorry i mean who are the survivors? They are cookie cutter characters are straight out from a typical disaster surviving theme movie. It has a timid character, a quiet but brave one, an annoyingly hysterical one, a few criminals, a cop, cop's daughter....the list goes on and I guess you get the idea, and oh do not forget the ultimate young and good looking hero with death immunity. I also think that I saw Julian McMahon, the only one actor I recognised as one of the robber. My favourite characters are the young couple who trapped inside a car at the basement car park level as they just argue about everything despite shark is frantically trying to take a good bite on them. 

BAIT does not help by its amateurish acting level all around. It is a major letdown. It does not matter if this is a low budget movie or a film student experiment movie, acting is the first and foremost the important aspect in a make or break for a movie. All in all, lower your expectation and you may like it, at least it does not has a full assault on my IQ which happens in a lot of the B-horror movies. Better to watch BAIT rather than Shark Night (David R. Ellis, 2012).

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it

2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = Excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? Only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012)

First thing first, let's lay the fact, Prometheus is a spin-off from Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979), a loose prequel if you insist. It is set in LV-223, a different moon LV-426 in Alien and Aliens (James Cameron, 1986)); a different derelict alien spacecraft; a different Space Jockey, but here they called it Engineer, in Alien (1979), it was a much bigger size and last but certainly not least, a different efficiency of director Ridley Scott. He returned to sci-fi  territory after lengthy absence from his influential haunted-house-in-space Alien.

Every time I re-watch Alien (1979), I always wonder what is all about with the fossilized creature with the elephant head, sitting eerily at a crashed cockpit spacecraft. Certainly I am not the only one who is curious about it. Well, the director Scott answered our query at last by expanding the back story of the Space Jockey in moon LV-426. Prometheus is set decades before the incident where Ripley and crews first discovered the fossilized spacecraft pilot. A deep space expedition funded by Weyland Corporation (later as Weyland-Yutani Corp in Alien movie series) set out looking for answers of who created human in the beginning and what is our purpose on earth. Darwinism, this is not.



















An Alien movie will not be without a strong female protagonist, Noomi Rapace fits the bill as one of the archeologist in expedition. Sadly, she is no Ellen Ripley, period. Even more so for an Alien movie will not be without a human-like android on board. As usual the one thing we need to find out is whose side he is allied to. Michael Fassbender really excelled to bring his android character to, should I say, to "life"? He is almost a child-like inquisitive machine, more human than another human on board, a calculative, icy Weyland Corporation representative played by Charlize Theron. 

Prometheus belongs to that type of flick which does not offer answers in many questions it poses. The plot holds back way too much without resolving many mysteries it put forth, perhaps it want to saves for subsequent sequels until it tie nicely to the original Alien movie, I do not know. But one thing I am sure is, I am not keen on watching something that requires me to make huge assumption about a lot of things, and that, is a MAJOR problem. Great movies sometimes leave space for viewers to interprete themself and I have no qualm accepting a little notion called narrative ambiguity. To make things worse as the plot thicken, the movie suffers from a absurd script to have narration move onward, the logic stretches beyond salvage, if not, how do you explain a pivotal moment in this movie where immediately after a Ceasarean section was performed, the character went up and running as if the wound is an insect bite?

If I knew Ridley Scott and co have made such a banal attempt of elaborating the back story of Space Jockey, I would rather have it remain mysterious fossilized. Basically, the sky is the limit for them to kickstart a new direction yet still set within the same Alien to Alien Resurrection (Jeunet, 1997) universe that we all familiar with. No Egg, no Facehugger, no Xenomorph, No Alien Queen, I am OK with none of that, perhaps some minor references to the Alien series here and there will be delightful for the buffs. What is in my mind now is, If the tagline of Weyland Corporation is "Building Better Worlds", perhaps Prometheus means "posing more questions" to us.

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = Excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? Only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Devil (John Erick Dowdle, 2010)

It used to be a surefire hit for movie to be associated with the distinctive label of M. Night Shayamalan. He directed, wrote, produced and sometimes acted as cameo in some of the most original modern days' cinematic achievement. However his fall from grace began after some back to back turkeys of Lady in The Water (2006), The Happening (2008) and the TV series adaptation of The Last Airbender (2010). Now I think he had realized that he should let his trusted associates to bring his idea to the screen. The story he provided (he did not pen the script) will be the first of 3, from a planned supernatural thriller anthology called The Night Chronicles. Still, Shyamalan's familiar modus is evidently shown here, it was set in his own soil Philadelphia; his long time collaboration, Tak Fujimoto is the director of photography; plus the holy moly plot twist elements are back!

The movie begins with a voiceover telling us about how the devil roams the earth teasing and torturing sinned people before taking their souls to eternity hell. The opening credits shows an upside down panning view of gloomy Philly skyscraper. At one of the office high rise, five strangers entered that office tower riding a same elevator, it was then struck by a sudden malfunction midway, and soon follows by series of bizarre, unexplained events, all happened in the confined metal box. A detective, still mourning at the loss of his family in a hit and run road accident, was called to calm the situation and try to get them out before the conflict between them turns real ugly. Apparently, one of the five strangers in that elevator is not what "it" appear to be......

My first impression for Devil is, it is an extended The Twilight Zone episode spanning 70-ish minutes. Huge chunk of the movie take place in the elevator, interweave with real time plot happen elsewhere. The voiceover in the movie works like a charm guide, at times warns the audience the imminent dangers and also devilishly manipulate our anticipation. This bone chilling Devil reminds us the tell-all sign to look for from a great scary movie is, because it never rely on cheap sudden jolting scare, nor it depends on full-blown gore and blood.

Everytime the lights in the elevator inexplicable went off, the screen goes total black, it only accompanied by the eerie whirling sound effect heighten by the surround cinema speakers. You will only able to see the aftermath of the carnage, not during the invisible force at work. Nevermind, the tension of waiting for the next trainwreck is enough to agonize you. Forget about the subliminal shots of the devil, the script also offers further religious undertone such as the belief of everything happens for a reason, or the hypothetical statement of "If you believe in god, then you will have to believe in the devil". As for the big plot twist mentioned above, I will not reveal it here, a minor hint I can give is, just think of it as a reversal of retribution to foil someone's coup de grâce.

This movie will not scare the daylight out of people who take elevator as opposed to say, that famous shark movie has inflicted on the beachgoers' mind with permanent scar. Though, claustrophobic individual should avoid it at all cost. I was among the skeptics who scoffed at the "M. Night Shyamalan Presents:" on top of a movie title before this movie. Now with less of his involvement in this horror chiller, my cynicism against him evaporates until he bring on the next chapter of The Night Chronicles.

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it

2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution

3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre

4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended

5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Samuel Bayer, 2010)

Another day, another remake...... This time, the Pizzaface is back to haunt our dream. I was silly to think that I have seen the last of him after the pointless Freddy vs. Jason (Yu, 2003). With the latest Platinum Dunes production, one may ask, does this 80s horror movie icon need a remake treatment? To pay homage to the original? I scoff every time some director/producer et al said that. If that is the reason, can we as moviegoers watch your so called "product of tribute" for free? If they say they want to re-boot the original ANOES because it looks dated and campy, then I would be understandably agree with it (though not condone it), provided that there are rooms of improvement in the original and at the same time some creativity must be injected to the new movie. I want a brilliant Dawn of the Dead (Snyder, 2004) kind of remake rather than Gus Van Sant re-doing Hitchcock's Psycho almost shot by shot. Awful it is not, unnecessary it is.


Robert Englund is done reprising Freddy Kruger character, passing the baton to Jackie Earle Haley of Watchmen's Rorschach. I need to keep remind myself that Robert Englund is not playing Freddy, Robert Englund is not playing Freddy...... His creepy performance is what I have expected, with those familiar snarling voice, wicked look, I am most pleased that he never overdid it and thank god Freddy did not turn into a one line joke comedian like original sequels did.

The storyline is almost the same as the original: A group of teenagers were stalked in their dreams by a disfigured hat wearing man called Freddy Kruger. One by one they are killed by Freddy in their dreams, what happen during their nightmares reflected in real life, including death. The survivors must find out what link them with the boogeyman before running out of time. This remake is basically identical to the original, it offers nothing new to the series. Even as a pre-requisite element of slasher movie, the death scenes are not inventive enough. it is a polished version with the same plotline except some minor tweaking on the background of Freddy Kruger.

Any original ANOES fan hopes this remake is going to re-invent and re-kickstart the whole franchise again will be kicking themselves for paying to see this insipid and lack of creativity effort. If you are a newcomer to Freddy's nightmare, you will discover the fine demarcation line in between reality and dream provides a convenient template to shape the suspenseful, scary atmosphere. It is a shame that regular visitors to Elm Street like me will find the 2010 version nothing more than a blatant attempt to milk some dough from new audience.


All together now: One, two, remake is coming for you..... three, four, we have seen it all before......


1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

The Wolfman (Joe Johnston, 2010)

The Wolfman is the latest remakes of many Classic Universal Horror Monsters such Frankenstein, Mummy, Dracula. It is set in a gothic-feel Victorian era, Lawrence Talbot (a Latin Benicio Del Toro playing an Englishman), at the request of his brother's fiancée, Gwen, came home to look for his missing brother, Ben. He was found dead upon Lawrence's arrival with the body brutally mutilated by an unknown assailant. Lawrence tried to investigate until he was bitten by what appear to be the same culprit, the legendary werewolf who has terrorized this small settlement. He was rescued and miraculously recovered from the wound. By the next full moon, what have been suspected by the locals: Lawrence inevitably turn into a werewolf himself. At the same time, his feeling for Gwen is growing steadfast......

With Rick Baker, the make up maestro, one will think the design of the werewolf will be in safe hand. Well to be honest it's a kind of hit and miss situation here. While the transformation scene from man to beast was handled well, which anyway we are expect to see due to the advancement of the CGI technique, one can't help but notice the beast itself is too "human-like". Maybe it is just me, but i prefer the werewolf's snout more recognizable, like the one in An American Werewolf in London (Landis, 1981), where Rick Baker's make up won him an Oscar for the Best Special Effect category.

Stiff acting from A-List main cast cannot save The Wolfman as a howling, forgettable effort. Anthony Hopkins was the wolfman's estranged father but the wafer thin script did not flesh out the relationship between father and son. Hugo Weaving played a detective from Scotland Yard who was adamant to track down the whereabout of the beast. Emily Blunt provided the love interest as Ben's wife-to-be, but the romance part is hollow and too rush. It is perhaps the fault of Director Joe Johnston who should know he has a solid material in hand to build up the suspense, but no, instead we are served with lots of jumpy hallucination sequences using cheap scare tactic such as loud and sudden audio burst which kill the suspense mood. They even hired Gollum from Lord of the Rings to appear as cameo, no kidding. Hey, come to think of it, I think I also witnessed the fiery fighting between Wolverine and Sabretooth at the finale.

There are plenty of strong, bloody violence during those werewolf attacks. In fact the overdone gore implied the director's preference of making The Wolfman as by-the-numbers horror flick instead of say... a psychological horror thriller, at least they should have emphasize on the building up the suspense. The movie seems so eager to bring the first werewolf transformation to the audience and I wonder if the troubled production (allegedly due to creative differences), and a lot of the unused footages (end up on the editing room's floor), contributing to the poor pacing in the first half. Watch this movie only if you a real diehard werewolf fan while waiting for the aforementioned An American Werewolf in London remake.

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Legion (Scott Stewart, 2010)

How often is angel depicted as villain in movie? I can recall an androgynous Archangel Gabriel (by Tilda Swinton) in Constantine (Lawrence, 2005). This biblical related movie has a intriguing but flawed concept: Doomsday is imminent, because God the Almighty has lost faith in humanity, so He execute the annihilation of all mankind, (His intention is to "reboot" civilization again?). He sends His huge army of angels to do the deed with a specific target: To kill Charlie the waitress because she is bearing the baby who is apparently the saviour of humanity. She is trapped in a remote diner with a group of people. This is where the battle between angels and humans takes place at.

Two of the four Archangel are the main features here, Michael (played by the über-cool Paul Bettany), the rebellious cum merciful one and Gabriel (Kevin Durand) the one who ever so loyal to God. Michael defied God's command by protecting the pregnant Charlie from the onslaught zombie-like humans which possessed by angels. Legion echoed The Mist (Darabont, 2008), Dawn of the Dead (both original and its remake) where a group of people defending their fortress from the enemy.

If you can lap up God's method of wiping out mankind using angels instead of mass flood, then I suppose you will shake off the laughable image of Archangels Michael and Gabriel holding the firearm trying to shoot each other. Without revealing the twisted ending, this movie seems unintentionally ridicules God the Almighty as God the Indecisive.


In between the juicy action sequences, the dialogues spoken by the human characters are banally awful to say the least. I understand the idea of those chats is meant to provide the characters' background but clearly it backfired. Legion is a campy B-movie who hardly fulfils my so called guilty pleasure. Highlights such as the creepy old lady and the ice cream man are clever setpieces. As much as I fond of Paul Bettany, not even him able to salvage this sluggish end of the world kind of tale.


1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Let the Right One In (Swedish) (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

The legacy of vampirism are flourishing, continue to self-reinvent in big screen and TV all these years, Bram Stoker will be proud. This Swedish feature was adapted from the same name novel, Låt den rätte komma, literally translated as Let the Right One In. The author, John Ajvide Lindqvist was also hired for trimming the 480 pages bestseller into the script. The movie title is refer to famous vampire folklore, which a vampire cannot enter a residence unless being invited by the owner, or else the vampire will face the consequences as devastated as say, sprinkled with holy water or exposed to sunlight. I do not know whether the myth has been depicted in a movie before, but that key moment where a vampire breaking the said rule and what happen next is oddly heartwarming and powerful at the same time.


The setting is early 1980s, with the backdrop of cold landscape seemingly forever cover with snow in a small deserted suburban of Stockholm. Very often the calmly panning camerawork captured the serenity of under the roof. By using minimum editing, the gracefully waltzing camera movement soothe us with heaps of beautiful shots despite the occasional (mostly offscreen) grisly, bloodletting acts.


It is not a through and through horror movie. It is essentially a story about the relationship of two lonely souls. The pale looking blond boy, Oskar, has been bullied constantly by his peers, for reason I do not know, the introvert did not seems to fight back, he vented his frustation by himself, just like Robert De Niro did a "Are you talking to me?" monologue. They are destined to crosspath each other when Eli the little girl moved in to his next door. Eli said she is "more or less" 12 years old when Oskar asked her about her age. She also told Oskar to "hit back harder" on his bullies. From Morse Code-ing each other divided by party wall, they end up sharing their first kiss. Their relationship throughout the movie is ambiguity yet poignant. It is not an understatement to say the two young leads, Kåre Hedebrant (Oskar) and Lina Leandersson (Eli) gave a performance that will put most of the movie celebrities to shame.


By judging the superiority of this movie, the coming soon redundant american remake called Let Me In (helmed by Matt Reeves) will have a steep mountain to climb to match its undead sibling. To be able to survive from the embarrassing comparison with the original one will be a major triumph. Please take note that the subtitle is the heart and soul of the movie if you do not understand Swedish, please make sure the subtitle you are getting from Blu-ray or DVD are in English theatrical subtitle, such as Region 2 DVD from Momentum Pictures.

The ending keep me ponder whether it is tragic repeating cycles or happiness-in-the-making. To be honest, it work either way. Let the Right One In is a tale of adolescent friendship and love with vampire, it never hide the fact that the unspeakable horror seeps into the melancholic storyline, it is the testament to the masterpiece of moviemaking, much images from the movie stayed with me long after watching it. Flawless, unfathomable poignant, uncannily beautiful. Simply unmissable.



1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007)

By now most of us have heard of what Paranormal Activity is all about. The much hyped up flick has become one of the cultural cinematic event of the year, thanks to the emphatic viral marketing and explosive word of mouth campaign. The essentially haunted house movie was wholly shot in amateur-ish home video style but minus the extreme shaky cam of Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008). It tells the story of a young suburban couple, Katie (Micah Sloat) and Katie (Katie Featherston) moved in to a new house. Katie claimed she was by spirit since she was young. By using night vision ability video camera mounting on a tripod, the tech savvy Micah wanted to capture any supernatural incident while they are sleeping. Their pursuit begins to go out of hand as the invisible force makes its presence known to both of them.

This movie is similar vein to The Blair Witch Project (D.Myrick, E.Sánchez; 1999) in every possible way. However Paranormal Activity triumphs due to one important reason: The moment you have know the whole BWP shebang is nothing but a pseudo "found footage" celluloid, the scary-meter drops drastically. No, not this time, despite the fact without recognized actors and on a shoestring budget, the first time director/writer Oren Peli expertly orchestrate the unnerving atmosphere, turning the every day’s mundane stuffs such as door swinging, shadows, the sounds of footsteps, light switching on and off randomly that creep me out. The old school’s rule of fear for the unknown works well here.


Oren shuffled the plot between daytime mostly talkie sequences and night time terrorizing sequences, and the tension slowly built up as each night passed by. For me, it is a damn-if-it-does, damn-if-it-doesn't kind of situation during the nocturnal setpieces. Every time the video clip fast forwarding (clock indicated at bottom right) while one of the characters stood and stared motionless over the other character for an umpteenth period of time sent shiver down my spine. On the other scenario when the video clip was played at normal speed, I was dire to watch the screen as well, afraid of noticing any bit of movement. It just goes to show that you don't need gore and unnecessary violence to freak people out.


Unlike normal circumstances, you do not solely judge this kind of movie from the aspect of polished narrative structures and neat production design because it is meant to be an faux-improvised material. It is how much the impact from the movie provides that count. Paranormal Activity should soar to higher recognition if it was not letdown by the lead characters' repetitive monotonous dialogues during the daytime sequences. Having said that, it actually did serve a purpose being a boring but authentic homemade video.

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009)

The theme of devilish behaviour under the disguise of innocent face children have been brilliantly executed in the past. This latest thriller is produced by Dark Castle Entertainment, which specialize in making horror movies such as House of Haunted Hill (Malone, 1999) and The Reaping (Hopkins, 2007). It focus on a young married couple, Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John Coleman (Stellan Sarsgaard). They are rebuilding their frail relationship after a series of setbacks. Such as very early on we find out Kate suffered from delivered stillborn baby recently and still haunted by it. Despite they have had two children, they decided to adopt another to ease the pain of losing their 3rd child.

Enter the matured looking 9 years old orphan, Esther, who is more than meet the eyes. From the movie trailer and poster we just know something is not quite right about Esther the orphan. But nothing prepares us for her wickedness, as she turn from a nice little girl to manipulative psychopath with a terrifying secret. That secret turns out to be a chilling sucker punch to say the least. I will not disclose the twist of course, you will be guessing about Esther’s origin, be it supernaturally or “realistically”. I would say the twist surrounding Esther's origin is plausible, at maybe 1 out of 50 million chances, yeah right!

It is absolutely essential for evil child character to be portrayed remarkably; else the movie loses its appeal. This is where Orphan shines the most. There is not one shred of doubt that the brightest star in Orphan is in the shape of 12 years old actress Isabelle Fuhrman. Her debut performance is convincing, matured and most of all, more terrifying than Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers roll into one.

This scary-fest add nothing groundbreaking to the horror/thriller genre (nowadays who does?). Despite some cliché-ridden bit and a little too cardboard-ish husband and wife characters for my liking, I managed to soak up the scary atmosphere at some vital moments. Orphan the movie certainly hits my primal fear, the thought of bringing home some evil adopted child.

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (Colin Strause/Greg Strause 2007)

Again, Our Earth Is Their Playground

The most significant discrepancy from the original AvP compare to this sequel is the added violence and gory elements. Also, we won’t have to suffer from the sight of the lead woman character and the Predator in AvP running together side by side in slow-motion. That scene show them sort of like "buddies" was plain pathetic, I mean what on earth are you thinking of, Mr Paul W.S. Anderson??! (of the original AvP’s director cum writer). By the time the predator show her how to use the Alien corpse’s head as a shoulder shield, I was about to cough green Predator blood.


Ok, let’s not dwell on the past, this time, Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem (abbreviation as AVPR), is no longer a pussified version, if you pardon my language. It’s full of violence and gore right from the beginning. The plot continue from the 1st movie where the Predator spaceship depart from earth to return to their planet, unknowingly to the Predators, their dead partner that they bring onboard was impregnated with Alien inside. Very soon a new hybrid species called PredAlien is born and burst from the corpse’s chest, start to kill off the Predator one by one. The spaceship is forced to crash onto a small town in Colorado, U.S. The dying Predator managed to send a distress S.O.S video call to his comrade in their distant home planet. The said comrade picked up the call and travelled all the way to our Earth to clean the mess by trying to stop the Alien infection which happens at an alarming rate.


Do you notice the movie title? The plural in Aliens and singular in Predator. It is refers to lots of Aliens who are slaughtered by the only one Predator. It was never meant to be a balance fight between these 2 creatures, Predator is the predominant species here, how about human characters, you may ask? Forget about them, I said. They are purely ornament in this fightfest. Anyone who is longing for extensive human characters’ development can look elsewhere.


The Predator is a kick-ass veteran warrior unlike in the first installment, 2 or 3 rookies Predators who took part in a rite of passage. He is affectionately named as The Wolf, as in Pulp Fiction, Harvey Keitel’s Winston “The Wolf” Wolfe. He is a 'cleaner', a specialist in cover up any extreme lethal threat. He needs to be relentless and often require quick thinking decision, although his target shooting rate leave a lot to be desired. He manage to kill a lots of Aliens but along the way, get rid of some stupid humans as well. With the aid from some magical blue liquid, he methodically carry out the task without leaving any trace. The new hybrid species, PredAlien plays the role of Mother Alien. Unlike the latter, it is capable of impregnated a host (human) to create its offspring without using facehuggers.


Basically, there are 4 things that I like about this movie:

- The violence and gore.
- The predator AKA The Wolf
- Earlier in the movie, we have the chance to catch the glimpse of what look like the original planet of predator.
- The cameo of Miss Yutani!! Nice to meet her at last and congratulate on her newly acquired extra terrestial technology. I dare you not to have a goosebump when you see her! If you don’t know what I am talking about, then I am wondering whether you should watch this movie in the first place.

If you ask me which AvP movies i like most, it will be like asking me which way I would prefer to die from, fall from 20 storey building head down? Or drown in the sea? I am reluctant to answer but for the sake of this blog, the answer is AVP:R by a nose. Although honestly i have read some home appliance DIY manual instructions that were far more entertaining than the dialogues in this movie, and the Dawson’s Creek-style subplot is a turn off for me too. But as a fan of both franchises, I felt AVP:R is still a serviceable movie compare to the awful first installment.

New Movie Review: 1408 (2007)

"Do not enter Room 1408", Tell that to Mike Enslin (played by John Cusack) is like forbid Loic LeFerme to perform extreme sport feat of "no-limit" free diving or stop Homer Simpsons from eating donuts. Anyway, despite fervent warned by the hotel manager - Gerald Olin. Gerald even bluntly told Mike the reason is, he don't want to clean up another bloody mess after grisly suicide incidents, which had claimed over 50 lives since the opening of Dolphin Hotel.


But Mike is no ordinary hotel guest, we are told through flashback that he has a grievous past (He lost his daughter) before he became a paranormal phenomenon debunker cum writer who offer trashy reading thrill to his readers, by writing "10 Nights in Haunted Hotels" (Something similar to our neighbouring Singaporean, Russell Lee who is the author of famous " Singapore's True Ghost Stories" series of books). He stays from one to another so-called haunted hotel rooms/inn to record and rate them for their spookiness.


As you all may know, this movie is Stephen King's short stories adaptation. basically the whole movie is set in this room, it is a one man show from John Cusack, just him versus the evil room, and oh not forgetting some CGI as well. Once Mike check in to room 1408, SowYau had prepared himself for the worse things could happen to Mike, how he will survive the night of terror. Prior to this, we were told how the previous occupants took their own lives, some jump off the building, one drown on his own chicken soup, another slashed his wrist and then try to sown it back all because of him being a tailor, another incident involving a maid survived but gouged her own eyes out laughing hysterically..... We know about the room's dreadful history, but we do not know why the room itself is evil.


Now here's the revelation: This room is capable of tormenting people who stay there, drive them to the verge of madness and take their own life. Witness how the room dig into Mike's past, his estranged, late father appeared before his eyes, there's something about his daughter's death as well..... By the time Mike realized this could be his last ever chapter in his book, the room refused to let him out. The wall is bleeding, Is it hallucinations? The sudden appear of chocolates at his bed, is it really happen? Mike watched the replay scenes (ala The Ring's Sadako visual style) of previous suicidal occupants on his way "out". Not to mention the possessed clock radio who played "We Have Only Just Begun" by The Carpenters will change the song's perception forever once you walk out from the cinema. A spine chilling moment scare the shit out of SowYau. Wait, there's more to come, for people who suffer acrophobia, (even SowYau do not has) will feel extreme agony over the scene of Mike hanging on the building's ledge when he tried to climb out of the window.


No one has ever stay alive in that room for more than an hour, if they manage to withstand all the delusions created by the rooms, they will be treated with endless terror of one hour loop until they surrendered and take their own life. That is how all the previous occupants did. Room 1408 even has the guts to inform Mike through intercom/phone that: he can choose to repeat this hour over and over again, or he can take advantage of hotel's so called express checkout system AKA kill himself! Did Mike succeeding in overcome the loop? SowYau think he did make it out, but the dubious ending suggested otherwise as well, *cough* *cough* dictaphone *cough* (enough hint already!)


The problem with 1408 is, once the movie venture into conventional horror movie territory, it all starting to fall into familiar sight, cheap scare tactic: sudden loud music accompanied by scary spirits, unneccessary fake ending, SowYau felt it contains too many moments of: Is it really happen or is it a delusion kind of things.


It is definitely not The Shining 2007 but a good psychological horror movie nonetheless. No gore and very little blood involved. The startling exchange words between the hotel manager (played by Samuel L Jackson) and John Cusack fueling by the unnerving description of previous deaths in Room 1408 is the pivotal scene. No doubt, John Cusack has a tour de force performance here, we saw him succumb slowly from paranoia to insanity, and how heart rending he was to lose his daughter for the second time.

Movie Review: Jaws (1975)

Thank you, Bruce!

Yes, we all should thank Bruce The Mechanical Shark, but none more so than Mr. Spielberg. During filming, Bruce(named after Spielberg's lawyer)was so erratic and often malfunction, leaving Spielberg with no choice but to shoot the movie as the shark's POV, rather than reveal the whole damn things.

Fear of the unknown. That's where Jaws really work. We, as audience do not know what is really attack those victims, are we seeing from the shark's view when we roam underwater through the paddling kids? Our imagination kick in, the tension keep rising which keep us on edge. In fact we didn't get a proper sight of the 25 footer until 80 mins into running time! that's where Chief Brody uttered the immortal line: "Your're gonna need a bigger boat".

The movie was adapted from Peter Benchley's same name bestseller. It was inspired by a real event known as The Jersey Beach Shark Attacks in 1916 (4 fatalities within 12 days!). Jaws is about a small resort island, Amity Island, terrorized by a gigantic Great White shark. The town mayor refused to close the beach due to the lucrative tourist business. but body count is rising. Later, a group of trio, a perfect casting consists of a police chief- Brody (played by Roy Scheider), shark expert- Matt (Richard Dreyfuss) and seasoned fisherman- Quint (Robert Shaw) set out to battle with the creature.

Who can forget the opening young girl skinny dipping scene?! Perhaps one of the most horrifying movie moment SowYau have ever seen! There are so many memorable scenes such as, when Matt bump into Ben underwater, or the near ill-attempt by two half-baked fishermen to catch the shark or Quint's memorable U.S.S. Indianapolis speech. Jaws was Spielberg's template to stretches his full ablility in a few pivotal scenes, namely the reverse tracking zoom scene (1st used in Hitchcock's Vertigo), where Chief Brody realized the Kintner boy is being chewed up. Also, SowYau in particular like the cleverly switching between floating cam and steady cam on the 3 men in a boat scene.

SowYau asked his sister, "hey, what can your recall of watching Jaws in the theater?"

"what do u expect? i was only about 3 years old at that time, the only thing i remember is the shark is always playing hide and seek." My sister uttered.

What she didn't mention was, that fateful night (according to SowYau's parents), she was wandering around in the hall, lost her direction until an usher helped her find our parents. All these happened while our parents are among the packed audience terrified by this brilliant piece of moviemaking.

SowYau wish he had the privilege to watch Jaws in the big-ass theater. The truth is he was not even born in 1975 when Jaws single-handedly introduced the concept so-called summer blockbuster event which develop the movie release pattern today (you know blockbuster movie? heavy marketing campaign, huge number of screen open simultaneously, movie merchandise etc etc). Jaws was such a pop culture phenomenon, it inspired 3 inferior movie sequels. For the record, SowYau with the whole family watched the 4th part - Jaws The Revenge, coincidentally, his friend, K.S.H. was there as well. Haha. Also, John Williams' effective score was constantly spoofed in movies, there is a Unversal Theme Park, endless of movie merchandise products such as this lovely limited edition Jaws "Attck Shark" Figure" http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/product.aspx?product=DMC10683&mode=retail , SowYau want it badly! can it be his next year Valentine's Day present?

SowYau has a secret: he has been fascinated by sharks ever since the first time he watched Jaws on TV, he was about 7 years old and was immersely traumatized by it. All these years, SowYau read books about sharks, watch NatGeo or Animal Planet's shark documentary, knew the amazing story about Rodney Fox, despise "shark finning" act (Google it, will you?) therefore refuse to serve shark fin soup on his wedding dinner (but eventually the idea was vetoed by his parents). SowYau learn a lot about sharks, but no matter what, SowYau still get scared every single time he swims in the ocean.

In Sowyau's opinion, Jaws is Spielberg finest hour, it creates the perfect combination of suspense and sheer terror. (His Schindler's List and Jurassic Park are SowYau's favourites as well). Forget about SowYau's 5 stars description below, it's already a proven classic, one of the best, period. But when comes to categorize what genre is Jaws, is it Thriller? Horror? Adventure? Or all roll into one? Answer on a postcard and sent to SowYau, please.

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List