The Anime! Not the Live Action piece of Crap!

Watch it here. And save yourself 10 bucks and 2 hours of your time, not to mention the utter disgust and nausea that Blood’s Live Action movie provided.

To call itself ‘inspired’ by Production I.G’s Blood: the Last Vampire would be a great injustice.

A Review:
The girl who plays Saya absolutely do NOT resemble her, either in the animated movie or the anime series. But I’ll give it a chance. I know the movie will face a great challenge to be on par with the great animated movie. But I came in the theatre with an open mind, thinking, “Let’s see what they’ll come up with.”

And boy do they come up with utter crap. The kinda crap that makes you writhe in your seat. The kind that makes you wanna throw up. That makes you wanna find the writer, director and everyone who’s agreed to give a green light to this kinda shit of a movie, and punch em in the face.

Ok seriously, the review. The first 5 minutes, my hopes were raised way up high. The reason: They’ve followed the anime, or what I can recall from it, scene by scene. Then, the scene at the high school, where the innocent girl watches Saya kill the two demons… very Buffy-esque. And there’s always something about that dumb little show that appeals to everyone. So that’s kinda nice too.

But that’s about it. It went totally down hill from there. And it came an extremely painful, screeching halt.

All in all, I think it’s a great comedy. It’s a joke of a movie. And we did laugh about it for a good 20 minutes after the movie. Not many comedies can have that effect.

So, if you’re looking to be either disgusted or be in a state of beyond disgust, that it becomes hilarious, then by all means, watch Blood: The Last Vampire.

Otherwise, here is the real shit. Parts 1 to 5. Load em up, play em in HQ, and enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

The title intrigued me. And when I saw that the genre was horror, I knew had to watch it. I had no idea what it was about though. I’ve always wanted to watch horror stuff late at night to get the full effect, but I decided to just watch it on a Saturday afternoon. Procrastination no good no?

This movie is in Swedish. It has a very slow start, like one of those art central film art stuff. Ok now they call it OKTO right? Anyway, I’m not a fan of artsy-fartsy movies as some people have observed, from my choice of movies. In fact I hate ‘artistic’ stuff that try too hard to be artistic and have the message of ‘if you don’t understand my art, you’re not artistic’. But movies like Let the Right One In, goes beyond that. I mean there are no rules on ‘artistic films’. If a movie is good, its good.

Basically, Let the Right One In is a ‘romantic’ horror film about a bullied boy falling into a relationship with the vampire next door. Interesting right? There are some aspects of his life that made him kinda screwed up as it is. Then he met this Vampire girl. They started becoming friends and slowly they helped each other out on their individual needs and problems. There aren’t any twists and stuff, just good storytelling.

Other than the slightly slow pace, the movie is up there with the likes of El Orfanato, Exorcist, and other kick ass horror movies which I can’t remember. Haha.

Ok the stuff I LOVE about the movie.

• The awesome music. Totally suits the mood. Fantastic score.
• Eli. The Vampire. She’s a damn good actress. Comparable if not better than those other child actors like Dakota Fanning or that 6th Sense Kid who sees ghosts.
• The subtle hints of gore. It makes it even more scary.
• Sticking close to the vampire lore. With none of the fancy cool shits. Damn Buffy.
• Good cinematography. Good camerawork with little or no obvious in-the-face stupid scare tactics.

One really eye popping scene for me is how they answered the question of why Vampires can’t enter any house or room without being invited. Heard it first from Buffy. Damn Buffy. Then everywhere else. But I have no idea why they can’t go in. Is there an invisible wall? That would be lame. Will they just burn up and die? That’s also lame. But in Let the Right One In, it gives a perfect freaky answer. Watch it to find out OR… I’ll just say it here.

*SPOILER*
Eli (the vampire) told Oskar (the boy) she can only come in if he invites her. Oskar playfully refuses to invite Eli and waves her in. Eli, after a short pause, enters. Nothing out of the blue here. Then Eli’s face starts to go all screwed up. She looked incredibly sick. Then blood start to appear from her back. She began bleeding profusely. Blood oozes out from her eyes, nose, mouth, ears and every orifice of her body. Oskar got extremely freaked out at the distance Eli would go to prove her point to someone she likes. He cried, “Stop! Please Stop! You can come in!” And he hugged Eli.

Eli looked something like this.

The whole thing is just awesome.

Then of course. I love the last part. When Eli saves Oskar.

So you see, sometimes special effects overuse isn’t the way to go. Although there were some efx in Let the Right One In.

I’d give it a “Go watch it when you have the time to focus on the movie. Otherwise, don’t bother.” rating.

This is the concept photo/art of the Joker’s face. The finalised Heath Ledger version (right) was among the very first Joker pics released on the net. And we thought that was scary. I think people might piss in their pants if Joker had looked like the concept art.

Go to Cinematical for more. I got it from them anyways. However, the rest of the pics aren’t too scary.

This is getting out of hand. It was cool the first few times, but now its starting to get lame.

The new craze of Hollywood film makers (who’re apparently running out of ideas) is to make hand held video camera movies. And with their super rich industry being able to afford expensive CG, they can make something relatively low budget, add in a pinch of special effects to make it look as if it’s part of all that shaky action, and release it as a movie.

The breakthrough came with Blair Witch Project ONE. I thought this was a bloody cool style. Really captured the truth of the moment, makes you feel like watching something REAL. Well, I didn’t really watch the entire movie. I just liked the idea.

Then, many B grade film makers adopted the style. Some of them pulled through nicely, like the movie Alien Abduction, which is made to look like a documentary with ‘professionals’ commenting on the footage throughout the movie. Up till here, it was still ok, although it’s starting to lose its freshness.

Then came the all too cool Cloverfield. I like the movie mainly due to its viral marketing, and how this kinda style can be used to make a Monster Movie. In that sense, it’s new. A monster movie using the shaky cam method.

But the line should be drawn there. Instead, recently, at Apple Movie Trailers website, I saw two movies in the horror category, Quarantine and Diary of the Dead, which are of the shaky cam genre.

And every single one of these shaky cam shits will show some stupid woman in distress with their faces smack closed up on the camera, crying and drooling mucus from their noses. Sometimes, they even show men in such situation, which is seriously gross. They had it in Blair Witch, Cloverfield, and yes, you guessed it, in the two ‘new’ movies, Quarantine and DotD.

Super Scared Women in Shaky Cam Movies. Cloverfield, Blair Witch and Quarantine screencaps.

Alright, I’m not saying I hate this style of movie making. I actually liked it. But the fact that Hollywood’s starting to adopt it, and making more and more of it, when they could be making proper movies with proper camera work and directing, just irritates me.

The shaky cam style is supposed to be a secret weapon for low budget film makers to capture the audience without employing high tech rigs or involving expensive effects. And these Hollywood people are taking it away from such aspiring film makers.

I will say it. Guillermo Del Toro is the master of Horror. Not just cheap thrill shock therapy horror, but really freaky, disturbing, ‘haunts you in your sleep’ kind of Horror.

At first I knew about him as the director of Hellboy, which was cool and all, but the movie’s not really into the freaky business. Then came Pan’s Labyrinth, which deserves an award for being freaky. Del Toro’s twisted take on fairy tales has made Pan’s Labyrinth a movie I will never forget.

And now, I have just watched The Orphanage. Another spanish film produced by Del Toro, and with honourable mentions to the director Juan Antonio Bayona. You can read a good review of the film here from IMDB.

El Orfanato is seriously one of the best Horror movies I have ever seen, regardless of language. I get multiple goosebump sessions throughout the movie with its excellent camera play, teasing you with possible ’sightings’, and not to forget its freakishly superb sound arrangements, edging you all through the movie.

The story’s fantastic. And there are really no plot holes left uncovered. Everything pieced together perfectly, and it has a good reason to. Unlike most other horror films which try miserably to put a weak story to an otherwise scary situation, where they try to explain stuff but end up spoiling the entire mystery/horror effect.

Unlike Labyrinth, where there’s quite a number of freaky monsters/creatures and quite a bit of gore, The Orphanage has a minimal amount of such things, but they are used to maximum effect. And I really like that in a horror movie. You can take something so trivial… so simple… and if you add the right amount of twist to it, you could create something of unimaginable… freakiness.

All, and I mean ALL horror buffs should watch the movie. And I wish I had a brain like Del Toro’s. And Neil Gaiman. And Jhonen Vasquez, just for the kicks.

Let’s end the post with a hint of the one freaky thing from the Orphanage.

Say hi to Tomas. He’s your friend. You can see him, right? Heh heh.

I don’t know why, I’ve been having quite a number of nightmares lately. Scary ones, where you don’t know if it’s real life or a dream.

Usually, I’ll forget about them after waking up. All I know is that they’re really cool (although freakin’ scary when I’m experiencing it)…. but last night, after falling asleep reading notes, I had another one, where this black figure was chasing me. “It” caught up to me and this weird shitty feeling came over me. Then I woke up.

I quickly took my pen and on my notes, I scribbled a rough sketch of the monster.

Photoshopped the background abit, so that it won’t look like it’s drawn on lecture notes.

I’ve told so many people about this monster, and being the poor story teller that I am, they ended up laughing at me when I do the actions while describing the monster.

So here, watch it for yourselves, if you hadn’t watched the movie, Pan’s Labyrinth.

It’s not too scary, after all, it’s just a fairy tale.

*Why I chose to show this now is coz I wanted to watch the Nightwish concert I had on DVD. So, after searching for it, I found that it's on the same disc as Pan's Labyrinth. Therefore, I was reminded of this monster. Heh.

I finally got a hold of the movie at Mustafa. Yes, I bought it. I’ve been wanting to watch it properly ever since that fateful day back in my NS life.

We were having night duties and the drivers loaded up Kuntilanak on the dvd player and blasted the 5.1 surround speaker with it. Yeah, they have all that shit in camp. With the rumours of a REAL Pontianak going around in camp, especially in level 3, auditorium, I was thinking that these guys are freakin’ crazy to watch it at night. And so the movie started with only 4 of us, if I remember correctly. Two infocomm guys and two drivers. The intro compelled me to stay and watch it through.

But then roughly 10 minutes into the movie, the rest of the drivers who went out came back. They made a ruckus. But after settling down with their food, cigarettes and hanging up their boots, quite a crowd had gathered at the ‘cage’ to watch the movie.

Then everything went downhill. They started pausing the movie, or slowing it down, NOT at the scary parts, but the sexy bits where Julie Estelle showed slightly more skin than usual. The DVD player has a zoom function and the crazy drivers played with that too. Everyone had a laugh now and then, but one thing for sure, the flow had broken, and I ended up not paying attention to the movie. I think I was half-occupied with playing someone’s PSP.

Ok, enough of that story, on to the…

KUNTILANAK REVIEW

I just finished watching it, so the stuff is fresh in my head. Firstly, the hype that made me wanna watch it properly came from several sources, namely Inkblot, who shares the appreciation of horror and scary movies. And a number of people who swore by the scary-ness of the movie.

As I watched it, I was keeping in mind Inkblot’s warning about the last 15 minutes, and how it’ll scare my balls off. But honestly, I found the little hints in the earlier part of the movie being the scariest parts. Albeit not THAT scary.

The parts when Mademoiselle Kuntilanak first made her glorious apperance… the little sneaks of her torso, hair, feet… her freakish movement… her combing of white hair… hints of her disfigured face… those things got me sitting up and watching intently.

As the story progresses, and I couldn’t really understand the language, I began to slouch down again and merely anticipate that last part Inkblot was talking about.

And so everything went on, and the finale came. The full figure of the ghost was seen. And there were even two little ones coming out to play with Julie Estelle.

The way I see it, once you show everything, you’ve got nothing else to show and for me, I’ll be thinking, “Oh, there’s the whole thing? Hmm, that ain’t so bad.”, instead of something like, “oh shit, that’s the freaking ghost, oh but where’d it go? woah shit… that’s scary!”, which happened in the first few appearances of the Kuntilanak.

And the movie closed its story, with Julie Estelle still having relations with the ghost. And lastly, a cheesy scare trick which again, was expected. Sigh. I really sighed at the end of it. I was expecting a sleepless night looking out my window every now and then and finally sleeping in the hall with the lights and TV on coz I’d be too scared. But instead, here I am, half sleepy and writing this review about a movie which is rather well made but just not scary enough.

Oh and I take back that part I said about it being well-made. There were some weird cuts made in the movie. I don’t know if it’s just the vcd but it sure looked like crap.

I just re-read Inkblot’s review on the movie, and I must say, sorry dude, it’s just not scary enough. I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact that the crazy driver dudes spoilt half the movie for me, or because of the fact that I’m expecting too much to be scared.

I do like the whole Mangkujowo (spelling?) mysticism and the Indon-Jawa feel to the whole thing. The sets, head on the mirror, art pieces, depicting that ancient Java look is pretty cool.

Well, this has been a really long review. I think I’ll stop here.
Kuntilanak, a movie that may scare some, but didn’t really work for me. I’m still waiting for the one.

I think I can say that this is one of the BEST monster movie I have EVER seen.

Okay, so it’s shot on a hand held videocam, ‘blair witch style’, they say, but still, this movie, or ‘footage’ freaking delivers man. It’s bloody awesome.

And the fact that it’s taken on a videocam makes it all the more believable.

The first part of the movie, which was the party, wasn’t as boring as I thought it would be. And when the shit starts to happen, you really feel like you’re there. Everything is so damn real! Intense to the core man!

Ok, the running while the camera’s on makes people dizzy and wanna puke, but I got to sit at the last seat of the cinema and to me, it ain’t that bad. There were only a few instances of the ‘running with camera’ thing.

Rob, Elena and that other chick.

The actors did a hell of a job. Very believable. And Beth is just drop dead gorgeous. Hudson, the cameraman, is just great, and *spoiler* Elena (dunno the spelling) was cool even as she was bit by the parasites, got infected and freakin’ burst inside out!

As for the monster(s), it was awesome as hell. All that hype and ‘leaked’ concept arts turn out to be fake. So when I saw the monster in the movie, I was taken aback. It was very original, I must say. Freaky too, to a certain extent.

I just love the movie. I just love this kinda things, whether it be ghosts, witches, monsters or aliens, these kinda live ‘real’ footages just really appeal to me.

I remembered I did something like this in JC, with a friend’s video cam, and it really looked real. We were having late night rehearsals and I decided to make this spontaneous and quick horror short film. Come to think of it, I guess it was really the first one I ever did.

Unfortunately, the video has gone missing as it wasn’t compiled or saved. But yeah, you get the idea right… I love this shit.

So, I give Cloverfield 10 stars. Really. I freakin’ LOVE it.

And not to forget, after we watched the movie, we saw two UFOs in the tampines sky. We followed them thinking they were kites, but we found no one manning them. Freaky.

I don’t know why some of my friends said that this movie sucks. I find it quite good. Not incredibly ridiculously good lah… but it’s rather good. Some parts are draggy reminding me of movies like Castaway. But some parts are superbly thrilling.

There is this one part… I fell in love with its brilliant execution. Its suspense buildup, portrayal of its subjects, the introductory scene of the “dark seekers”, it’s fantastic. I love how the fear grips the Will Smith character as well as the audience. That whole part was superb.

Although the ending didn’t follow the novel’s ending, I think it’s a better finish than the original, which would have been extremely depressing.

I give the movie 7 outta 10. Pretty good movie. Got me thinking about it into the night.

And the best thing is… I get to eat nachos. Finally!