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Jug Face (2013) Review

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jug face reviewSynopsis (from IMDb): Jug Face tells the story of a pregnant teen trying to escape a backwoods community when she discovers that she may be sacrificed to a creature in a pit.

My Review: I did not enjoy watching Jug Face. Not that it is a bad movie (it isn’t) but there is something about such backwoods community that just rub me the wrong way.

Jug Face in this regards is more a drama movie with a few supernatural elements that a full on horror movie. The true horror is human so those expecting a fast paced gorefest will be disappointed. Jug Face is a slow burn,  and is therefore quite boring at times to be honest.

I believe the movie would have actually worked better as a hillbilly’s family drama and did not need the ghostly stuff at all. By keeping the action focused on Ada’s battle against her family’s tradition and her attempts to escape the community, we might have had an Indie Gem worth winning prizes at sundance. Not my kind of movie but most definitively a better one.

My Rating: 5.5/10

Director: 

Origin: US

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Pee Mak Phrakanong Review

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pee mak phrakanong reviewSynopsis: Mak served in the war during the beginning of the Rattanakosin Dynasty. At war he became friends with Ter, Puak, Shin, and Aey, whose lives he saved. Once the war was over, Mak invited his four friends into his home in Phra Khanong town and introduced them to his beautiful wife Nak and his newborn baby boy Dang. But A rumor is going around in the village that Nak had died giving birth to her stillborn baby, Dang  and lingered as haunting ghosts .

My Quick Review: From famed director Banjong Pisanthanakun (Alone, Shutter) Pee Mak is the first film that I have watched in 4D. I have to say that past the first minutes of surprise when your seat is moving and you receive small splash of water in your face, it is really gimmicky and brings nothing to the movie (it’s actually quite distracting).

Nevertheless, I had a blast. Pee Mak is the Highest Grossing Thai Movie of all time and when walking in the streets of Bangkok, you  can’t miss all the billboards full of advertisement starring the actors of the movie.

For fans of asian horror comedies with a touch of romance, Pee Mak brings a sense of nostalgia and evokes the golden days of HK ghost movies such as “A Chinese Ghost Story”. There are brillant comeedy scenes (mostly physical but also plenty of wordplay jokes that might be a bit difficult to catch if you don’t understand Thai).

But don’t fret, you do not need to be familiar with the Thai culture or language to get all the jokes and laugh at the situations and the awesomess of the main characters. It does help that there is a very strong chemistry between all of them, already estabished in the best segments of 4Bia and Phobia 2.

If there is one reproach we can make towards Pee Mak, is that there is not much in terms of scares and the movie definitively pushes towards a full out comedy/parody. So if you are looking for another Thai Scary movie, you will be disappointed, but if you just want to spedn a good time at the movies, you will have a blast watching Pee Mak again and again.

My Rating: 8/10

Director: 

Origin: Thailand

Pee Mak is now available on DVD Import from HK with english subtitles Here!

Black Sabbath (1963) Review

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black sabbath reviewOriginal Title: I tre volti della paura

Synopsis: A trio of atmospheric horror tales about: A woman terrorized in her apartment by phone calls from an escaped prisoner from her past; a Russian count in the early 1800s who stumbles upon a family in the countryside trying to destroy a particularly vicious line of vampires; and a 1900-era nurse who makes a fateful decision while preparing the corpse of one of her patients – an elderly medium who died during a seance.

My review: Mario Bava’s Classic deserves to be called by its original title translation: “3 faces of fear” because the 3 segments show different genre of horror: The Giallo, a Vampire tale and a Ghost Story.

Black Sabbath starts slowly with a classic revenge story using all the code of the Giallo (leather gloves, pan and zoom shots, a slight touch of eroticism, bright red colors…) but “The Telephone” fails to create much emotion and feels more like a draft for Bava’s next masterpiece, “Blood and Black Lace”. On the other hand, you now know where “When a Stranger calls” got its inspiration from.

The second segment, “The Wurdalak” is the weakest of the bunch. Despite a good use of the sets and great cinematography, the story drags for too long and is not being helped by poor acting and a weak script.

Finally, “The drop of Water” ends this anthology on a very strong note with one of the scariest corpse/ghost ever shown on film. The face of the dead medium had probably haunted generation of moviegoers who watched this movie. For this creepy and really scary segment alone, the movie is worth a watch and deserves a place in the Horror Movies Hall of Fame.

My Rating: 6/10

Director: 

Origin: Italy

Click Here To Buy and Own Black Sabbath on Blu-Ray Now!

A Haunting at Silver Falls Review

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A Haunting at Silver Falls reviewSynopsis: A small town is haunted by the twin daughters of a wrongfully convicted man. Young Jordan is sent down the path to who the real killer is only to find the killer is very close to her.

My Quick Review: During its first few minutes, A Haunting at Silver Falls gave me a 80s horror vibe (part slasher, part dream sequence from Freddy movies) but at the same time I had a strange feeling about the plot and the characters: it just did not feel genuine at all.

I believe the dialogue and casting both are at fault. The actors do an OK job with what they have been given but each line of dialogue sounds fake and unnatural. To top it all there is no chemistry between the characters and some of them are totally miscast (mainly for age reasons).

It’s a pity because the movie’s cinematography is good and there is some efficient visuals, at time creepy, but never really scary. Unfortunately it all falls flat when it’s back to the daily life.

A Haunting at Silver Falls is an average Ghost Movie, neither bad nor good that could have used a better script and another casting director.

My Rating: 4.5/10

Buy or Rent: Rent (if you have nothing else to do)

Director: 

Year: 2013

Origin: USA

Click Here to Watch A Haunting at Silver Falls Now!

Dark Water Review

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dark water honogurai reviewOriginal Title: Honogurai mizu no soko kara

Synopsis: A mother and her 6 year old daughter move into a creepy apartment whose every surface is permeated by water. [from IMDb]

Neoli’s Review: I can’t believe Dark Water is more than a decade old–eleven years to be exact.  That would make the little girl who plays Ikuko a grown-up now–about the age where her teenage version in the film visits their old watery apartment.  (So technically, the real life Ikuko can now star in the sequel, but I’m digressing.)

In the hands of Hideo Nakata (Ringu) who wrote and directed Dark Water, the film takes on a slow, easy-going pace that gets creepy as you move on.  There’s too much wetness going on here, which is enough to make viewers feel drenched and possibly shivering–from the rain-soaked outdoors which the little girl braves with her tiny umbrella to the waterlogged ceiling caused by the leaky apartment above them.  (Maybe it was Dark Water that brought ugly water stains into classic horror imagery.)  As for the American remake, we love anything Jennifer Connelly stars in, but the original is still the winner.

Anyway, Ikuko’s mom, played by the lovely Hitomi Kuroki, beautifully flits from being serene and frantic. She’s calm as she struggles to win custody of her child and raise her on her own, but in the end she unravels too as she discovers the source and reason of the mysterious leaks.  The last scene of the film, the sacrifice scene in the elevator, is the most haunting of all—that look on the mother’s face—a combination of surrender, relief, joy, and regret–which has no English equivalent as yet but which the German might have–that look is unforgettable.  And of course the sadness of Ikuko, now all alone in the world, is just infinite.

So this is what Japanese horror films were all about back in those days: filled with moral dilemmas and irrevocable consequences—no serial killers or school kids pitted against each other and other carnage-filled flicks.  Just the simple theme of mother and daughter.  Cheesy as it sounds, Dark Water is a horror film with a heart.  Albeit one which will haunt you for years, even decades to come.

Neoli’s rating: 10/10

Click Here to Own and Watch Dark Water Now!

Director: Hideo Nakata

Starring: Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi, Fumiyo Kohinata

Released: 2002

Origin: Japan