ghost-9's reviews

Mean Guns came out a couple of years before the script for Battle Royale was written and it seems to me the movies are TOO similar to be coincidence. I'm really surprized no one seems to have connected them! And then Battle Royale went on to inspire Kill Bill and more closely, The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games almost seems like a loose remake of Battle Royale. Anyway, without Mean Guns you might not have had the movie Battle Royale and without Battle Royale we wouldn't have the Hunger Games. Yea, I know the writer of the Hunger Games says she never heard of Battle Royal but few of us really believe that.

8 Murders a Day jumped out at me as an important documentary about an important subject, the drug war and the problem with the cartels and corruption in Mexico. It falls short though, adds very little in the way of facts and information, contains mostly very blurry footage and a repetitive soundtrack, and soundtrack is stretching it, the same sound loop is played over and over throughout the documentary even through the final credits. This causes the movie to be especially boring and although one isn't supposed to enjoy this movie about atrocities, it is very distracting. Yes, legalizing drugs in the U.S. would put the cartels out of business and probably stop most of the violence on both sides of the borders, but because leaders get so much money and power from it on both sides of the border, it isn't likely to ever happen. People in positions of power like the status quo and will fight any efforts to change it.

While in some parts of this movie, they treat the word "creationist" as if it were a dirty word, somewhat like the treatment of a "conspiracy theorist", when, in simple fact, if you believe God created life, then you are a Creationist, period. So since most people claim to believe this, then Creationist should not be an insulting title to anyone, whether layman or member of the "scientific community". The fact that this documentary has a low rating is most likely because of people who haven't seen it, rating it based on how they feel about the creation/evolution debate. I notice that instead of critiquing the movie, most people want to critique Darwinism or Creationism here. Ben Stein has made an important and entertaining movie about people being unfair, closed-minded, elitist, and in some cases, hypocritical. This is an important movie and I hope many people will see it and give the topics presented a great deal of thought. The amount of contempt and animosity that this topic stirs up in people almost makes you wonder if there is some diabolical force behind people that desperately wants them to believe there is no God.

I've seen thousands of movies, if not tens of thousands of movies in my lifetime and this was artistic, thoughtful, well-acted and very exciting. Though we all know the movie makers took artistic liberties with the historical authenticity of the subject matter (as is done with all historical movies, even those that try to stay as true as possible to historical fact), even considered as a work of fantasy, this is an excellent one. Like some epic tale out of Heavy Metal magazine, the imagery here is not to be missed. This is surely one of the best war movies ever made and I would go as far as saying that it is one of the best movies ever. The action is fast-paced and reminiscent of most modern action movies. The dialog is well-written though I'll admit, a couple of lines were cliché. But the style and beautiful imagery more than make up for this movies few short-comings, an easy 10/10.

It's really much too bad that Dorthy Stratten, who was probably one of the prettiest females to grace this planet, wasn't around longer to make more and better movies. We are left with Galaxina and Autumn Born, the former being the much better known of her two movies. This movie Autumn Born is good at what it is, which, in addition to being a "sexploitation" movie, is almost a perfect, text-book account of how to brainwash someone. Though certainly an unpleasant subject, people should realize that this is a real technique that is used upon unwilling people to cause them to be subjective to other people "the masters". It's a fairly well-made film, for a low-budget feature and one of the only two movies you'll find Dorthy Stratten in, so if your a Stratten fan or interested in brainwashing, then go for it.

Frank Sudol has done an incredible job of making an animated movie by himself and it looks somewhat reminiscent of a Cannibal Corpse cover throughout. I was initially attracted to Sudol's artistic style but quickly became bored because of the repetitiveness of the movie. While this would have been fine as a 5 or 10 minute short, there just wasn't enough story to fill a movie length feature and it became almost unbearably boring to watch. I'm sure there will be those that watched it with friends and maybe under the influence of chemicals, they will have found it to be hilarious or entertaining but as I watched it sober and alone, I really felt it needed to have been a short feature only.

I love this kind of movie and this one is really good. I only gave it a 8/10, because I think, for the climax, they should have had something that would really blow your socks off. I hope they make a sequel. It was a little like THE TRUE STORY OF FRANKENSTEIN and just a little like the REANIMATOR but a fine film by itself. I may have rated it a little high because I love zombie movies but this is one of the better ones in that genre. It brings out some points and ideas about this that have not been explored in any great detail in previous zombie movies. And with recent breakthroughs in medical technology, this film is a very timely one.

This movie is just way ahead of it's time. Some of the action and effects seem ridiculous because it's so futuristic but many of the things we enjoy today would have seemed utterly outlandish to people in the 1880's. Now I will give any movie a ten/ten that has Milla Jovovich in it but I didn't enjoy this one as much as the Resident Evil movies. I'm a zombie man, myself but this is a lavishly colored, beautiful movie with good special effects and I'm glad I finally took the time to watch it. If it didn't have Milla in it, I'd have given it a 7 because some of the visual effects didn't work, I've seen more dramatic and more exciting movies and because the soundtrack sounds so much like the soundtrack to Robocop that it seems almost plagerized. But Milla makes any movie a ten.

I liked this DVD and feel like it is better than people are giving it credit for. Not a bad story, the acting is fine and the effects are brief but well done. Nothing special here but better than most straight-to-video horror features. The couple that runs the halfway house are a hoot and unfortunately a fairly realistic duo. I found a few laugh-out-loud moments in the video and the catch at the end which I can't reveal here mirrors a recent real-life event. Wonderful to see horror greats Jeffery Combs and Angus Scrimm in this. Would love to see them in more horror movies. They are under-used here but still do a great job in their roles.

Or maybe it is, but it was still entertaining enough that I didn't feel like leaving the theater like I did in House of the Dead. Since there are no firearms in this movie Uwe Boll really couldn't screw it up as bad as some of his previous movies. While I'm not a fan, I think it was as entertaining as most movies of this ilk, such as Deathstalker, Blade 3, and most modern remakes. I enjoyed Billy Zane's silly performance and above that, Michael Madsen looked like he was going to roll his eyes after every line. Ben Kingsley is still a fine actor, even after being in this movie. Michelle Rodriguez looks delicious as always. I enjoyed seeing her in this. I enjoyed the bloody fight scenes and the vampiric sets. It was a fairly good-humored movie. I can 100% assure you that this isn't one of the 100 worst movies of all time. I can understand that people hate Uwe Boll and deservedly so but this is pretty typical b-movie swashbuckling fare. Nothing really great here but nothing really terrible either. I mean we're not talking about Gone With the Wind here or American Beauty. This is a video game movie and I liked it better than either of the Mortal Kombat movies, which should have been bloodier like this. Well, I hate to find myself defending this movie but it's more fun than most of the reviewers are saying.

This is a fairly good occult thriller in the tradition of THE OMEN and ROSEMARY'S BABY. I thought it was a little like BRAINSCAN and THE DUNWITCH HORROR with a slight Lovecraftian feel to it. It was better than many of the low budget offerings in this genre. I felt they could have done a little more with it and the ending but it was satisfactory. The acting was fine and the story kept my interest. I think it is also a little like the books by EDWARD LEE which I really enjoy. I rented this DVD because it has Dominique Swain in it, who I think of as the new LOLITA, but I was pleasantly surprised that the movie kept my attention all the way through. The acting is fine, along with the story, soundtract, cinematography etc. It has the feeling of an A movie.

This is a worthy effort for a low-budget zombie film. Out of dozens of such films this one has some entertaining moments and food for thought(no pun intended). Rarely is this social commentary hilarious and in places it seems a little repetitive. My main criticism of this film is that in too many scenes the zombies just have a little makeup on their faces and are wearing clean clothes with normal clean arms and necks etc. They look no way as good as the one on the video camera. The weapons and uniforms used in the film are certainly not current military issue. Also the eyes of the "zombies" look perfectly normal. There's no attempt to disguise them with contacts. There is a fairly decent story and plot. The acting is pretty believable. What more could you ask from a low-budget horror movie? I would've beefed up the makeup a little bit and I think you'd almost have a classic here. Militias are made to look stupid in this film but so is the government so I guess that balances things out. I hope to see more and better films like this.

I watched this with my wife tonight and she couldn't understand why they would choose to live in a mobile home in the desert if they were the last people alive and could live anywhere they wanted. I said it was his home and he had all his stuff there. Also, whatever killed everyone might be more prevalent in the cities and the cities would reek of death. Your average home might have at least 3 or 4 bodies decaying in them which would leave most neighborhoods smelling pretty bad. And water and electrical services would tend to stop fairly soon after the collapse. But we all know that it was an inexpensive set and being out there, you didn't have to worry about people stumbling on to the set or planes flying by. I enjoy these kinds of movies with Vincent Prices' THE LAST MAN ON THE EARTH, and ON THE BEACH being dismal masterpieces about the end of civilization as we know it.

THE LAST MAN is more light-hearted than most of these types of films and the psychology here is good and believable, though the effects of being the last man are far better shown in the aforementioned films. This was a fun and intellectual waste of ninety minutes and better than most of the mindless drivel on t.v. like Big Brother, Blind Date and other crap programming that seems all the rage these days.

This is sort of a JASON meets CARRIE. It was nice to see someone besides Tommy give Jason a good fight. There are few of these in the series. A neat movie with a neat ending. I enjoy rewatching this one more than all the rest of the Jason movies. I hope to see Jason fight Michael Meyers or Leatherface in a theater soon! hehehe

This is one of the better ones of late. Nice cgi violence make this like a bloody, warner bros. cartoon. Nice looking cast but the acting is nothing special. Freddy is especially nasty this time around but doesn't have many funny lines. As usual, there is a very loose continuity with the rest of the series. A fun way to waste an hour and a half. Better than watching t.v. for the most part. But what are those little red dots I kept seeing on the screen that look like a Predators targeting lasers? Now bring on Michael Myers and Leatherface!

This is an entertaining documentary film. You won't be sorry you watched it. You won't feel like you wasted your time. I would like to have seen the whole interview with Nichols. Like in the documentary, WACO:THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, the way the film is edited leaves one wondering if perhaps what is left out was meaningful as well. Guns can be a deadly nuisance in the hands of the wrong people and the lack of gun safety can always lead to deadly tragedies however, the right to keep and bear arms helps to secure freedom in this country, and, as a matter of fact, there is no right to self-defense without the right to keep and bear arms. Millions were killed in the twentieth century in countries where the people could not own weapons or defend themselves. Does it make sense to sacrifice freedom or millions to save thousands? Now, much of the film is poiniant and much of it needs to be heard and pondered. I enjoyed it and found it educational. I agree with much of it. I don't think Kmart or anyone else should stop selling guns or ammo, but I certainly wouldn't sell them to anyone under 21 like the Kmart does in the film. I recommend this film but it saddens me that many will not see that it tells an incomplete story that might lead many to false conclusions. 4/10 (good for a documentary)