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Reviews44
glenjordanspangler's rating
The score (borrowing signature notes from from the 1982 film), the look, and the effects all seem an extension of Carpenter's work, and its connections to that story provide the satisfaction of a completed puzzle. I'm not sure this movie made the most of the psychological aspects of its premise--the paranoid feeling that would come from looking at one's companions up close, in the eye, one by one, and wondering, monster?--but to do so might have required extending that portion of the script beyond theater limits. Someone, make a Thing television series! Until then, this is a worthy companion piece to be seen shortly before or after John Carpenter's The Thing, so that the interlocking pieces are fresh in your mind.
Why you should see it You get much-needed relaxation by visualizing vast, snowy landscapes and blank-eyed creatures composed of random body parts trying to kill you.
Why you shouldn't see it You think a movie title should be much more specific. It might give you nightmares, making it difficult to finish your experiment just when you were about to animate the Leg-topus. Mary Elizabeth Winstead stole your boyfriend in preschool.
--from my review at www.1man365movies.com
Why you should see it You get much-needed relaxation by visualizing vast, snowy landscapes and blank-eyed creatures composed of random body parts trying to kill you.
Why you shouldn't see it You think a movie title should be much more specific. It might give you nightmares, making it difficult to finish your experiment just when you were about to animate the Leg-topus. Mary Elizabeth Winstead stole your boyfriend in preschool.
--from my review at www.1man365movies.com
What I Learned 1. Ghosts of newspaper boys love Tiny Tim's 1968 rendition of the 1926 song "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." 2. Skeptical Husband never calls the police. 3. A modified Viewmaster makes an excellent ghost-detector. 4. When your astral body is walking through the nothingness, the nothingness has an astral floor to support your astral shoes. 5. Skeptical Husband is skeptical. 6. If you're wearing a plaid flannel shirt, your astral body is wearing a plaid flannel astral shirt just like it. (Drop it onto the astral floor and see if it disappears.) 7. The Further is very far, but it takes no time at all to get there, because sort of it's right here, or something. 8. All you really need for Halloween is white makeup, dark lipstick, a steady stare and a great big smile. A bloodstain on your chest is just a bonus.
Extra Credit Scenes
After the very last of the credits there's one brief spooky shot that doesn't add to the storyline at all. However if you sit through the credits anyway, you'll see that the film has "additional photagraphy," a "first assistant editor" and no proofreader.
The Story Begins The Lamberts have just moved into a creaky old home, and while husband Josh is out, something strange happens, frightening strangely-spelled Renai (Byrne). Then Dalton (Simpkins) fails to wake up one morning, and when the usual tests don't turn up anything, instead of running this rare, journal-worthy diagnostic challenge by the greatest scientific minds in the field of neurology, the child's doctor says something like "oh well, sorry about that," and sends him home in his coma-like state with a rented hospital bed and a nurse to show Renai where the tube goes. That's when the really weird things start happening: Renai (really, it's pronounced like Renee, so why spell it like "Ren-eye?") finds chairs moved, feels like she's being watched, and suspects that the ones watching her just might be the creepy dead white people who keep startling her, and us in the audience, badly (the sudden abuse of musical instruments in the soundtrack doesn't help).
What I think
In spite of the Saw alumni who made Insidious, this scary fun is of the good, old-fashioned variety, which creeps you way-the-heck out and makes you jump out of your seat whenever it can--no drill-bits or bear traps required. See it while it's in the theater, and make sure it's a digital presentation with a modern sound system, so that you get the full effect when the malevolent voices mutter and the soundtrack artists slam objects against the strings of an open piano, just as a crazy-eyed pale face comes into view. If you get too skeeved out, don't worry: paranormal researchers Specs and Tucker (Whannell and Sampson) will provide some comic relief to relax you just in time to be startled out of your pants again.
Why you should see it: Ghosts are fun.
Why you shouldn't see it: You're a fraidy-cat.
--from my review at www.1man365movies.com
Extra Credit Scenes
After the very last of the credits there's one brief spooky shot that doesn't add to the storyline at all. However if you sit through the credits anyway, you'll see that the film has "additional photagraphy," a "first assistant editor" and no proofreader.
The Story Begins The Lamberts have just moved into a creaky old home, and while husband Josh is out, something strange happens, frightening strangely-spelled Renai (Byrne). Then Dalton (Simpkins) fails to wake up one morning, and when the usual tests don't turn up anything, instead of running this rare, journal-worthy diagnostic challenge by the greatest scientific minds in the field of neurology, the child's doctor says something like "oh well, sorry about that," and sends him home in his coma-like state with a rented hospital bed and a nurse to show Renai where the tube goes. That's when the really weird things start happening: Renai (really, it's pronounced like Renee, so why spell it like "Ren-eye?") finds chairs moved, feels like she's being watched, and suspects that the ones watching her just might be the creepy dead white people who keep startling her, and us in the audience, badly (the sudden abuse of musical instruments in the soundtrack doesn't help).
What I think
In spite of the Saw alumni who made Insidious, this scary fun is of the good, old-fashioned variety, which creeps you way-the-heck out and makes you jump out of your seat whenever it can--no drill-bits or bear traps required. See it while it's in the theater, and make sure it's a digital presentation with a modern sound system, so that you get the full effect when the malevolent voices mutter and the soundtrack artists slam objects against the strings of an open piano, just as a crazy-eyed pale face comes into view. If you get too skeeved out, don't worry: paranormal researchers Specs and Tucker (Whannell and Sampson) will provide some comic relief to relax you just in time to be startled out of your pants again.
Why you should see it: Ghosts are fun.
Why you shouldn't see it: You're a fraidy-cat.
--from my review at www.1man365movies.com
The action--mostly gun battles and car chases--is non-stop, well executed and well filmed. The trailer boasts that Drive Angry was shot in 3D (not converted), and I did enjoy the effect when hatchets and bullets flew at me much more than I would enjoy the effect of actual hatchets and bullets.
Cage is good as Milton, a determined killing machine, and he doesn't have that monstrous haircut he annoyed me with a few days ago when I watched Knowing (2009) on the DVR (I'm sorry, hair that abruptly ends at the tops of the ears without a hint of sideburns is too disturbing for me) but Fichtner's performance as the supernaturally strong, agile and casually murderous man who introduces himself as The Accountant may be the best aspect of this movie. It's too bad Drive Angry seems to be failing at the box office, because I would have hoped for a bigger role for The Accountant in a sequel.
Why you should see it: The 3D image of the moon on Milton's windshield. The scene in which Milton tells Candy (Ross) "I never disrobe before a gunfight."
Why you shouldn't see it: Someone gets shot in the eye and later grows a new one, and you think that sort of medical misinformation is dangerous to the public. The scene in which Milton tells Candy "I never disrobe before a gunfight"--you feel it promotes unsafe sex.
--from my review at www.1man365movies.com
Cage is good as Milton, a determined killing machine, and he doesn't have that monstrous haircut he annoyed me with a few days ago when I watched Knowing (2009) on the DVR (I'm sorry, hair that abruptly ends at the tops of the ears without a hint of sideburns is too disturbing for me) but Fichtner's performance as the supernaturally strong, agile and casually murderous man who introduces himself as The Accountant may be the best aspect of this movie. It's too bad Drive Angry seems to be failing at the box office, because I would have hoped for a bigger role for The Accountant in a sequel.
Why you should see it: The 3D image of the moon on Milton's windshield. The scene in which Milton tells Candy (Ross) "I never disrobe before a gunfight."
Why you shouldn't see it: Someone gets shot in the eye and later grows a new one, and you think that sort of medical misinformation is dangerous to the public. The scene in which Milton tells Candy "I never disrobe before a gunfight"--you feel it promotes unsafe sex.
--from my review at www.1man365movies.com