Mouth To Mouth Movie Review; Starring Ellen Page

Sorry Ellen, I love you, I do. But Mouth to Mouth seriously sucked. I have been reading mixed reviews on this flick for the most part, and frankly I found the movie to just confuse, and suck the life out of me. Granted, Ellen does a great job at portraying her character Sherry; for the most part the whole plot was just boring, and confusing.

We start off with Ellen Page playing a young runaway named Sherry. While in the streets of Europe she runs into a group of homeless folks who have some sort of stupid message. She is passed a flier, and decides to join this group of homeless nomads. They have a group called SPARK, which represents, Street People Armed with Radical Knowledge.

Basically what we have is a trashed old van which carries a group of hopeless druggies, to try and reform them. At least that what I could gather, the whole message was just senseless.

From the get go, I had a sense that something horrible was going to happen to young Sherry, armed with nothing more than a backpack, and a will to be free.

Sherry of course meets up with this group of homeless people in the back of some sort of warehouse where they are all piled into this SPARK labeled van sleeping.

The ring leader of this group is an older scruffy looking chap named Harry. He seems to have some sort of message to tell, and he seems to be charismatic enough as to where people are willing to believe in him enough to follow where he leads, while cutting off all ties to their lives back home.

The plot is confusing, and I continued to watch hoping to make some sort of sense of things, but the further and further the movie went on the more ridiculous, and poorly sketched out it became.

At any rate, you get an immediate sense that Harry is preying on young vulnerable people who don't really have anything better to do with their lives. Harry seems cleaner, and seems to have this iron fist authority about him.

While on a road trip to some event, the youngest member ends up dying while dumpster diving for food. When Harry states he wants to leave the boy behind Mad Ax, one of the Spark members is not hearing it. Before making it to this big Woodstock type event Mad Ax displays a very gut wrenching sad scene where he is holding the boys dead body. Frankly I think this was the most interesting scene in the entire movie, seeing that it seemed so very real, and I was able to get an immediate sense of sadness. Well done.

Fast forward to the big event. They leave the body of the boy in the van, and light it on fire. Sherry is slipped some acid, and nearly loses her virginity to one of the Spark members she had a slight crush on.

Meanwhile at the same event, roaming around is Sherry's mother. Sherry made the mistake of calling her mom to tell her where she was going. Sherry's mom naturally seeks her out, and oddly enough manages to find her within the crowd.

Just when you think the movie was to end, it continues on into a new odd realm of confusion.

Sherry and her mother get into a fight after her mother attempted to take her home. Sherry should have just been a good little runaway and been grateful that mom came to rescue her from this group.

Instead she takes off on her own, and manages to find her way back to the group. I don't know how things unfolded, but when she shows up to a large vineyard, her mom is already there.

Frankly I was baffled by this whole unexpected, unlikely event, and even more so when her mother announces she too will be joining Spark.

At this point the drama begins to unfold, and we really get a taste of how evil Harry is. His means of punishment are cruel and unusual, and for the most part it seems like what he did was board up a bunch of homeless, low self esteem folks and brought them to his vineyard for free slave labor.

Punishments include being put in a well for 36 hours, or longer. Rules are constantly added, and the reign of terror becomes unbearable for Sherry, whom loses her virginity in a harsh circumstance to the emperor of evil.

Without ruining the tiresome confusing ending, I will just say that the flick was very sleepy, with a lack of a compelling plot, and an unbelievable (not GOOD unbelievable), fake ending.

If you are going to see Mouth to Mouth, see it if you are a huge fan of Ellen Page, otherwise just spare yourself the boredom.

Movie Review: The Midnight Hour

The Midnight Hour was released for a made for TV in 1985. I was 5 years old however when I first saw it. Let me tell you, it scared the ebbie jeebies out of me.

Now the review before me says that it's okay to show this flick to the little ones. I would say go ahead and let them watch it, that's if you want them up all night, imagining some huge werewolf ripping at them under the covers, and end up sleeping in your room. In my opinion this movie is a bit too scary for some younger children.

Lets get to the movie itself though.
This movie is my all time favorite horror. There doesn't go a year that my family doesn't gather to watch this on Halloween.

Bill is the main character, he is your average nerdy type teenager, with a small group of friends. He has a group of 4 friends total; all whom need a costume for Melissa's Halloween party.

They decide that its a good idea to go and borrow some clothes/costumes, from a local wax museum for authentic costumes.
2 of the teens have ancestors in the museum, as wax figures. So naturally they decide to wear there ancestors original clothes.

They stumble upon a trunk hidden in the corner of the basement. They open the trunk, and realize there are some cool props inside for them to use for the Halloween party. Bill urges them not to take anything, but he's a one man army up against the rest of the group.

For some odd reason one of the teens thinks it would be a cool night to go to the local graveyard and hang out with everyone.

They end up opening the trunk here completely. Inside is a scroll, sealed shut with wax stamp.
Melissa grabs the scroll, opens it up and begins reading it, as she sways back and forth, in a trance like state.

She faints, only to get up saying, "It was only a joke".
They leave quickly afterwards, seeing how no one saw the humor and head for home.

There is then a small cut in the scene, and you now get to see the graveyard beginning to, what looks like; breathe. Dirt goes flying up, you get to see some ripping at the wood inside their coffins, to get out. Some zombies rise up in anger, others just seem to roam aimlessly.

This is the best visual I think I've ever seen in any rising dead horror movie. The make-up and costumes are perfect, the mood of the movie is always up to par, and the music will take you right back to the big 80's.

Oddly however, a werewolf is somehow mixed in, as well as Melissa's ancestor; the witch, who comes back as a vampire. Which is strange. Theres even a little midget thrown in. I think he was the coolest little zombie, and his costume and make-up were spectacular. Some ghouls, and a lot of semi slow moving zombies. It's an awesome scene. One must see the movie to fully appreciate it.

Also in the zombie mix arises a 1950's cheerleader still in uniform. Shes the only one that seems like she doesn't belong in the group of half rotten zombies.

The teens are completely unaware of it at first. Till Melissa's Halloween party. This is where the ghouls were able to blend in perfectly in the crowd. As each teen at the party is bitten, they turn into a zombie themselves. Not cute zombies either. I mean full fledged scary running zombies.

Bill meets up with Sandy on the street, he left the party early. So he was one of the lucky ones who got spared. She asks him for directions to the malt shop. It seems she is not aware shes dead, and she is talking about shops, and places that once existed when she was alive in the 50's.

A small romance is shared between the two, up until they realize they have to save the town from the ghoulies.

This is where the movie turns from semi-scary, to full blown horror fest.
They have to get the ring off of a dead ancestors finger in the graveyard to seal the scroll before midnight.

This tasks proves not so easy, seeing how they have an entire mob of undead chasing them. All of whom were once Bills friends. The chase is probably the scariest part in the movie.

The ending is full of suspense, and will have you actually anticipating the result. I'm telling you the ending is frightening, but I will not ruin it.

I would recommend this movie to families with children no younger than 6. A definite watch for Halloween or All Halo's Eve.

Its just a great 80's horror film that's owed a lot of due credit. I wish they'd play it on TV every year, however they do not. You can buy it on DVD for $80, that's if you can find it. The DVD is no longer being made. Another reason I'm glad my mom taped it, when it was shown in the 80's.

Movie Review: Pulse

I hate movies that begin with all out action, and confusion, it’s like you are thrown right into the battlefield with no explanation as to why, or what is going on. Usually when movies start like this, they end like this.

In 2006 director Jim Sonzero remade (copied) Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's movie Pulse. Got America all hyped with terrifying commercials and then called it ‘The Years Scariest Movie’.

Sorry Pulse failed for me, and who decided that this was ‘scary’. Even though it had it’s good parts, nothing was ‘oh my god I’m so scared’ scary. I think the main reasoning is because this movie pushes it boundaries. Where it could have just been a low-key type of haunt it had to progress in a matter of minutes into a world epidemic.

So what is Pulse? Well I’m honestly not sure why that name was chosen. It should have been called virus. It would have made more sense.

Okay so there is this college girl named Mattie; a typical blond bimbo, her boyfriend Josh is ignoring her blah blah…She waits a few days to see him. God only knows why? Then decides finally to go and see him at his apartment.
While she visits he looks like he is out of it, and is covered in some nasty black seaweed looking veins or bruises, what have you. He then walks like a zombie into another room as he tells her to wait outside, he hangs himself.

Oh dear, next things look like they’re about to get good because Josh sends all of his friends instant messages from ‘beyond the grave’… dunt, dunt, dunnnn. Each message is asking for help, over and over again.

One of Josh’s friends breaks into the apartment to see if he had left the computer on. But the computer is gone! Oh no’ze!!! Then something bad happens to him. Oopise! Should have been more careful now shouldn’t you of.

So yeah, that’s were we have our first problem. You see this friend disappears; yet no one seemed to notice throughout the movie. Hmm, guess he wasn’t cool enough to think about.

Moving on…

Suicides are happening left and right. Mattie decides to go on a quest to find Josh’s computer, and luck is on her side (go figure), she finds the guy who bought the computer off of the apartment buildings landlord pretty quickly from a guy named Dexter. Dexter lets her know it’s not him who has been instant messaging people because he hasn’t even turned it on yet.
When he does finally plug it in he finds a series of strange images. (The Ring’s vibe is present here) He then shows the images to Mattie who runs away like the bimbo she is.

Mattie tries to play things off as normal (even though she has had a few unexplained run ins with the ghoulies) until she gets a package that was sent by Josh 2 days before he died.
This tape is the key to survival. You see the Internet gooblie goblins cannot get in if you tape up all the windows and doors with it.

Now the movie all of a sudden twists into an all out world virus. The virus is spread through electronic devices and suddenly the whole world is being affected. The ghosts or whatever they are suck the life out of the humans until they either commit suicide or turn into a black mass of dust.

Oh so how do they stop this epidemic? Well Dexter has found the key. You see he has discovered that Josh had hacked into someone’s system and unleashed the ghosts or soul suckers. So now he has to hack into the system himself and find out whose system Josh hacked into to unleash it.

Next they have to track down the guy, whom Dexter finds pretty quickly, and stop the ghost virus, or whatever the hell it is.

Are they able to stop the virus? Or do they just die like everyone else?

So basically it is a movie about what could happen (although the odds are slim to... never) if people keep on relying on electronic devices. Yay, a moral! Blah.

OPINION:

For me the movie had some good spooks here and there, with some pretty creepy visuals. But the ghosts were all blurry. So it’s nothing to jump out of your seat from. Not only that, it’s very obvious when one is about to appear. Nothing jumps out at you and causes a heart palpitation.

The movie would have been scary if it weren’t for its ridiculous and unbelievable plot. A world without electronic devices such as cell phones, TV, and computers is more frightening.

They could have done a movie based on how humans would react without such devices, but then they had to go and throw in these ridiculous ghosts that I still have no idea why they were present and totally ruin it.

Not only that but a lot of things went unanswered, for one the question ‘why’ was present in my mind quite a few times. Like why were Mattie and Dexter the only ones in the world that knew how to stop this virus? No one else!
Just because everyone disappears or commits suicide, why were their no cars left in the city of all places? Where’d they go? Why was Mattie so easily able to escape from the ‘ghosts’, yet everyone else who seemed to get close encounters ended up toast? Why didn’t Mattie put up the red tape when she had her first ghost encounter? Why was Josh’s ghost sending instant messages, asking for help, yet nothing came of it? One would think that the movies plot would take the characters on a quest to finding Josh and helping his soul or something… but it never did. WHY, WHY, WHY!?!?

OVERALL:

It had a good catch in the beginning, and just failed to deliver. Too many important details went to the trash and went unanswered, it’s almost as if the director just decided to add them in, then forget about them. To make the movie longer I suppose, I honestly don’t know why. A lot of extra junk like that could have just been deleted to save the viewer some time.

It’s left sort of open ended, so I am sure a part 2 will spring up, and be even worse than the first.

MYTH: Year’s scariest movie =

BUSTED!

Movie Review: Dark Ride

I’ve been waiting a long time for this, this film Dark Ride, and a few others from the 8 films to die for collection. The Blockbuster by me thinks it’s okay to carry just one copy of their films, and Dark ride teased me for nearly a month, as I checked in and waited patiently for a copy of my own.

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Well, the beginning takes off in complete horror. 2 twin girls decide to go on a ride at a local amusement park. Dark Ride. They ride on a roller cart through a horror house.
As a viewer the tension is not high, and I was not surprised when they are murdered. It’s sort of expected.

The murderer is thrown into a mental facility, and Dark Ride is closed down.

20 years later you are introduced to group of college students planning a trip up to New Orleans, and get sidetracked as they make different plans to go spend the night in Dark Ride to save some money on hotel fees. On the way they pick up a trash bag female hitchhiker letting off the whole ‘I’ve got STD’S’ vibe.

They smoke some dope, and end up at Dark Ride. They make there way in and settle down for the night.

But Oh No! Jonah has escaped the mental facility and found his way back home to Dark Ride. He seems to have the inhuman powerful strength, and it reminded me of the same might and power that came from the character ‘The Jackal’ in Thirteen Ghosts.

Anyhow, it’s pretty obvious what is going to happen next, and what else is obvious at this point is who will live, and who will die.

Jonah picks them off one by one, in gruesome of ways. The killings are disgusting, but nothing I have not seen before in other horror movies.

The ending has a twist that me and my boyfriend guessed the moment the college kids plopped down and began discussing the history behind Dark Ride.

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THE MOVIE:

Jonah was downright creepy. The killer who looked as if he was 7 feet tall also sported the most intimidating dirty porcelain doll like mask, which covered his deformed face. Honestly this was the best ‘scary bad guy’ I have seen since Freddy Krueger, Jason and Michael.
However the creepiness of it all sort of reminded me of the Texas Chainsaw’s character more than anything. Regardless Jonah was still just as intimidating, if not more.

I also enjoyed the acting; this was one of the first 8 films to die for flicks that I had seen with decent acting.

WHAT BOTHERED ME ABOUT THE FLICK:

First and foremost the main issue I had with this flick was the fact that Jonah escaped from the facility, in obvious ways. Yet no one was looking for him. I mean come on!
The mental guys (in movies anyway) usually go home when they escape the loony house, why would no one look in Dark Ride immediately after his escape?

I guess there wouldn’t be a film if that were the case, but it should have at least been an addressed issue, at least I think it should have been.

Secondly, there were a few disturbing scenes that could have been left out, and the nasty sex and booby shots were just unnecessary to add into the film. For a moment during the dirty scene I began to feel like the cameraman was getting all hot, and forgot to move the camera, seeing how for almost 30 seconds the camera was focused on boobs. It actually got annoying.

Picking up the hiker in the first place was also not needed… but I guess the more people present in the horror the more people for the killer to kill uniquely.

The third and last annoying thing in Dark Ride was how obvious things were. You knew who would die before they did. You knew who would live, and you knew the ending before it happened.

OVERALL:

Dark Ride had a great killer, some great actors, but this story was just too obvious for there to be any jumps and scares. Now if they’d take Jonah and market him into something bigger and better it would make for an excellent horror character.

1 star for the acting
1 more star for Jonah’s creepy character
1 star for the well-decorated set

-1 for having added un-needed scenes
-1 for being too obvious

RECOMMENDATION:

It’s not horrible, nor is it excellent. I’d recommend it for a rent, not a purchase. It makes for a good late night movie when nothing else is on TV.

It is not recommended for younger viewing audiences, sex, drugs, and blood are all present. 18+

94 Min.