The Abandoned - Movie Review

The Abandoned

This movie is part of the “After Dark Horrorfest” of 2006; “One Of The 8 Films To Die For”. When I first saw the trailer for the eight films, I thought that maybe I would finally get some decent horror movies that would scare me, a combination of horror and thriller. However, the commercials promised what the product couldn’t produce. Since the start of these movies, they have shown only to be B grade horror movies. Usually there are maybe one or two that are good or decent, but the rest are just rubbish and bollix. So the question is, is this Nacho Cerda’ horror movie to die for or should this movie be abandoned?

The story is pretty simple. An adopted woman, Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille), sets out to Russia to find who her family was. Once there, she finds out who her mother was and where she lived. When she sets out to see if she can further uncover what happened to her mother, strange things begin to happen. Along the way she runs into people who act freaky around her and don’t answer her questions. She also runs into her brother, Nicolai (Karel Roden), that she never knew she had. Together, they try and find out what is going on.

Grade – F

This starts out as pretty much a typical horror film. Things go bump in the night, a car runs out of power in the middle of nowhere, and the main character goes out into woods and to an old house shouting, “Hello?!”. However, once you find yourself halfway through the movie and there’s not much happening, you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know who the characters really are, and you don’t really care about anything in the movie you’re pretty much screwed. You’ve already wasted 45 minutes on the movie, you might as well press on. The editing of this movie is just awful. Jump cuts, freeze frames, unnecessary shaky views of household items permeate this picture. For example, Marie hits a guy with a big log and runs away from him. He catches up to her, she asks, “Who are you?!”, he gives her an evilish look…and then cut and all is calm and they’re sitting down talking calmly.

There are two main problems with this movie. First of all, none of the characters are built up. This sounds like there might be a slew of character this movie focuses on, but there are really only two people in this whole movie. You aren’t given what drives them, who they are as people, any background, or really even what kind of personality they have. There is one scene where Marie starts to freak out and she starts rambling about her freaking out but her character isn’t hashed out at all for you to understand what the heck she is talking about. About two thirds of the way through the movie, right as you’re about to get to the so-called climax of the film, the movie tries to build background for both characters in a jump shot of five minutes. Yet, there is no building up of the characters for us to care or even understand what they are going through. I found myself rooting for whatever was trying to kill them because I thought maybe it would be more interesting than our main characters!

The other thing this movie fails at is having a coherent plot. The storyline tries to unfold like M. Night Shyamalan of “The 6^th Sense fame” but ends up unfolding worse than M. Night Shyamalan of “The Happening” fame! Nicolai is trying to find out what happen to his parents and is just as in the dark as Marie. Then with freaky stuff is coming to a head, he suddenly knows what the heck is going on. How?! I don’t know! He seems to just be there to advance the plot. Also, the “reveal” is utterly confusing and I really have to say it makes no sense whatsoever. They’re dead, but not really, but they are, but they’re not, yet their ghosts, but their haunting themselves, but they….*sizzle, fry, burst into flames*. Captain Kirk just needed to show the androids in “I, Mudd” this movie for them to destroy themselves. This movie also has one count of unnecessary nudity. Flag on the field! Ten yard penalty!

This movie is just abject failure. Characters who are almost one dimentional, you don’t care anything about go on a mission that they think they will just happen upon only for stupid things to occur to them until they find out what’s going on which you won’t know yourself. Good job, Horrorfest, way to let me down. However, I can’t really blame them. After watching this dreck, I really felt this was a film that was going to kill me, or at least, make me kill myself from its stupidity.

The Vampire Conspiracy - Review

The Vampire Conspiracy

When dealing with B movies, especially B horror movies, one must almost always take to heart the old saying of "Don't judge a book by its cover." Except the saying has the opposite intention. It always seems that the most money these types of B movies spend on something in the movie is always the artwork for the cover. This movie sounds from the description and the DVD cover like a decent movie you'd watch if it was on the Sci-Fi Channel. However, once you view the first few scenes you know you've been screwed over and almost lied to.

This plot is a dumbed down version along the lines of the "Saw" series or the "Cube" series. The "Cube" series is a B movie series, and a good one in my opinion, but this movie is worse than "Cube" but is still considered a B movie. I don't want to start calling movies C or D movies were the B movie looses all its meaning. I just wanted to make that clear that you can't judge and compare B movies without context.

Five strangers are abducted and put into a room together. They start out, like any of these types of strangers-abducted-and-put-into-the-same-environment goes, trying to figure out who the others are and why they are there. A 250 year-old vampire shows up and informs them that they are in a maze of his making. If they survive and make their way out of the maze, those left alive will receive the vampire's entire fortune. As they go from room to room they are given clues to help them what path to take. Not only do they have to decipher the seven word clues given to them but they must also fight off and/or escape from the vampire's undead army. Why were these people chosen? Will any of them make it out alive? Do you really care?

Ok so the end of my plot description makes the story sound sort of anti-climatic. In one sense it is. This is the same old story of a "Saw" a "Cube" and the 1999 version of "House On Haunted Hill"...but with vampires! However, on the other hand, this is a very low budget movie compared to any of those other movies. I'm never one to rag on a B movie for lack of picture and/or sound quality. I give each movie a fair shake. Yes, it would be nice if everyone could shoot movies with the same equipment that big, Hollywood pictures shoot with, but I think you'd loose some of the charm of these movies. "Saw 4" might have had a full blown autopsy scene, but you have to laugh at how much money they spent compared to some movies who use just some hamburger meat, red food coloring, and other sorts of fake internal organs and effects. I appreciate the charm of such techniques.

The main problem I had with this movie was more the set itself. This movie appears to have been shot in an old motel that's been converted into an independently run haunted house that pre-teens visit for Halloween with their dates who were all dropped off by their parents. It really is a weird look to a place for a vampire who has such "unimaginable wealth". If I had 250 years worth of interest in the bank, my death chamber would at least be decent looking. You don't have to go with the old gothic, dungeon-esk scene. You can really modernize it or put your own spin to it. However, it's kinda hard to be scared in what looks like an old, rundown motel.

Grade - D-
B Movie Grade - C

This wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen but it definitely did have some big problems with it. This reminded me a bit of movies such as "Saw" and "Cube" a bit. Too bad it didn't push more into those types of story ideas. My biggest problem with the movie is the over use of the f-word. This movie sticks it in between every other word. It's not the only over used curse word in here but it definitely was the word most used. Another problem was that the ending made no sense at all, there is no conclusion and it ends up making the rest of the movie utterly pointless. The thing that bumps this up in the "B Movie Grade" comes from the attempt to tie all the characters in the movie to each other. The people in this movie find out later that while being chased by a horde of the undead, there is someone they are traveling with that, in someway and for some reason, want them dead. It's a nice try for the movie. This movie should really teach you to read the script to your movie after you binged on pot, coke, and beer before you shoot your movie.

13 Ghosts (1960) - Review

13 Ghosts (1960)

I feel really bad that most older sci-fi and horror movies are no considered B movies. At the time of their released most were on the cutting edge of film technology. The stories might not be considered the best by todays standards but for the time they were made, these plots were just as normal as any normal flick we watch today. The giant ants of "Them!" could be compared to any normal horror flick today, just with more story and less mutilated bodies. So looking at this movie should be looked at with not just eyes of today, but through the eyes of the golden age of cinema.

I know more people have probably seen the 2001 "remake" (and I use that term in the absolute loosest terms possible and I mean lose like a 96 year old prostitute who has been working everyday for 86 years.) However, that movie is blasphemous to this wonder and classic film.

This film was directed by William Castle who was a master director and movie magician of his time. He made some great horror movies in his day and he loved having gimmicks for his flick. His 1959 movie, "The Tingler", rigged up seats to vibrate and were used to scare people during the movie whenever the monster showed up. Likewise, this movie was filmed in "Illusion-O". The audience would put on special glasses when the characters in the movie did. This allowed only those wearing the glasses to see the ghosts. Wonderful, classic '60's movie nostalgia. The movie also stars Martin Milner who played Pete Malloy in the wonderful "Adam-12" series.

Buck Zorba (isn't that a cool and creepy last name?) is having trouble providing for his family. Their power has just been turned off and their furniture is reprocessed. However, lawyer Ben Rush (Milner) contacts Buck and informs his that Buck's reclusive uncle, Cyrus Zorba, has passed away and left his house to Buck. There's just one catch, through his world travels, Cyrus has captured 12 ghosts and invented some special glasses to see them. Ben also informs the family that Cyrus has hidden a great deal of his wealth in the house somewhere. Seeing as the movie is called "13 Ghosts" and not 12 ghosts, someone in the story will become the 13th. But who?

Grade - A+

Although I was never able to see the movie with the Illusion-O glasses, I was very impressed with the visuals in this movie. I remember the first time when I saw this when I was young, the movie did scare me. The ghosts are both funny and scary. The housekeeper who looks like witch is one of the most entertaining characters just the way she plays the creepy personality. The kid in this movie is pretty entertaining too. This is a perfect example of why old horror movies are superior than today's flicks. This movie relied on showing ghosts, sure, but it also has a great story line. You get scared by some of the ghost and the sayonce scene. Then you have to guess who is going to be the 13th ghost, where the money is, and what's going on. If you're a fan of old horror movies, this is a must see.