The story is based on Warcraft: Humans vs. Orcs, back when the plot was really, really thin. :V

You could just check IMDB? He's in it, and has even more screen time than he did the first time around.

FUCKING SOLD

I was sold the moment I saw Goldblum was in it.

Anyone here familiar with Neil Breen? Watched two of his films today. I am Here....Now for the first time and Fateful Findings for the second. Really nothing else out there compares to Breen.

He's the guy who hacked into the biggest secrets of the government and major corporations' secrets, right?

Neil Breen is god. Double Down was the first one I saw. It was the biggest wtf movie I had seen in a long time. Fateful Findings was also remarkably wtf. RedLetterMedia's coverage of Double Down on Best of the Worst sold me.


[warning] we see his ballsack in the movie [warning]

This whole time, he hasn't been working on his next novel...

First time I watched Fateful Findings, it actually made my girlfriend cry at the end because of how terrible it was. It's probably the worst acting of any of his films. "I'M GONNA SHOOT THIS DAMN CAR ALL FULL OF HOLES." And the way that Leah just randomly keeps that notebook in her pocket with her phone. It's so great. I should also mention that this is easily the most quotable Breen film.

Double Down is the equivalent of some drone ambient album in that it really doesn't go anywhere or do anything and it just kinda ends. It's so baffling and the whole time my girlfriend and I watched it we just kept yelling "what the fuck is even happening?!" The scene with him showing off his vest of "many medals" is completely brilliant. Also, the way the box just features "desperation" as a pull quote without any context is amazing.

I Am Here....Now is probably my personal favorite. It's the one that achieves what it's trying to do the best, so you most fully understand what's happening. But it's also so hilariously terrible, because you know what he's trying to do, you can see easily how he's failing at it. Plus the whole space jesus ape cyborg thing is just so Breenian.

I have yet to see Pass-Thru but believe me, I want to.

Literally never even heard Neil Breen's name before you just mentioned it. So this is some sort of so-bad-it's-good thing?

Yes. Breen makes Tommy Wiseau look like Kubrick.

Well that sounds like a fun thing that I should review sometime.

Here's the Fateful Findings trailer

Basically, every film of his stars himself as a massive Mary Sue. Expect to see lots and lots of bra-less women, stock footage and shots re-used ad nauseam.

Holy shit, that trailer. I am definitely going to have to check these movies out.

Been too busy rewatching actual good movies like The Prestige to watch garbage by some delusional loon. If I wanna watch Neil Breen I'll watch RLM because they're the exact reason for his popularity and they pick all the best bits and I don't waste 2 hours on cinematic feces.

The Hollow (2015) - My God, what a drudge of a movie. If you're going to watch it, settle in, because nothing happens for about thirty minutes, and it happens slowly. Then you finally get to the island, and it's understandable to expect that things will begin to happen. And they do. People talk slowly at each other, and get angry at each other for no apparent reason. You're in a strange place and you've been told that people get killed around this time of year, so naturally, the first thing you do in a strange place is to wander off. This makes other people have to wander after you, shouting, 'Emma? Emma?' This takes up very many minutes of your life, and you could have been clipping your toenails. Lost people are found, slow dialogues are had, and a lot of shrill screaming pierces your eardrums. Cue panoramic shot of the foggy forest, because it's not obvious there's a foggy forest happening at you. More slow talking. Firewood monster shows up, starts to do some things - end scene. More slow talking, and women screaming unnecessarily. Men being stupid. Everyone being stupid. Cue shot of forest. There is a forest, remember? Also there's a storm. Show lightning. Firewood monster capers onscreen - cut. Not since It Follows have I seen such a trudgingly boring 'horror' movie. Absolutely worthless. Pretty scenery, though.

I mean, they've definitely given him a considerable boost (and they are how I discovered him) but I'm pretty goddamn sure there was a following beforehand. They've also only done one of his movies, and the one with probably the least amount of hilarious little happenings. But hey, you do you.

I liked 'It Follows' for taking the sole idea in Halloween of Michael Myers never walking too fast but still catching you and stretching it over an entire film. I tried to make it through 'The Hallow' and I agree, tough sledding. Any interesting tangent they could have taken with horror and forest-based folklore was sidelined for...wait for it...FAMILY DRAMA!

That movie The Hollow looks pretty cool. I could maybe like it - I'll have to see it. Could go either way I guess.

I didn't liked that It Follows movie at all, thought it was way too overhyped. Same with The Babadook. People thought that movie was the best and greatest horror movie in decades judging by its reception when it came out. I liked it but holy shit that movie received some extreme praise. I think movie watchers in general are just so starved for great horror films (hardly anything worth coming out in that genre these days) that they will jump on anything that isn't pure trash and rate it higher than it should be.

I don't listen to hype, and I thought these movies and several others in recent years have really kicked off some new, great horror films. I mean yeah we were starved for good horror films, sure. But the fact that we're getting some now is great to me no matter who exaggerates things or whatever else. I like what I like and I never care what people hype up.

I don't care either I'm just stating an observation, Empyreal.

It Follows and The Hollow suffer from the same problem: too little happening over too long a time and much, much too slowly. When anything does start to happen, the characters completely overreact to it, and it's obvious that you're supposed to think it's the most horrifying thing ever. That, and having everyone talk like they're drugged out of their minds, just lazily mumbling at each other. And if they're not doing that, they're screaming hysterically. When both movies were obviously made on a generous budget, you have to think that most of the money was spent on Prozac. While it's admirable that they attempted to build atmosphere, they seemed to forget that you have to make the viewers care about the characters in order to create any kind of tension. They'd do well to watch The Exorcist about 10 more times and take thorough notes before making another horror movie.

For me I don't necessarily have to care about characters in a horror movie to care about them being offed or put in horrible situations. I don't even necessarily want to get to know them better or see them as a friend or anything like that. What's important to me is authenticity. I love the original TCM and Halloween so much not because of the characters or any sympathy towards them (of which there is zero; they were all unlikable to their own extent IMO) but because I was totally buying that situation and it felt real to me. I can put myself in their position as long as the position itself and the minutiae surrounding it is believable. It's why a movie like Child's Play will probably always be entertaining to me but I'll never really consider it an effective horror movie; in my opinion the entire premise, even though it is obviously fictional and not meant to be "real", is very unbelievable. Pick the fucking doll up and throw it in a furnace, movie over.

Now for more supernatural and off the wall types of sci-fi horror, my preferences are maybe only slightly different but I still want that authenticity. And those kind of horror films might be served more by better character development.

Horror movies should definitely take lessons from the old classics, but so far as Exorcist influence goes, terrible directors like James Wan were more closely influenced by it and learned the exact wrong lessons. So it's not exactly a grass-is-greener type of thing.

Horror for me is about real life, about telling real life stories and messages through the lens of something bizarre or supernatural. That's what makes an effective film in the genre for me, how scary it is combined with that.

Ugh, that reminds me of some scenes in The Conjuring 2 that were practically shot-for-shot remakes of The Exorcist. We get it, you're wearing your influences on your sleeve, durr hurr hurr

I don't mean that I want filmmakers to ape The Exorcist. I just want them to study how it builds tension and anxiety. I mean, the audience knows right away that the girl is possessed by a demon, and it's important that they show what she's like before that happens, and establish the tender, loving relationship she has with her mother. So once she's possessed, and things are just getting worse by the minute, it's agonizing to watch the other characters bumble around trying to figure out what's wrong, but it works because that's exactly what anyone would do. They behave like real, rational, intelligent people. That's exactly what the characters in The Hollow and so many other movies don't do, which kills all tension and horror because you're just wondering why they're doing completely absurd things, like wandering off repeatedly and taking up precious time by making everyone else go and look for your sorry ass. In The Exorcist, they do, in reasonable time, realize the completely uncanny truth, that this little girl is possessed by an ancient demon. The viewer empathizes with them and feels their pain and distress. They're relatable. There's not a minute of movie time wasted on unnecessary bullshit. I never once find myself looking at the elapsed time to see how much longer this is going to drag out, because I'm riveted. The Hollow had a cool monster in it, but they made the fatal mistake of cutting away from it seconds after it appears. Godzilla 2014 made this same mistake. They had the right idea of building up the action, but once you've had the big reveal, you have to make the monsters the focal point, especially the titular monster. You can't just tease Godzilla for 90 or 100 minutes and barely show him at all, and have 90% of the action occur offscreen. Film is not a new art form. Moviemakers ought to know these things; it's very basic stuff.

There's always a way to make something that flies in the face of convention work, it just takes a lot of experience to understand how to make it work. Even Jaws, when they finally showed the shark in its full glory, didn't just keep her on the screen until the movie was over (not even figuratively). Obviously your main point still stands and it is one that goes without saying; if you're a craftsman, learn your craft - then you can do more interesting things.

Jaws is another good example. The reason why they didn't need to show the shark every two minutes was because it had engaging human characters, and good dialogue. The scene where they get drunk one night and Quint tells them about the disaster of the USS Indianapolis was excellent, because it spoke to the plight and peril they were currently facing while building tension because you just knew the shark must be nearby. Then they start singing and banging on the table and you're on the edge of your seat because they're making so much noise and sharks can feel those vibrations. There's no action happening, but you aren't given a chance to relax. The Exorcist does this very effectively too, with the quick, unexpected flashes of the pale demon leering at you. It's just enough for you to see it, but not enough for you to get a second look, so you're only just aware of seeing this unsettling image and filled with doubt as to what it is you just saw. And because you never know when it's coming, you're always expecting it, so you can't relax and breathe easily. That's top-shelf filmmaking.

Yeah you're right about all that I'm just trying to say there's always a way to make something work, you just have to tease it out in an iterative process to find the path to effectiveness. That's why I almost never try to say "you can't do this" in movies or any art, because context is king. Godzilla 2014 and The Hollow could have achieved what they wanted without compromising their goals as well, it just so happened they didn't hit the mark.

Well the thing about experimentation in film is that, unlike most other forms of art, there's so much money and time and effort that goes into it that once it's done, they don't really have the leisure of saying "nah, this didn't work out, let's try again." A novelist can basically fiddle with his story forever until he likes it, but filmmakers can only really fiddle around with stuff so much during shooting, and a little more in editing.

You're totally right about that, which is why I was saying you really gotta put the time in and learn your craft first. Also you can experiment with ideas on the side in indie and small budget projects, find out what works and what doesn't, then take those lessons learned into bigger projects if one is fortunate enough to get them.

I know nothing about movies or movie review; and indeed I am behind the times - I just watched The American Sniper. Simply put, it is a good movie, albeit with a confusing timeline and a rather abrupt ending. Very odd to me.

The Neon Demon was fucking awesome. Leagues better than Only God Forgives. Sure, it's incredibly shallow, and the story is paper thin, but god damn is it beautiful. The colours, the soundtrack, the framing. On an aesthetic level, it's way more appealing than anything I've seen get a wide release in a while.

Re-Kill is a zombie movie that takes place 5 years after the outbreak and follows a team of commandos as they find and exterminate the living dead. What makes it stash out is that the movie is filmed like it was an episode of Cops, complete with scenario-specific commercials. It's the Series 7 of zombie movies and it's worth a watch. Not great, but enough great ideas and solid execution to keep you interested throughout. 6.5/10

Final Girl has Wes Bentley and Abigail Breslin as a teacher/student pair with the intent on hunting down serial killers. There's a lot of promise washed away by poor execution, jumbled ideas, and disappointing subplots that feel like they should be important but go nowhere. This feels like two scripts sewn together without any real editing beyond making sure the characters names don't change, two scripts that would have been acceptable on their own but can never realize even half of their potential due to being tied together. 3.5/10

I had pretty much given up on anything that guy directs after Only God Forgives was one of the worst movies of the year, but I gotta say hearing this surprises me. Interesting.

Yeah, "Final Girl" wasn't good at all. Abigail Breslin was OK in Maggie, but I couldn't believe her as a vigilante.

"The Final Girls" was better, although the two movies have very little in common besides similar titles and the fact that Cato from Hunger Games is in both.

The Exorcist....christ, could never understand the hype. Maybe if it was the 70s still. I saw it when I was 13 or 14 and it had no effect me, having already been raised on Hellraiser, IT, Freddy, Jason, Poltergeist 1-3, Puppet Master, Childs Play, etc. It was completely overhyped for someone expecting "THE SCARIEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME".

I like James Wan movies, he has good ideas. I'd say they're all about 70% effective, losing the last 30 to typical plot tropes. Nobody else seriously made an effort at haunted house movies so I can't really compare him to any peers from the last 10 years. He has been using his 'drop out the sound' tension since Dead Silence but it works for me because that's what haunted houses are like.

I have always hated paranormal horror leaning on exorcism as a film's climax. One of the few that deviated from that and was still effective was The Entity, which Wan was actually supposed to remake at one point.

lol

Puppet Master has to be some of the worst shit ever. I was amazed at how bad that was. I couldn't imagine sitting through the sequels, holy fuck.

The Exorcist is a controversial film...I always thought it worked tremendously well, not just for how solidly made and suspenseful it is like Thiestru mentioned, but also for the sheer implication of the story. It's a movie in which modern science and technology is baffled and fails at figuring out a problem, and the Devil is revealed to be real, just like all of those characters were told in childhood and then cast away with the cynicism of adulthood. It's a tremendously dark, scary film. That's what I mean about ideas and concepts, that's where the real terror comes from. You need a scary idea like that. The Exorcist being made in the 70s when America was much more of a Christian nation than it is now - I can't even imagine how that was when people saw it before it became a cultural icon. Must've been something else.

James Wan movies aren't scary because the scares are pretty much universally "scary noise but then it turns out to be a cat/children's toy in the dark." Then the climaxes are just people screaming and wind howling as the movie tries to replicate the Exorcist climax, but without the symbolic stuff or the meat of the plot. They're plastic and hollow movies. There's nothing to grasp onto there, no interesting things about them. That stuff might as well be generic brand crap rolled off a conveyor belt, all of them are so similar and toothless.

The Exorcist is also effective because the basic story would work even if you removed the horror elements. You could take out the demonic possession and instead have her contract some unknown, deadly, wasting disease that has never been discovered before, and everyone's baffled and at a loss for how to treat it. Meanwhile, the girl's behavior completely changes and you're certain she's going to die. That story works very well, but adding the paranormal elements makes it even more effective because then you're forced to face the fact that ancient, demonic forces beyond human comprehension are real and actively working in the everyday world.