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VxViper
Reviews
Shingeki no Kyojin (2013)
Starts strong, then gets weak and weird
Just as the title of my review says, the show starts strong but as the series progresses, it gets pretentious, plays it safe, and comes across as unoriginal. Pointers below are Spoilers so be warned:
Some of the things I can't overlook:
some of the concept of the world of AOT comes across as an angsty teen in junior high came up with the idea, box cutter swords? Seriously?
The ridiculous way many characters are killed off but somehow the main character's are encased in plot armor as they should have died a million times before the third season. The Survey Corps that's supose to be the best of the best won't stop dying in the most preventable ways, and captain Erwin's useless death.
Going with a twist taken right from The Village that the events are taking place in modern times (in the world the story takes place in)
Prey (2019)
Forced Naritives & a Twist-less Ending
There's multiple plot elements being forced onto one another in an attempt to make this movie.
The whole carjacking narrative that's suppose to be the core element to the story is forgotten halfway through, there's a monster story, a mystery/murder story, a possession story, a werewolf-esque story, there's just too much going on in one movie.
The film also claimed there was a twist ending you need to see to believe... there was no twist. If there was a twist it would be that the ending was so forced that it hurt to watch. The girl that's a monster escapes the island and not the main character. A real twist would have been that the events of the film never happened as it shows the main character at the start of his adventure on the island talking to himself.
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)
So bad its...bad.
Some are calling this "so bad it's good", seriously though, it's just bad, so bad, not even worth watching again bad. The film looked like it was filmed by a junior high student while on summer break, the acting is so bad it makes pornstars look Shakespearean trained, the special effects are cringy, the sound is god awful. The fact that this was a terrible rip-off of The Birds and Nguyen claims this was an original idea is an insult. If I could have given this half a star I would have. Don't pay for this crap, just watch it for free on youtube if you can find it, or better yet watch RiffTrax's video of it.
Hagazussa (2017)
Where's the horror?!
More of an art film than a horror. The description of the film's plot is quite deceiving as there's never really a "Dark Presence" seen or implied in the film. The only real good thing about the film is the scenery of the Alps.
There's really no horror in the film, just a lot of disturbing content in this order:
In the film's first chapter Albrun is molested by her Mother as her sanity slips more from the plague.
The film's second chapter, Albrun's excessive horniness (no pun intended) involving goats and later on implied she's an unwilling third with her neighbor.
The third chapter Albrun see's the fruit of her labor with poisoning the local water supply with a dead rat seemingly happy and goes into the woods with her baby and eats a random mushroom she finds resulting in her having a bad drug trip and drowning her baby.
The final chapter Albrun realizes her baby is dead after finding it's body and eats it.
You can just sum up that this film is about a 15th century woman with issues from her childhood with an awkward adulthood who is taken advantage of for being a lonely unstable single mother who meets her demise after eating random mushrooms in the forest. Saying it's better than or like the film The VVitch is a bit of an insult to both films as Hagazussa tried a little too hard.
Pa-dak pa-dak (2012)
Very meh.
The only thing working for this anti-Finding Nemo film is the shocking death scenes (which is the draw of the film) but even then they lack substance. The film wants you to feel for the characters (at least the Mackerel and Spotty) but there's no real character development that makes you feel anything for a character when they die. The cynical undertones and finger-waving the film does to those who eat fish/meat becomes quite obvious at the start and stays for the duration of the movie make it... meh.
Chopped Canada (2014)
Lacks the Skills of Original Chopped
The "Chefs" that compete on this show seem to lack culinary knowledge and often seem to refer to themselves as "Cooks" and not Chefs, for those who don't know, trained chefs NEVER refer to themselves as "Cooks". The show also has a theme that they want to make sure you know this is a Canadian show by having a Canadian ingredient in each basket and making sure that they keep talking about how it's Canadian. Don't get me started on the Judges, they tend to be pretty condescending and themselves competing against their fellow judges. Having Dean McDermott as host is something hard to swallow (no pun intended), the choice to put him in as host was a bad one giving his shady past that many in the US audience can't forgive/forget. All in all, more thought went into building the set of the show rather than the dynamics of the show itself.
The Grudge 3 (2009)
Good till the Writer and Director gave up
The movie had some major flaws in comparison to the other Grudge movies. For starters, in the grudge films you don't see the ghosts grabbing people and snapping their necks like when Dr.Sullivan was killed by Kayako and in the beginning with Jake flying around the padded room. They would have just vanished and showed up someplace else. Overall the movie was OK, then towards the end the film took a big crap. Shame on the writers and director for giving up. What irked me the most was how towards the end Lisa one minute believes everything Naoko says, then at a crucial point decides she don't. Then at the end showing that a new curse was created was interesting, I just hope that there won't be another American grudge film. Take my advice Hollywood, leave the grudge films in Japan, as cheap as they may seem, they are 1000X better than what your doing to them, but if you insist on making more, have Takashi Shimizu direct them instead of just writing a little for it.