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Reviews
Deep in the Darkness (2014)
A good movie for horror/monster fans.
Definitely spoiler alert.
Good horror/monster pictures are few and far between. While "Deep in the Darkness" does have its own share of problems, it's definitely one of the good ones as judged by the relative standards of its own class of movie. I would encourage devotees of the genre, willing to engage in an enthusiastic "willing suspension of disbelief" (a prerequisite for the genre), to give this movie a tumble. People with a lot of convicted, film-student notions about what constitutes high-art cinema would be best advised to look elsewhere.
Stylistically, the movie has echoes of "Harvest Home" and "Wicker Man" with its depiction of something unhealthy just beneath the surface of a closely-knit small-town community and the progressive isolating of the masculine lead, leaving him an outsider even within the context of his own small family.
Be warned: the wife of the protagonist appears to blow hot and cold in her relationship with her husband as the movie progresses. This reads as out of place or inconsistent and gives one the sense of a poorly-crafted plot element. At the very end of the picture we see it's actually a fairly legitimate expression of someone vacillating between loyalties.
Within the context of its own genre, if I had any significant criticisms to level at this movie it would be with the nature of the ending. All of the questions about how we got here, what's going on here, and so on, are neatly tied up. But the movie does not seem to carry all of the way to a final conclusion. It's as if it quit about 10 minutes before a final resolution. There is a definite "-and where does he go from here
?" sort of feeling at credit-roll that was unfortunate. The movie makes the stylistic choice to end on an explanatory note that gives our hero an opportunity to understand clearly how he ended up in this situation that explains much of his wife's peculiar actions during the course of the film, but there are still a few issues he needs to resolve and the movie just stops. He's put up an effective and determine fight throughout the film and he's unlikely to stop at this point, and so neither should the picture.
Some examples of questions that could use answering are: 1. The hero has apparently wiped out the entire nest of monsters except perhaps for one newborn infant monster and a couple of half- monster-half- humans. Why is he still isolated? Hasn't he won? 2. The community has apparently run off with his half-breed wife and his kid. It's a very small community. How far do they think they can go? And why is the community still helping the monsters? 3. Unlike "Harvest Home" and "Wicker Man", our hero has been left alive, healthy, and kicking at the end of the picture. Yet some of the townspeople appear to be trying to help the monsters along, and not just the half-breed townspeople. Clearly our hero is going to persist in creating a problem; why was he left alive?
And so on. The list is long.
Who knows? Maybe these questions have been saved for "Deep in the Darkness 2".
Among Ravens (2014)
I must not have seen the same movie everyone else here saw.
At the time of my writing this there were 11 reviews (as opposed to just ratings). The average rating of these 11 reviews was 9. 9 out of a possible 10. Having now had this movie inflicted upon me, I cannot see how these ratings could even remotely be legitimate.
This movie was terrible. Admittedly, movies full of ack-tors and path-oss and Deep Meaning are really not my usual first choice. But I figured, given all of these stellar reviews, how could I possibly go wrong? Very easily, I guess.
Every single adult in this picture is entirely dysfunctional. The spectrum of dysfunctionality ranges from basic autism at the most forgivable end and goes across completely fraudulent, rank infidelity, BS artist, obsessively self preoccupied, and on throughout what seems to be every possible human failing. It is an ongoing human train wreck nestled in a beautiful natural environment and garnished with lovely music.
In the middle of this waltz of jerks is a preternaturally pretty little girl of about 11 years old who's the only decent person amongst them. She's depicted as genuinely sweet, and an endless well of kindness and patience and apparently capable of forgiving the unvaryingly appalling behavior of everyone adult around her. It was actually quite disturbing to watch in horror as every adult repeatedly emotionally detonated around this poor little girl, leaving her blasted like a starling before the storm.
And so naturally the only adult she even vaguely manages to connect with is the artistic one who, of course, is the one who dies, willy- nilly, at the end of the picture (basically out of nowhere) simply in order to serve some ridiculous notion of Symbolic Meaning.
It is an appalling truth of daily human life that we, each of us, have to live with our own feet of clay and those of everyone around us. Why on earth does anyone want to go see a movie that reaches to demonstrate just how bad that can get? And just how emotionally squished kids can get in the process.
Bleck.
Report 51 (2013)
Someone should go to jail for this one.
As I have mentioned before, and I feel it bears repeating, I have a very high pain tolerance for horror movies. I'm actually a fan of the "found footage" genre. I will quite happily watch movies that will make other people's eyes bleed.
For other movie genres, particularly science-fiction, my standards are considerably higher. But for horror, I am about as discriminating as a swamp rat.
THIS movie, "Report 51", was so absolutely God-awful I couldn't even finish it. Every
Single
Character
was so annoying I wanted to bash them with a frying pan right in the face after the first five minutes of the movie, and things went steadily downhill from there.
There is absolutely nothing about this movie that is redeemable. Nothing. It isn't even a decently campy-bad. It's just plain old bad.
Do yourself a huge favor and avoid at all costs.