The Happening

The tagline for this film in the commercials leading up to its theatrical release was 'M Night Shayamalan's First R-Rated Movie.' The fact that they had to plug the film's rating should have been a dead give away that it had nothing else going for it. It would have been far more accurate to state that M Night Shayamalan had made one of the most lame movies ever, and it just so happened to have received an R rating from the motion picture board; one of the weakest R ratings ever doled out, too. It barely warrants a PG-13.

Marky Mark, his wife, and the kid survive 'the happening,' which is little more than plants giving off a neurotoxin which makes people kill themselves. The plants have wrought their revenge for humanity's treatment of nature. Totally boring plot, villian, characters, dialogue, etc.

At the end, Marky's wife delivers the exciting new to him that she's preggo and they're going to have a child of their own (in additions to taking in the new orphaned like girl character). And then.....then....

OH NO HE DIDN'T

It all starts happening again, but IN EUROPE.

Hang it up, M.

The Bank Job

They get exonerated by the government, get to keep all the money and have a party. Jason Statham stays with him wife instead of running off with the other woman. Predictable, but entertaining. Good for a rainy night. No qualms here.

Them

I'm guessing this was more or less a toned down version of Micheal Haneke's Funny Games (had I bothered to actually watch Funny Games when I rented it I'd be able to much more clearly state how much it has in common with Them. It sat on my coffee table for about two weeks before I decided that I probably wouldn't be in the proper mood watch it anytime soon).

Them focuses on one night in the life of a French couple living somewhere in Eastern Europe. If I've learned anything from horror films released over the last few years, Eastern Eupore seems to be a land plagued by roaming gangs of sadistic kidnappers, hellbent on abducting and torturing the life out of the innocent in the most inventively evil ways. Seems like there's also an incredible nightlife available for the twenty-something traveller, as well. I suppose you need to make sacrifices and let the good come with the bad.

Clemetine and Lucas, our unfortunate couple, live in a secluded mansion somewhere in Bulgaria or Ukraine. I can't tell these places apart. The plot, evidently based on 'true events' revolves around our pair of handsome French ex-pats succumbing to the violent urges of a group of local childrens' desire for 'play'. I'd like to see a film make based on the true events in the one night of my life I was kept up all night after eating $10 worth of food from my neighbrohood taqueria. I'm sure it would be equally terrifying to this turd. In the same way I believe I'll never again eat a huitlacoche quesadilla, I think I'm finished renting french horror movies.

Altered States

William Hurt's character, through a combination of a psychedelic potion and sensory depreviation experiments, is able to awaken in himself the primal human. Basically, he turns into an ape-man and wrecks the shit out of everything. It was grand. At one point, right after his full transformation into a Cro-Magnon, he stumbles into a the city zoo (which apparently is only about two blocks from the university and only surrounded by a five-foot fence) kills and eats a sheep (there's about 300 sheep in a city zoo for some reason) before passing out and waking up a normal human being, albeit very naked and covered in sheep's blood.

The end of this movie has to be seen to be believed. Im sure that sounds as cliche as it comes, but I really have no idea how to best describe it. So I've just posted the video below.


A+ stuff, though, for what amounted to the greatest B movie I think I've ever seen. No idea how I let this one escape me for so many years. You'd figure this would be a Saturday afternoon classic shown on every UHF channel on earth.