Ed's Review Dot Com

New Line Cinema, Blumhouse Productions, Management 360,

Ryan Shoos, Pfeifer Brown, Cassidy Gifford, Reese Mishler

A high school twenty years ago performed a play called “The Gallows”. But something went wrong, and a student was killed during the performance. In honor of the 20th anniversary of this horrible accident, the school drama director decides to re-perform “The Gallows” in honor of the student who was killed. A group of students decide to break into the school before the play to destroy the sets to stop the play, but once they are in the school, they find there is no way out, and something evil in the school is anxious to make them pay.

I personally think that there should be a law whereby a warning must be posted in ads, in the trailer, and at the theater when it’s a cheap ass handheld camera “found footage” piece of crap. I am done with these idiotic found footage movies. Damn you Blair Witch Project. If you had not made a bundle, everybody and his brother would not be trying to make a fortune duplicating what Blair Witch did. The cost of production on this thing must have been about 100 dollars. That being said, the story starts out really, really slow, but for the last hour, it’s really frightening. The horror aspect is pretty good, and that part was entertaining. The suspense is killing, and it really does have some great scares, and as a horror film it wasn’t bad. If it wasn’t for the shaky gut spinning camera shots of floors, walls, people’s feet, the camera being dropped, and other crappy gimmicks as opposed to good cinematography, it would be a decent film. But no. They had to go the cheap handheld camera route for the entire film, and I was sick of shaky video after the first 15 minutes. This is how to ruin a decent film. And did I say, I am sick of it? Anyway, if you are not bothered by motion sickness and don’t mind that you can’t see 90% of what is going on because the camera is pointing in the wrong direction, go for it, but I can’t recommend this for normal people with spatial awareness. If they had used a real camera and a tripod and some decent lighting effects, they would have had a winner, but this was just plain bad the way it was “filmed”. No, no, no.

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Indomitable Entertainment, Paul Schiff Productions, Purple Pictures,

James Marsden, Thomas Jane, Billy Bob Thornton, Piper Perabo, Scott Glenn, Adam Beach, Michaela McManus, Kelly Curran

Rowan (James Marsden) has returned home to the chagrin but finally acceptance of his brother Becket (Thomas Jane). Rowan is searching for his wife who is missing in an area called the Grizzly Maze. This is an area that is hard to cross where the Grizzlies reign supreme. But as prepared as they are for the battle, one absurdly large and angry grizzly intends to kill the entire party.

This movie is kind of schizophrenic. It has it’s ups and downs. First the locations are stunning and really spectacular to look at. Secondly the cast is very good in their roles. On the down side, everything is really predictable and the CGI of the bear attacks is a bit annoying. Furthermore, this bear has such a grudge that it gets silly after while. I feel like this is the back woods version of Jaws, where the grizzly hates them and makes a point to seek them out for vengeance. It is a little over the top for my acceptance of the incredible. But it is a decently made wild animal film and is certainly not all bad is worth watching. If you you’re a fan of the outdoors and the magnificence of wild creatures (enhanced by a little too much CGI), then give this a shot. It’s excitement, but it’s a stretch.

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Twentieth Century Fox Animation, Blue Sky Studios, Feigco Entertainment,

Noah Schnapp, Hadley Belle Miller, Alexander Garfin, Mariel Sheets, Venus Schultheis, Rebecca Bloom, Noah Johnston, A.J. Tecce, Francesca Capaldi, Bill Melendez

Charlie Brown is back in this new 3D feature film with all the Peanuts gang. This goes back to the roots and the beginning of the peanuts gang and is about their adventures in school and out. A new neighbor moves in across the street from Chuck and Snoopy and it turns out to be a little red haired girl. Charlie Brown is smitten, and tries his best to impress her. but Charlie has nothing but bad luck. Snoopy, meanwhile, along with Woodstock and company and his new girlfriend set out to write the worlds greatest novel about his adventures fighting the evil Red Baron. This is a flash back to our youth that is brought to us with all the greatest new technology and techniques.

This is a stunning 3D film. All of the gang is there, and though they’re presented in a new way with 3D Pixar style computer generated characters, they never looked better. There were many adults in the audience, including me, that laughed out loud numerous times as the humor was really poignant and just really funny. We took my 7 year old grandson with us, and although he liked the movie, he told us it was a bit boring and too slow. Imagine this coming out of a 7 year old boy, but he knows what he likes. The problem for him, of course, is that it the nostalgia and the warm memories of Charlie and Snoopy that bring such pleasure to the older folks. The kiddies are aware of Snoopy and the gang, but don’t get the fuzzy warm memories that we have. When I was in college, the only comic strip our paper carried was Peanuts, and we literally ran to the newspaper stand to get our copy every morning turning to the last page first to check out what Charles Schultz had written for us. In those days the strips continued the story for weeks and weeks on end, and it was a pleasure to see them every morning. That’s why I think the adults may love this film way more than the kids. Just don’t be devastated if your kids don’t get as excited afterward as you do, as they are just too young to get it. Still, the story is very well told, and though it is slow developing, that’s the way Peanuts always was. For kids who are used to Iron Man and their doses of Saturday cartoons that are all action, they won’t get the relationship stuff that good kid friends have when there are no adults around. One elephant in the room. Prior to his death, Charles Schultz insisted that Charlie Brown die with him. Charlie Brown, after all, was Sparky Schultz, and he couldn’t bear for anyone, even his son, to create new stories without him. I don’t know what the agreement was, or how this was done, but one thing that stood out like a sore thumb was the title screen where it said, “by Schultz”. It seemed really odd, and though there wasn’t much original here, but more background of the original comic strip, I felt a little like maybe we were cheating on Charles Schultz, final wish by watching this. Then I realized that he is gone, and his estate belongs to his family, and it’s up to them how they honor his wishes. Perhaps it was only the daily comic strip that he wanted to stop, and I sure he would have loved this homage to his original characters. Whatever the case, I really loved it and was very glad to see it. This is a true G rated film, good for everyone, and very much worth seeing. If you get a chance to see it on the big screen with the reclining seats, in 3D, please do it. If you have fond memories of Peanuts at all, you’ll love this as much as I did.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Lionsgate, Lakeshore Entertainment, Pantelion Films,

Djimon Hounsou, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Michael Paré, Dougray Scott, Kathleen Robertson, Cas Anvar, John Patrick Amedori, Michael Peña

Angela Holmes (Olivia Dudley) is a 27 year old who is having really bad psychic problems and is hospitalized, but when people close to her are getting harmed one after another, a priest is called and they recommend exorcism. But when Father Lozano (Michael Pena) calls in the big guns from the Vatican to help, the exorcism shows they are dealing with an ancient evil who is far more powerful than they ever expected, and the ultimate battle between good and evil is on, big time.

This is a relatively decent horror film. As you probably have noticed, I’m a bit of a horror fan, so I tend to score them higher than I would if it was another genre. I admit this isn’t a spectacular horror film, but darn it, it wasn’t all that bad. Granted some of the characters in the film were wasted. The connection to the Vatican is somewhat weak. There is one scene in the end that left me really confused as to why it was in there if not to make a Vatican connection, but Michael Pena as the local priest who is watching over Angela, the father, and certainly Angela herself were pretty good and did a decent job. The exorcism itself was very well done, and the effects weren’t over the top as they tend to do today, but were understated enough to let the actors bring the terror and fear without detracting from it with silly CGI shots of demons and such. All in all it’s a fast moving, really creepy, scary movie that does the trick, and if you enjoy exorcism films, this may be the best one I’ve seen in a while. I liked this film and I found it very entertaining and suspenseful, and I recommend this for horror fans everywhere.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Movie Rentals Releasing Tuesday November 10, 2015

• Mr Holmes
• Pay the Ghost
• Self/Less
• Terminator Genisys
• Trainwreck