Ed's Review Dot Com

Paramount Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, Room 101,

Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz, Gabrielle Walsh, Renée Victor, Noemi Gonzalez, David Saucedo, Gloria Sandoval, Richard Cabral, Carlos Pratts

A group of Latino kids notice strange things happening around their apartment, and then the upstairs neighbor is murdered. Being curious, they start snooping around the now empty apartment and discover much more than they’re ready to know. Then Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) starts acting very strange, until it comes to their knowledge that he has been marked at birth by an evil group. This is not a sequel, but more of a spin off Paranormal Activity series.

I was sorely disappointed in this film. It was odd because this just suddenly came out, without much buzz or pre-promotion, and then we were bombarded with previews on TV. These were very short teaser trailers, although I never saw a real trailer in the theater, and made us think it would be a really good new frightening movie as the other ones have been. But it seems this franchise is waning! This movie refers to a few of the things that happened in the main series, and the house in Moorpark is familiar, if you’ve seen the other 4 films in the series, but other than that, this is a completely different path. This is more voodoo and sacrifice, even though it’s the same batch of bad girls. It seems they have more than one trick in their book of evil secrets.

Furthermore, I am bored to tears with these found footage movies. There’s a reason why movie makers use good equipment, cameras, lighting, and sound. It’s an exact science mixed with a lot of art. This really does look like a couple kids did it, but not in a good way. I seriously think we could have done a better job telling this story when I was 12 and had an 8MM movie camera. There was nothing really scary, and I’m just not talking about the loud noise make you jump stuff which any kid hiding around the corner in your house can pull off, but I mean there wasn’t anything really scary going on. They worked us up with creeping around where they’re not supposed to be, but it was just a setup without a payoff. None of this was anything but laughable. I didn’t like the characters, and didn’t really give a hoot. When they head out trying to solve the problem themselves without help and with no backup, it’s just another in a bunch of stupid decisions that make, doing things no one would ever really do, and just trying to move the stinky plot forward so they can get to the next scene.

I was very bored by this movie, and at the end, which is never an end, but the film just runs out, or someone we can’t see switches off the camera (that’s how all these things end) and as far as I could tell, no one else in the theater was impressed in the least either. It was the most quiet horror film I have ever seen. We were dumb enough to see this in one of the Extreme Cinemas where we get to pay extra for the special sound and picture, and it wasn’t worth it. I now hear a Paranormal Activity 5 is due out in the fall of 2014, to follow #4 which makes this version 4.5 I guess, but it was a waste, and I would be dubious about getting this as a rental (it’s sure to be on DVD very soon), but I wouldn’t recommend spending a dime on this to see it in a theater. This must be the worst film I’ve seen in a long, long time.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Bersin Pictures, Deerjen Films, Venture Forth,

Joséphine de La Baume, Milo Ventimiglia, Roxane Mesquida, Anna Mouglalis, Michael Rapaport, Riley Keough, Ching Valdes-Aran, Juan Luis Acevedo, Jay Brannan, Jonathan Caouette, Tiarnie Coupland, Megumi Haggerty, Caitlin Keats, Haley Kotch, Victor Kubicek

Vampire Djuna (Josephine de La Baume) meets and is obsessed with Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia). She turns him, and they have a passionate affair. But when Djuna’s trouble-making sister arrives to live with them, she turns things upside with her unconventional way of doing things. This is a Gothic Vampire film which is less of a horror story, and much more of a trashy dime story romance novel come to life.

I felt this was a pretty worthless vampire story. I cannot really classify this as a horror film, as it really isn’t. With so much gratuitous sex that means nothing, and constant jumping back to the club with the loud pounding music for no real purpose other than to let us know that vampires party every night, and don’t do much else, this movie doesn’t really have a point. In one of the largest plot holes in history, we learn that vampires heal almost instantly which means the climax in the last 10 minutes of the film makes absolutely no sense at all. But with all the planning and budget going into the parties and sex, there wasn’t much left over to actually develop a plot of any kind. I really didn’t see any point in this film, and thought it was a waste of my time. I just didn’t see any point in it, and I can’t recommend it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Braven Films, Killer Films, Rip Cord Productions,

Juno Temple, Emily Browning, Michael Cera, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Agustin Silva

Alicia (Juno Temple) is an American girl, visiting her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning) in Chile. Shortly after arrival, they take of on a trip, but Sarah is called away, and leaves Alicia with her friends to watch over her. We quickly gather that Alicia is not totally stable to begin with, but typical of a bunch of young guys, they start teasing and tormenting Alicia which drives her deeper and deeper into insanity. Eventually plagued by night terrors and other fears, Alicia slips more and more into psychiatric frenzy as the friends try, but maybe a bit too late, to get her some help.

This is a screwed up movie. Really. It’s hard to put a category on this. The DVD box would like you to think it’s a horror film, or a psychological thriller, but it’s neither of those. The characters are really not that well developed, and the chaos that this movie shows makes little sense, really. One of the friends is Brink, played by Michael Cera, which has to be one of the most annoying characters I have ever seen in a movie. It’s not what he does that’s so bad, although that’s bad enough, but it’s the voice and mannerisms which he uses to portray this guy. I wanted someone to either kill him or send him away as I could not stand to hear him talk. The story is disjointed, I guess in an artsy way to make us feel the insanity, but nothing was done very effectively. There stuff with dogs, and witch doctors, and molestation stuff, but none of it made much sense or fit together in any way that I could make sense of. So I didn’t enjoy this movie in the least. It wasn’t any one thing in particular that turned me away, but it’s just that none of it seems to have any purpose at all. I see that some people absolutely love this movie. I’m not sure how, but I guess everything will resonate with someone somehow, but I have to say that it just did not work for me, and I do not recommend this. It seemed like a waste of time for me.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Arcade Pictures, Strike Entertainment, Studio Canal,

Ashley Bell, Julia Garner, Spencer Treat Clark, David Jensen, Tarra Riggs, Louis Herthum, Muse Watson, Erica Michelle, Andrew Sensenig, Judd Lormand

Picking up after the last movie, Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) is recovering from the events surrounding the “last exorcism”. She’s trying to put her life back in order when the horror from before finds her again sending her into an even more horrible plan.

My wife warned me about this movie. She saw it in a theater in the Philippines before it was even released in the US. But when I saw it out on DVD, I knew I had to check it out. My wife is a connoisseur of horror films, and when she hates a film, I should trust her. This was a really boring film. Ashley Bell did a really good job with what she had, but the movie left no one home when they turned the lights out. No scares, no real tension, and even worse, a horrible story. I love a good horror film as much as my wife does, but I really could not get into this movie, and I really felt like it was a total waste. It was just a bad idea, and they should have definitely put this off until they had a better script. I thought it was really bad, and if you follow me regularly you’ll see I don’t hate many movies, but this one was a waste of my time. I’m really glad I didn’t plunk down the cash to see this one in the theater. You can do better, trust me!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

American Zoetrope, A24, The Directors Bureau,

Charlie Sheen, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Katheryn Winnick, Patricia Arquette, Aubrey Plaza, Dermot Mulroney, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Charles Swan (Charlie Sheen) is a very self centered, egotistical graphic designer who is deeply disturbed. He’s looking to find some kind of meaning, but he’s delving into his own imagination and mystical life to try to find something to hold on to. We, as the audience, are treated to the view of his active imagination and his struggle to make sense of out of his life.

This probably could be a biography of Charlie Sheen during the dark times when he was fired from Two and a Half Men. Charles Swan is really gone off the deep end. The movie descriptions always say he’s depressed because of the loss of his girlfriend, but I don’t believe that’s really the cause. It might be the trigger, but basically this guy is nuts.

I am one of the many who did not like this film. I admit, there are fans out there of anything, but this just did not go anywhere for me. I found it very pretentious, for no logical reason, and very boring. Seriously, this is one of the worst films I’ve seen this year, and not one I’d recommend to anyone other than the handful who have already seen it. In the words of “Men on Film”…. Hated it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog