Ed's Review Dot Com

HanWay Films, Snoot Entertainment,

Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Margaret Laney, Amy Seimetz, Ti West, Rob Moran, Barbara Crampton

The Davison family is having an anniversary celebration, and all the family is home. But little do they know that their next door neighbors have been killed by a home invasion. When the dinner party gets a little too loud, suddenly a crossbow bolt flies through the window and everyone panics. They have no idea why someone is doing this, but it appears several masked home invaders have attacked the family, and they may even be inside the house! This suspenseful home invasion horror film has it’s share of twists and turns on it’s way to the closing credits.

This movie was released in 2011 at the Toronto International Film Festival, but was just released in August of 2013 in the U.S. This is a very bloody and gory horror film that is 99% suspense. There are a lot of turns in the plot, and nobody is who they seem to be. The house is a star in of itself, and the location is really creepy. The guys in the masks are terror inducing, and each of the members of the family and their guests make up a gruesome party by the end of the night. The actors are not well known, but the all do pretty good. I’m getting tired of space alien horror films, and the lost footage gimmick is wearing a little thin, so this is a nice change of pace to have a pure evil murder spree for a change. The score is excellent and adds a lot to the film. I enjoyed watching it on opening weekend, though the crowd was a little sparse. Perhaps this is just a bad weekend, but the turnout wasn’t what I would have expected, although those who did show up had a great time. There are some pretty good scares in this film. The plot is fairly simple, although just about every time you figure out what to do with the hand you’ve been dealt, somebody rotates the table and you have to start over. It’s getting close to fall as school is starting and the nights are starting earlier, so this was a good kick-off to scary movie season. Plus we had a great time recreating the “Who’s On First” Abbot and Costello routine at the box office, when I asked the guy, “What’s You’re Next? 8:00?” to which he replied “Our next what?” As a love of horror films, this isn’t the best I’ve seen, by far, but it was a lot of fun, and well worth my time.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Summit Entertainment, Touchstone Pictures, Offspring Entertainment

Rick Malambri, Adam G Sevani, Sharni Vinson, Alyson Stoner, Keith Stallworth, Kendra Andrews, Stephen Boss, Martin Lombard, Facundo Lombard, Oren Michaeli, Joe Slaughter

The new gangs I guess are street dancers.  The Pirates including Luke (Malambri) and Natalie (Vinson) team up with a kid the see dancing on the street named Moose (Sevani) and try to take on the number one champion hip hop dancers in New York in contest.  They need the money, and they need the respect.  The showdown of the century “The First Annual World Dance Jam” is destined to change their lives forever.

Yeah, right!  I hated this film.  I don’t get the modern street dancing anyway.  I’m much too old to enjoy seeing people flip-flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water or a chicken with his head cut off.  Then the dialog in this film is enough to make me choke!  “One move, can make you believe there’s something more.  One move, can set a whole generation free.”  Gak.

I did not see this in 3D.  I understand the 3D process added a lot to dance fans and I watched it on DVD.  But I was bored to death.  Practice-battle-fight-battle-practice-battle-battle-battle-done.   There was no story at all, just a bunch of kids who live and practice in a big building and do dance battles at every time they meet somebody.  There was just nothing going on here at all.  I was horribly bored with the whole thing, and the climax was about as boring as the rest of the film.  The Pirates got their butts kicked 900 ways to Sunday and then the judges without any question just name the Pirates the winners.  Like there wasn’t really any real contest to begin with.  And the commentary by the announcer was really lame!   On and on with stunning insight like “Did you see that?” “Ooh, that’s old school” “Say what?”
This was a waste of my time!

Note: My better half is a big fan of “So You Think You Can Dance”. At least one of the stars of this movie is from that show. She was thrilled to recognize someone from the show, then promptly fell asleep. The next day we tried to watch it again, but she was as bored with it as I was.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog