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Showing posts with the label deliverance

THE RITUAL - REVIEW

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A Netflix-distributed release, The Ritual is a British horror film about a group of friends who decide to go hiking in Sweden (and soon find more than they bargained for) following the shocking death of one of their friends when a liquor store robbery goes off the rails. The lost-in-the-woods subgenre of horror movies is one that tends to either surprise (for better or for worse) or fall completely flat. The Ritual aims to be a modern take on The Blair Witch Project crossed with Deliverance  as the protagonists encounter strange twig-made structures in the woods then get picked off one by one by an unknown element. The film mercifully doesn't attempt a hand-held shaky-cam style of storytelling: this is a well paced and acted movie with some excellent cinematography throughout, especially near the climax. Some dream sequences give certain scenes a surreal quality but, unfortunately, they fail to add much in the way of substance. And this is probably the film's biggest sho

BLOODRAYNE 2: DELIVERANCE - REVIEW

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Because BloodRayne was SOOOO good. Here's a sequel for ya. With a new Rayne, about half the budget and an even lesser known cast comes BloodRayne 2: Deliverance , a sequel that I can't imagine anyone was begging for but which nevertheless exists. This time, director Uwe Boll sets things in the Old West where our heroine is made to face off against, wait for it, a vampiric, Eastern European Billy The Kid. See, the problem with the first film, I felt, was that it just wasn't silly enough. Serious lack of vampire cowboys in that movie, frankly. Well, you sure won't be disappointed this time. Initially, I thought this movie was a fan-made thing: the opening titles and the film itself looked so cheap that it took me like 5 minutes to realise that this was an actual movie. That said, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't end up enjoying this movie just a little. It's not good, don't get me wrong, but in terms of cheapo vampire cowboy movies, it de

WINTER'S BONE - REVIEW

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Remember Deliverance ? Sure you do. Well Winter's Bone is kind of like living in that world and trying to make sense of your life through communicating with all the creeps and weirdos around you. This is a very simple story told very well. At the heart of it are excellent performances and a subtly haunting overall atmosphere. As we follow our main character through her desperate journey to find her (MIA) father, we slowly come to realise that everyone around her is not what they seem. Every creep has a heart and every seemingly good person is...frankly creepy making her search for anything ressembling sympathy, trust or help a bit of a nightmare to say the least. Overall, Winter's Bone is a great-looking, detailed (yet never cluttered), dark and somewhat depressing little story but one that's definitely worth checking out.

BLOODRAYNE 2: DELIVERANCE - REVIEW

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Uwe Boll has been branded as the new Ed Wood by many critics and I've never really seen the similarities apart from the fact they both made bad, silly films...until I saw Bloodrayne 2. Ed Wood mixed genres like monster movies, sci-fi B movies and film noir together in the hope of creating something fresh and original and, as time as shown, he was succesful. Here Boll mixes spaghetti western with comedy, vampire horror and...video games. The result: vintage Uwe. Whereas the first Bloodrayne boasted a good cast, lots of silliness and a lot of boredom, here we have pretty much no relation to the games, no big names and lots of silliness once again but...it does have vampire cowboys. And after robot cowboys (see Westworld ) this is pretty much the best thing I've ever heard. Don't get me wrong: it's rubbish. But as a bad movie this one can be enjoyed on the same level as a good old-fashioned Ed Wood. It's stupid but proudly so and Boll clearly has fun cloning En