Ink of Blood

(This review may contain spoilers).

While watching this movie, I couldn’t help but compare it to the Fast and the Furious franchise. By the end of the movie, I’d stopped making those comparisons, but it was harder to distance at first.

I did like seeing the relationship between Andrew and Garrett, but I would have liked to see more focus on the brothers and less on the romance that has to permeate every single Hollywood movie. There was a lot of good banter between them, but I didn’t get a clear idea of how they viewed each other.

It was good that there were some elements of foreshadowing and the scene at the beginning with the car theft was a very cool one. I did like seeing the relationship between Andrew and Stephanie, though I felt I was looking at the team already formed. And when they brought new people in, none of them were really developed characters. When watching, I just had the feeling they were the grunts.

This film could have been cleverly done, but I felt it fell short. While some of the elements made sense, there was more that didn’t. By the end of the movie, I was left with questions about how everything fit together.

I personally wouldn’t have given this movie a 12A rating, as I felt the elements of violence and brutality meant the movie should have been closer to a 15. The characters in the movie seemed to be much the same as any movie about people running cons/scams, with the only real difference being the relationships between them.

I did enjoy watching this movie and towards the end, I was thoroughly involved and rooting for the good guys. I think more foreshadowing throughout would have made the film more effective.

While I wouldn’t buy this movie on DVD as soon as it came out, I wouldn’t mind watching it again in the future.

(This review may contain spoilers).

I really liked the fact that this movie seemed to tie quite well into the other movies in the Conjuring universe. While I did think there were some flaws, I did find it entertaining and spooky enough to sit through.

There weren’t really too many surprises in this movie, as the rules and bad creatures have already been established in the previous movies in this franchise. It was good to see the origins of the Annabelle doll. However, there were later indications that the doll played more of a part in Bee’s life than the original scene indicated.

I didn’t think much of the older girls in the orphanage. Janice and Linda were probably my favourite of the girls. I just wanted them to get adopted and have a proper family. Out of the six girls, those two were definitely the most developed character-wise.

There were a lot of quite creepy moments in this film, but by the end of the movie, I felt it lost quite a bit of the effects, as the best horror comes from what isn’t seen. And it was fairly obvious that the culprit wasn’t just a ghost.

There was a nice set-up at the start of the movie for what came later, especially as there were things that happened then that made sense to me as the viewer, even if the characters didn’t know what was going on. The doll house was one of those things that was effectively creepy. The demon appearing visually was less so. And by the end of the movie, it was kind of an overdose on spooky. I wasn’t scared and was just rolling my eyes at the cheap jump scares.

It was nice to see more from the Conjuring universe and have some questions raised previously answered. But there are still things that weren’t really made that clear. And while the ending tied in neatly with previous films, I wasn’t a big fan of it. I don’t think I’ll be watching this movie again.

(This review may contain spoilers).

This was a movie that, as soon as I saw the trailer for it, I was excited about seeing it. As with most movies, the trailer actually portrayed a different story to the main plot, but I still found myself fully engaged with the world. It was nice to see aliens who didn’t just look vaguely humanoid, although the aliens at the beginning did fall into that trap.

I did enjoy seeing Valerian and Laureline working together, though I was a bit confused about what their motivations and pasts were like. They did seem quite juvenile in comparison to their fellow humans on Alpha and it would have been good to see something of how the rankings worked. I did have a few eye-roll moments with them, as both seemed to lose some of their capabilities at various points during the movie.

I liked being able to see elements of the mystery surrounding the unknown planet shown at the beginning of the movie and it was also good to see the origins of Alpha. However, for something that was meant to be a representation of all the known aliens, humans were apparently the only ones actually welcoming each new race.

I did find myself really engaged with this movie, although I think there was a bit too much exposition. There were some good elements of humour and it was good to see something of the other alien species as Valerian and Laureline interacted with them. The character I empathised the most with was Bubble, though I did cringe a little at the name and the slightly over-the-top element of her character.

Personally, I did really enjoy this movie and I hope that there will be more in the franchise. The ending, however, did imply a difference in the two main characters’ personalities that wasn’t really shown throughout the movie. There were things the film could have done better, but it was still entertaining to watch and had some really nice images throughout.

(This review may contain spoilers).

Looking through the horror movies on Netflix, this was one that immediately stood out. While I was a bit unsure of the movie first off, considering just how many bad horror movies I’ve stumbled across, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie.

While it’s very clear, from Lily’s narration at the beginning of the movie, how it will end, the journey to get there was unexpected and actually hauntingly beautiful at times. The way the lives and deaths of Polly, Iris and Lily were intertwined was actually quite powerful and while there were a lot of unanswered questions by the end of the movie, I was left feeling quite moved and almost with the sensation of wanting to watch the movie again for the first time.

The confusion exhibited by Iris was almost heartbreaking to watch and although there were some creepy moments in this movie, the atmosphere itself was almost calming, which is a strange way of describing a horror movie. There wasn’t really any violence, even in the story and hints of what happened to Polly.

At the beginning, Lily seemed quite stilted and uncomfortable, which seemed more because of the character than the actress. I actually very much liked watching her little habits and getting to know her as a character, something I don’t tend to see so much with other horror films, that are more interested in making the audience jump than in forming an emotional connection to the characters, to the point of caring about the inevitable ending.

I do think the scenes of Polly as a ghost detracted from the atmosphere of the movie. The flashbacks worked well, but as soon as the viewers started seeing things in greater detail, I think the movie lost some of its effectiveness. The blurred images were much more hard-hitting and fit better with the narration at the beginning.

I don’t think I’ll watch this movie again. Not because I didn’t engage with it, but I don’t think it would be as effective to already know what’s going to happen. For me, this was an effective one-time movie.

(This review may contain spoilers).

After trying and failing to watch another movie, I decided to watch this one instead. And while it wasn’t perfect and left a lot of unanswered questions, I felt this movie was one of the better films I’ve watched.

I liked that this movie was in such a small area, as it gave me the opportunity to get to know the main characters more closely. While the first scene showed a very bloody moment, there was actually very little gore involved; and I felt that what wasn’t shown was more terrifying than what was.

It was interesting to note the parallels in the two women, both in the present and in the past. The movie didn’t rely so much on jump scares and was very much more a slow build-up, allowing me, as a viewer, to really feel the isolation and confusion experienced by Joanna.

The real moments of confusion came with the intrusion of the real-world, such as Jeff’s ex-girlfriend and what ultimately happened to her. There were very few scenes that took place outside the flat, but while I thought I eventually figured out what was going on with what was happening in the flat, the outside world just made things even more confusing. There was one very creepy, well-done scene with a payphone ringing outside, even though I did have the question in my mind of exactly how that could have been heard from inside the flat.

I was disappointed in the ending of the movie, if I’m completely honest. While the ending itself wasn’t bad, there were still a lot of unanswered questions and situations that were left hanging. Even the last few glimpses that gave me a few theories about what was really going on didn’t really give me a lot of information.

This movie wasn’t one I would watch again, to be completely honest. There were some good effects and Lisa was easy to identify with, but I felt the ending fell quite short of my expectations.

(This review may contain spoilers).

This film looked like it might be really entertaining from the trailer, but after about fifteen minutes into the movie, I found it hard to differentiate between Lisa and Kate.

I have to say, I did think there were some really beautiful camera shots right from the start of the movie. The appearance of the sharks added a really scary element and succeeded in making sure I will never ever go down into the ocean in a cage. No matter how ‘safe’ it apparently is.

Unfortunately, it seemed like many of the characters in this movie didn’t use much in the way of common sense. Lisa and Kate’s reactions after the cage snaps make a lot of sense, but Kate’s insistence she could teach her sister to dive within a few minutes was dangerously arrogant. Since Captain Taylor seemed aware Lisa wasn’t confident, I felt he shouldn’t have been so quick to let them go down if he was supposed to be truly responsible.

While there were some moments of realism in this movie, I was a bit disappointed that the main characters didn’t really do a whole lot other than scream and flail, despite knowing that doing so would make their air run out faster.

The idea of being trapped underwater is a really scary one and the movie did do a good job of showing that. The sharks were huge and terrifying to see and there were some good camera angles that added to the whole atmosphere of the movie.

I didn’t really like the ending, as I felt that, even though it had been foreshadowed and was plausible, the real ending didn’t show much strength on Lisa’s part.

Despite there being some really creepy moments, and I felt Kate was quite a resourceful character, I felt this movie fell short of the mark. Towards the end, there was a really over-the-top scene that made me work out what was going on.

I don’t think I’ll be watching this film again. I had some high expectations, but unlike the last film I watched with someone facing off against a shark, I found this rather anti-climactic.