Hellraiser: Boxed Set (2008) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)First of all, to those asking "why isn't this the complete collection?" I wish we could have gotten that, but Anchor Bay only has distribution rights for the first 2 films. The rest are in the hands of Dimension Films.
Now to trash a set that I've been wanting for a long time...
Ever since the UK got their version of Hellraiser 1, 2 & 3 in the Lament Cube, fans in the states have been clamoring for a release. Unfortunately special packaging is rarely released in the US because of complaints of shelf compatibility from both retailers and customers. Some of us, though, find unique ways to display these wonderful rarely-seen gems, and quickly grab them up.
I won't be doing that with this ridiculous set, though. It seems that Anchor Bay has said "OK, here's the packaging you want, but you have to take the total crap that's inside!" Seriously, why do I need the same copy of Hellraiser 1 that I just bought about a year and a half ago? Wouldn't it have been better to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the film with the Lament Cube packaging along with the new material? And why do I need 2 copies of the first movie? Completely ridiculous. If I don't have a Blu-Ray player, the 3rd disc is useless to me. If I do have one, the regular copy of the first movie is useless to me. No matter what, the consumer is being forced to pay for something they absolutely do not need, even if they own none of the items in the package.
This release is a total dud, and I can't give it any more than 1 star due to the complete thoughtlessness on the part of Starz / Anchor Bay.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Hellraiser: Boxed Set (2008)

Loaded with nearly 3 hours of bonus material, this 3 disc set comes in a custom made Hellraiser Puzzle Box that slides open to reveal the discs. Disc 1 Hellraiser, Disc 2 Hellbound: Hellraiser II; Disc 3 Hellraiser Blu Ray.2009 Reaper Award Winner - Best In Show and Best Packaging

Get 37% OFF

Click here for more information about Hellraiser: Boxed Set (2008)

Funny Games (2008) (2008) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Not since "Requiem for a Dream" have I left a theater as speechlessly disturbed as I did when the final credits rolled for this one, the blood-red letters splattered over the deranged face of Michael Pitt's character driving home the relentless cruelty I'd just sat through. And never before had I personally felt so responsible for it. If Michael Haneke's point is that we as an audience become active participants in the violence the second we purchase our ticket for a film like this, his point is made rather forcefully. In the hands of the abundantly talented Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, who evoke pain and humiliation with grimaces and tears so compelling that they turn to daggers aimed at the audience itself, the film strips violence of any glamor it may have possessed as entirely as possible in a culture that shovels out billions every year in its name. Toying with the audience's conflicted emotions--the desire to witness cruelty mixing with a desperate hope that its victims will make it out alive--the movie feels like a murder mystery in which YOU, the reader, are guilty of the crime. "You," by paying to sit with your popcorn and 50-gallon soda to watch a film you knew contained unmitigated torture and death, are responsible for the victims' plight. The lasting irony of this profoundly disturbing film is that, through its own indulgence of extreme violence, it makes the most impassioned plea to the better side of our nature to hit the silver screen since Harvey Keitel's "Three Seasons." I recommend the film with great reservation, but I recommend it no less strongly--this is a film every human being must find the courage to confront.
Visit my blog at http://culturespill.com

Click Here to see more reviews about: Funny Games (2008) (2008)

FUNNY GAMES - DVD Movie

Get 21% OFF

Click here for more information about Funny Games (2008) (2008)

Inside (Unrated) (2007) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Well, I guess I can start off this review by saying that this is solid proof that Euro-Horror and it's director's are so far ahead of us Americans when it comes to the horror genre. While our studios are continuing to crank out remakes, and basically recycling stuff that have sat in the can for years - it are the European filmmakers who are out there whipping up new and imaginative ideas like they usually do.
From French Directing duo, Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury, comes INSIDE, a film that exploits a subject that surely has to be any mother's nightmare - having their child taken away from them. Now, I suppose that this would be hard for any mother, regardless the age of the child - but it has to be that much harder when the child is still in womb. In the film, we watch the main character go through the trauma of losing her husband to a crash. After the aftermath of the situation, she still keeps her sanity, just knowing that a piece of him remains, in the form of their unborn. What the Directors do here, is, well....wreck that sanity she has left, and they do it brutally. There is a mysterious woman hell bent on claiming Sarah's baby as her own. Whether she's have to kill Sarah, or just blatantly extract it from her womb, she is bound to finally become a mother herself.
INSIDE is definitely a thrill ride from the beginning to end....it's one of those "you'll never see what's coming next" kind of films. I must say that the realistic gore in the film is just fantastic and brutal, it adds more tension to any already intense situation - but the fact of the matter is that through the course of this film we watch an innocent woman(Sarah) go through absolute hell, while fighting to keep her and her beloved child alive,
The production value and direction here are great, and really capture all of the tense moments. For the most part, the film has but only one location, which is Sarah's house. I have always said that the one location thing could be a disaster (Bug (Special Edition) anyone?), but if they're handled correctly. a primary set could be the best thing to happen to a film. In the case of INSIDE, having one location works out very well as in conveys the feeling of being trapped from the point of view of our victim. And like many films of the same type. you do expect everything to dull down after awhile, but truth is, once this film gets to the subject of it's plot, there are very few dull moments, as the special effects alone are enough to have you glued to your seat. And another thing about the film is it's visual effects - I loved the CGI shots of the baby in the womb.
In the end, there's a reason that INSIDE was released under the DIMENSION EXTREME label; it is extreme, violent, brutal and just about every other adjective that you can think to call it - the scary thing is that the film's subject is one that could happen anywhere in the world or any day of the week.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Inside (Unrated) (2007)

Four months after pregnant Sara loses her husband in a horrific auto accident, she is visited on Christmas Eve by a mysterious madwoman. Alone and desperate to save her unborn child, Sara fights to stay alive as each of her potential rescuers die at the womans sadistic hands.

Get 23% OFF

Click here for more information about Inside (Unrated) (2007)

An American Crime (2008) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)AN AMERICAN CRIME is a problematic little reenactment of a real criminal case of child abuse dating back to 1965. The story is horrifying and while the film places the facts in our faces, the impact of the film is out of focus. This is due to the script that elects to glaze over the motivational aspects of a brutal crime in favor of attempting to investigate fully the mindset of both the perpetrator and the victims. Were it not for some sterling performances by Catherine Keener and Ellen Page this film might be easily dismissed: the strength of these actresses to overcome a weak script and manage to involve us is much to their credit as artists.
Indiana, 1965, and Gertrude Baniszewski (Catherine Keener) is a 'borderline' single mother of several children who is asked to take care of Sylvia (Ellen Page) and Jennie Likens (Hayley McFarland) while the girls parents remain on the road as carnies, promising to send checks to help support their farmed out children. Gertrude is a woman of loose morals who adds babies to her large family during liaisons with young men like the itinerant Dennis (James Franco).Gertrude takes in laundry to support her household and requires her young children to work toward the same goal. A friction develops between Sylvia and Jenny and the children by Gertrude's illicit adventures as well as covert sexual similarities surfacing in her children and at 'family meetings' Gertrude doles out punishment for Sylvia - punishment including cigarette burns, coke bottle insertions, branding etc. - all of which are undeserved and eventually lead to Sylvia's imprisonment in the basement where Gertrude and her children and their friends daily torture Sylvia. Eventually Sylvia dies and Gertrude and family are brought to court for charges of first-degree murder and variations thereof. The court proceedings (under the leadership of lawyer Leroy K. New played by Bradley Whitford) provide the story drivers as each allegation is then acted out by flashbacks until the verdicts are reached.
Catherine Keener is superb as the deranged, maladaptive Gertrude and Ellen Page adds yet another feather to her cap in a role that in another actor's hands could have been over the top. Writer/director Tommy O'Haver (the script was written with the aid of Irene Turner) does manage to show us the facts of this atrocity yet fails to go inside the characters to give us the psychobiographies this film has the potential for illuminating. It may well repel some viewers, but it does bring to the forefront a crime that is all too common in this country. Grady Harp, May 08

Click Here to see more reviews about: An American Crime (2008)

"This," said Prosecutor Leroy New, "has been the most terrible crime ever committed in the state of Indiana;" the first crime of child abuse that broke through reticence and denial to register with the public. In Tommy O'Haver's heartbreaking and hard-hitting film, AN AMERICAN CRIME, Academy Award ® nominee Catherine Keener portrays Gertrude Baniszewski, the seemingly ordinary housewife who imprisons and tortures a beautiful teenager, played by Academy Award ® nominee Ellen Page, in the basement of her house - two portrayals that will resonate with audiences long after they leave the theatre. AN AMERICAN CRIME also stars James Franco and Bradley Whitford.

Get 20% OFF

Click here for more information about An American Crime (2008)

Saw IV (Unrated Widescreen Edition) (2007) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I could always sympathize with John Kramer(jigsaw) on some level because i watched my mother die from cancer. he has easily become my favorite character in the genre. seeing this installment just shows even more, the man was a genius. twisted as he may have been.
this movie focuses on the events in the aftermath of Saw III and Jigsaw's past. We see more of what drove him to the point he was at, and we get to see his first game.
the main storyline is about Detective Riggs trying to find Detective Matthews from Saw II. its now been 6 months since his disappearance. i dont want to give anymore info away, b/c realization is half the fun with this series. ill just say it goes back and forth between Riggs situation and looks into Jigsaw's past.
The overall story is by far the most interesting in my opinion, even if only for the better look into John's past. not that the rest of the movie falls short, this is possibly the most engaging in the series. the traps are very clever, and in a case or two the pons really seem to deserve their fates.
i dont know how they'll keep the series going after this entry. Tobin Bell(Jigsaw) is the face of this series and a future horror icon. excellent movie.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Saw IV (Unrated Widescreen Edition) (2007)

SAW 4 - DVD Movie

Get 20% OFF

Click here for more information about Saw IV (Unrated Widescreen Edition) (2007)

Rendition (2007) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This 2007 film is scary. That's because the theme is about the practice of interrogating suspected terrorists in a foreign country where laws against torture do not apply. This practice is called rendition and this film makes it real. It's hard to watch.
The film opens in an American middle class suburb. Reese Witherspoon is playing with her small son when they get a phone call from her husband, Omar Metwally, an Egyptian citizen who has lived in America for 20 years. He tells his wife and son he is on the way home from a business trip and they plan on meeting him at the airport. All seems well.
When he gets off the plane, however, he is detained at the airport and questioned. He is a chemical engineer and the questioners are asking questions about a terrorist bomb plot. He denies everything. He seems clean but Meryl Streep, playing a high powered Washington decision maker, orders him to be put into rendition and he is whisked away to an unnamed middle eastern country and his name erased from the plane's passenger log while his wife and son wait patiently at the airport for a husband and father who has disappeared.
The scene now shifts to an unnamed middle eastern country where Yagal Noor, an Israeli actor of Jewish Iraqi descent, is cast in the role of the interrogator. Jake Gyllenhaal is cast as an American diplomat, who has just lost a co-worker in a suicide bombing, and has been promoted to assist Yagal Noor with the questioning. It is awful. I am cringing now just writing about it as scenes of waterboarding and electric shock torture are shown in detail. There is also a subplot about the interrogator's daughter and a suicide bomber which expands the story.
In the meantime Reese Witherspoon is trying desperately to find her husband. She seeks out an old boyfriend, played by Peter Sarsgaard who works for a senator, played by Alan Arkin. Even when they confront Meryl Streep, there is a blank wall of silence. Jake Gyllenhaal, however, is beginning to have a change of heart as the torturing goes on.
This is a serious film about a serious topic. It will make you cringe and it will also make you think. I give it a high recommendation but it is not recommended for the faint of heart.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Rendition (2007)

Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep star in this nail- biting thriller about a man who mysteriously disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington DC and the government conspiracy put in place to cover it up.

Get 19% OFF

Click here for more information about Rendition (2007)