Nine Dead (2010) – Movie Review
Nine Dead Review by Brandee
Genre: Crime, Drama, Horror
Nine Dead starring Melissa Joan Hart and William Lee Scott, is a movie about nine men and women from all walks of life who awake to find themselves abducted and chained to poles in the proverbial freakadelic room. Professionally, the characters run the gamut from a merchant and a deputy district attorney, to a police detective and a common street thug. We round out this crew with a Roman Catholic Priest and a Chinese woman who can speak no English. Seemingly, there is nothing these people could possibly have in common… they better figure it out, however. Because every 10 minutes their captor intends to kill them in a very precise order, one by one, until they either make the connection between them or they’re all dead.
This movie could have been great, but it wasn’t. It had a good story line, plot and the ending would have almost made it worth watching. Bad casting, overacting and terrible camera work killed this movie from the beginning. In fact, it was so bad I only agreed to do this review for my husband if he promised to never make we watch it again.
Think of Nine Dead as a sad, watered down version of SAW with less gruesome gore and intricate fabrications. We can only pray that unlike Saw, the makers of Nine Dead know when to quit and never make another chapter of this miserable movie.
Case 39 (2009) – Movie Review
CASE 39 – Reviewed by Brandee
Genre- Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Case 39 is a movie about a well meaning, over-worked and underpaid child social worker (Zellweger) who reluctantly takes in a young girl (Ferland) who has been assigned to her already heavy case load. The child is assigned case number 39. Lilith is a young girl who has seemingly been put through hell. Unfortunately, there is more to this scared, abused and beaten down child than anyone who is alive actually knows.
Though I am not a Renée Zellweger fan, the woman has great range and can act. She carried the film off well. Jodelle Ferland, (Lilith) the girl, has a knack for playing the creepiest kid on the block. She does it well and is notorious for making you feel uneasy in her on-screen presence.
I actually enjoyed this movie. The characters were not played over the top as they often are in this genre and there are several surprises waiting for you… around a corner… under a box. On the other end of the telephone.
4/10 Steeler Stars
The Pumpkin Karver (2006)
It was one of those ‘wanna watch a mindless, senseless, rather-obvious plot’-type kinda of movie day so we decided to stream Netflix and watch ‘the pumpkin Karver. I absolutely hit the jackpot with this one and got exactly what I expected!
Not only was the plot as obvious as a North Korean ‘democratic’ election but the mindlessness and senselessness of the movie was purely awesomeness.
Other than the fact that I liked watching a spooky Halloween themed flick in the middle of the spring, there was some surprisingly good things about this movie. This horror film had the standard young ‘cool dudes’ and super ‘hot chicks’ for the actors so that wasn’t all bad. There were a few sexy scenes that had me and my wife blushing and if a movie can elicit a emotional reaction that is not violent or destructive then it’s all good in my opinion.
Next, as you can imagine there was a lot of emphasis on the ‘Karver’ part of this movies title. Not a shocker here that his weapon of choice was a pumpkin carving knife. The means with which the ‘cool dudes’ and ‘hot chicks’ eventually met their demise was slightly creative in some cases and then utterly lame in others.
Then, while I was just starting to get comfortable with the ‘Karver’s modus operandi then this ‘pumpkin-face wearing guy killing for revenge’-film starts to go all haywire like Brittany Spears did cutting off all her hair by going all sci-fi’y and stuff on me. Out of nowhere there was electricity flying and dudes with super powers dragging people around and dream sequences. It was like most of these films where it’s rather clear that the movies budget was expended and they needed to end with a bang! And they surely did.
Overall not a bad flick IF this is what you are looking for, as I was. Just the title of the movie or the cover image should be enough of a clue of what you are getting yourself into. I gave this one an average five out of ten Steelers Stars.
The Cabin by the Woods (2011)
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This was surely “one for the ages”. The wifey and I decided to order a pay-per-view ‘horror’ movie tonight and just relax. Cool and cool, and horrific is absolutely what we got!
This movie started with no clear plot that I could figure out what-so-ever. It was just plain gratuitous violence. Blood and guts, severed heads, screaming and yelling and all the typical things you’d see at the END of one of these types of movies. So, I must admit, this movie had me intrigued to being with.
Okay, I can deal with the silly, and totally ridiculous violence since that is what we bargained for, but through-out the movie they would include intermittent scenes of some type of Command Center/Control Center. We were thinking like “what the hell is this for?”, because it seemed so random but it appeared they were building a plot of some sort. It turns out that the Command Center wanted people for being “young”. Five young people had to die according to Sigourney Weaver. Yep, she stooped to a new low for sure with this bomb of a flick! She made about a five minute on-screen appearance and that was the most true insight to any sort of plot I could find in the movie.
All I could figure out with this movie (or that I cared about) was that the mega-pot smoking dope-head was somehow immune to the effects that this Command Center was infecting people with. That minor detail went unexplained as I recall also.
Anyhow, there were some good things in this 1 ½ hours of yuck though. Namely, it made the wifey jump out of her skin several times which was quite hilarious. It left her cuddlier with yours-truly (or at least I would like to think so).
In the end, I just quizzed her on if she understood the plot anymore or any less than I did. She said she was as confused as me so I will leave it at that. It’s unfortunate because at about one hour into the movie it looked like the movie was building to be something interesting. I assure you – NOT!
This movie is a true stinker and gets only three Steelers Stars.