Jimmy P's House of Movies

Every so often I will be doing reviews of my favorite dvds and blu-rays. I have been a dvd collector for over ten years and have been a blu-ray supporter for three years. I am an avid collector and feel this is the best way to spotlight the movies that I love, along with their dvd or blu-ray counterpart.

Release Date: June 1st, 2010
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1, 1080p
Runtime: 1hr 28min
Discs: 1

Remaking a movie is a tough thing to pull off. If you do it right then you get a movie like The Departed (which is a remake of Infernal Affairs from Hong Kong), but if you do it wrong you get a movie like Psycho (the Gus Van Sant remake). Luckily, with Halloween, we get the former.

The story pretty much follows the original. You get Michael Myers killing his sister when he is only a kid. You get the babysitters being killed off one by one on halloween. And you get the open ending, leaving room for the inevitable sequel. But with this movie writer-director Rob Zombie has given us a back story as to why Myers is the way he is.

Coming ten years after the "king of the killer dog movies", Cujo, was released, Man's Best Friend came to us with the promise of being a newer, hipper Cujo. In some ways it succeeds and in others it fails.

The movie stars Ally Sheedy as a reporter who needs a hit story. She decides to break into a research facility known as Emax and expose the company for testing chemicals on animals. While at Emax, she finds a dog named Max and saves him from the facility. Max is not your ordinary dog. Dr. Jarret (Lance Henriksen) has spliced the DNA of a variety of different animals to make Max into a superior guard dog. But time is running out as Jarret tries to get his dog back before he becomes unstable.

What can be said about the original Halloween that hasn't already been said? John Carpenter took a basic story line, about babysitters being stalked by a faceless madman and turned it into something truly terrifying.

In this day and age, the movie is viewed as "boring" and "slow" and while this may be true to the regular person, to someone who has never seen the movie before is in for a real treat.

The beauty of Halloween is in it's pacing. While today's horror movies are edited like music videos, due to the attention span of most people being reduced, Halloween takes it's time, setting everything up before finally getting to "the good part"

Christophe Gans is not that well known here in the States. He has directed one english language film, Silent Hill, that over the past few years has gained a lot of fans. Brotherhood of the Wolf was the second of Gans' films that I saw, the first being Crying Freeman, but still think that this is his best movie.

Seven, or as it is called Se7en, is the reason that we saw a rise in serial killer movies in the mid to late 90's. Its not the movie's or the filmmakers fault. They made a damn fine movie that still holds a punch fifteen years after its release. It is the fault of the studios, who saw an opportunity to cash in a Seven's success.

Hollywood has always been a place where, if an idea is a hit, that idea is run into the ground by all of the other people trying to cash in on that movies success. Just look at some of the movies that we have gotten over the years.

Editor's Note: This review was originally posted over at my horror blog, Horror in Retrospect.  I have posted it here in it's original form. No modifying allowed here.

I am proud to introduce a new segment here at Horror in Retrospect: Guilty Pleasures. These are my favorite types of horror movies because they are so fun to watch. The movie may be bad, but you have a great time watching it. Today's focus is going to on Q: The Winged Serpent, a movie that I had heard about for a long time, but up until a few years ago, had never seen.

Monster movies are one of my favorite sub-genres. Many of them are the most ridiculous movies you have ever seen, but they hold a special place for many, including myself. I remember when I was a kid, there was a channel that would show monster movies on saturday nights. So every saturday, I would be home by 10:30 to enjoy the current movie. I saw everything from the original King Kong to many of the Godzilla movies.

This review contains spoilers. If you do not want to know about certain things that happen in this movie then do not read this review.

The Crazies is a remake of the cult classic of the same name. The original was directed by George A. Romero. This one is directed by Breck Eisner, who did that movie Sahara with Mathew whatshisname. I have no idea how this movie stacks up to the original because I haven't seen it. I have been meaning to watch it but other things have gotten in the way.