Apollo 18 (2011)

"Found-footage" horror films have become a sub-genre of their own. They're nothing new, of course. The original found-footage horror was 1980's Cannibal Holocaust and the most infamous is 1999's The Blair Witch Project. It wasn't until 2007, however, that the genre really took off with Paranormal Activity, Diary of the Dead and REC being unleashed onto an unsuspecting audience. They were soon followed by Cloverfield, Quarantine, REC 2, Paranormal Activity 2 and 3, The Last Exorcism and Troll Hunter as well as countless others; some brilliant, others utter bollocks. Now, the genre moves into outer space with Spanish director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego's first English-language production.

The story goes that after Apollo 17, the final public mission to the Moon, the US Department of Defence instigated another, secret mission, Apollo 18. So far, so conspiracy nonsense. After landing on the Moon, the pair of astronauts down on the lunar surface discover a Soviet lander and things start getting weird - their communications go down and something attacks their rover and, hilariously, their flag. Clocking in at only one hour and twenty-six minutes, and with ten minutes (!) of credits, the story is over in about an hour and a quarter. And thank goodness for that!

Nothing happens. For long, yawning, vacuous stretches of time, absolutely nothing happens. If this was intended as a metaphor for the vastness of the universe and the isolation and loneliness that astronauts can face in the great emptiness of space, then I doff my hat to the director. But I doubt it. After what seems like an eternity, something finally happens and they discover the Soviet lander. Make a note of that scene for it's the only one that made me jump, although I knew it was coming. Then, nothing happens. There's some stuff about rocks and suddenly one of the astronauts has an alien spider in his suit. Apparently the alien spiders hide themselves as rocks, in a plot twist that's as dumb as a bag of them. More things fail to happen, then they finally decide to leave. That's about it.

If you want an exercise in how to make a seventy-six minute film with about fourteen minutes of interesting footage or you want a lesson in how not to build tension and create atmosphere, watch Apollo 18. A good idea for a promising little horror film was unfortunately wasted.

4 out of 10.

Stake Land (2010)

It would be easy to draw comparisons between Stake Land and Zombieland. Aside from the similar titles, they feature a pair of travellers, an experienced killer and a young buck, as they travel across a post-apocalyptic United States of America to get where they're going to. Along the way, they are reminded of the recently departed and the society that has crumbled in the face of an undead onslaught and joined on their journey by other travellers. That's where the similarities end. Zombieland is a comedy, and a damn good one at that and Stake Land is a horror-drama, a post-apocalyptic film much more in the vein of The Road. It's bleak, with wonderful cinematography that highlights the beautiful scenic backdrop and it's suspenseful, with co-writer and director Jim Mickle displaying a certain flair that has prompted me to want to check out his previous effort, 2006's Mulberry Street.

The story begins with a man only known as Mister (played by co-writer Nick Damici) saving young Martin (Connor Paolo) from the same fate that befell his family. It's an excellent opening scene and it both nicely sets up the story and also gives us a good look at the vampires. They're unlike almost any other vampires I've seen on film - sort of a cross between zombies and feral vampires. They retain almost none of their humanity, behaving as fiercely (and stupidly) as savage animals. Taking Martin under his wing, the pair travel north from bayou land towards "New Eden" - the supposed safe haven in Canada, where it's too cold for the "reptilian" vampires to survive. Along the way they pick up a nun (Kelly McGillis), a pregnant woman (Danielle Harris) and an ex-marine (Sean Nelson).

The enemies they face are not just undead - the film delivers a prescient analysis of fundamentalist Christians, some of whom have coalesced into a group known as "The Brotherhood", which sees the vampires as a blessing from their god, and who assisted in the collapse of society and the destruction of the large cities. The weakest part of the film derives from this, as The Brotherhood attack a fortress village by dropping vampires out of helicopters. It's ridiculous and drags the film off-kilter somewhat. It's soon back on track when the group, their numbers dropping one at a time, head closer to the Canadian border and The Brotherhood stalks them, determined to sacrifice them to the vampires.

Aside from the opening, other stand-out scenes include an attack by car-hopping vampires, a nerve-jangling chase through a corn field and an encounter with a recently-turned young girl. The best parts are not the fight scenes, however, but the interludes. It's well acted and well-scripted. In many ways, it's a lot like Monsters. While I didn't care for that film, finding it far too slow and very boring, Stake Land was much more effective at building up my interest as we followed the characters on their journey.

Aside from the helicopter attack and the final fight scene, which feels tacked-on and unnecessary, Stake Land is an excellent film. Belying its low budget, it's well written and acted, including strong performances from Damici as the mysterious "Mister" and Danielle Harris, who is as good as always. The make-up on the vampires is very good and Jeff Grace's score effectively adds to the suspense and desolation that the director conjures. One of the best original vampire films I've seen in quite a few years.

8 out of 10.

The House Bunny (2008)

I didn't exactly go into this film with high hopes. I decided to watch it mostly because I wanted to see Emma Stone in it and I'm a fan of Anna Faris. "It can't be that bad", I thought to myself as I settled down to watch it.

It really is. Anna Faris has been in plenty of awful films - Scary Movie 2, Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4 to name just three - but she's always been the best thing about them. She has a natural comic talent and she always gives it her all, no matter how terrible the film and how lazy and uninterested the other actors are. She tries really, really hard and gives a great performance as Shelley Darlington, the wannabe Playboy Playmate who wakes up one morning to find her life has been turned upside down as she has been evicted from the Playboy Mansion. Shelley, homeless and with nowhere to go, stumbles upon the girls of the Zeta Alpha Zeta sorority. They're awkward, unstylish and generally offensive caricatures of anyone who isn't Little Miss Popular or Little Miss Slut.

The main problem with the film is that it just isn't funny. There are plenty of comedies that aren't funny but are completely watchable because of an interesting storyline or loveable characters. This isn't one of them. It's boring, full of ridiculous caricatures and so absolutely bloody awful I found myself counting down the minutes until the damn thing had finished. I tried to disengage my brain, but even if I'd performed a frontal lobotomy on myself I still would have found it spectacularly awful. Throw in a few decent jokes and turn the film's message from one of "be the best hot girl you can be" into one of "be yourself, whether your beauty is on the outside or the inside" and you'd have an average comedy. Instead, you have this sexist piece of garbage. That it was written by Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz, the screenwriting pair behind 10 Things I Hate About You and Legally Blonde, is unbelievable.

Anna Faris gives this film absolutely everything she has and Emma Stone does the best she can with what she's provided with. Take away Faris' energetic performance and I'd give it a single point. As it is, she earns two points all by herself.

3 out of 10.

Final Destination 5 (2011)

I was under the impression that The Final Destination was to be the last film in the franchise. How naive of me. The first four films in the series made over half a billion dollars from a combined budget of just one hundred and seventy-three million dollars. Why on Earth would they stop after just four films!

The problem facing the series is the same problem that the makers of Friday the 13th faced - you can only make so many films about Jason going around killing people before even the hardcore fans become disillusioned. What did they do after three films of stalk-kill-repeat ad nauseum? They killed Jason. Then they had a copy-cat Jason. Then they had zombie Jason. Then they had Jason vs Carrie and so on. But how can the Final Destination films do anything like that? The killer is death. Not a physical manifestation of death that the characters can challenge to a chess game but the disembodied, immaterial, "force" of death. Well, for a start, they can change the characters. Instead of a film full of teenagers, the characters are adults with jobs, spouses and career ambitions. Is that enough to stop the series from becoming stale and boring?

Yes. The characters are more fleshed out, more sympathetic, more... interesting. The cheap laughs are gone but the death scenes are better than ever. I don't think I'll ever be able to watch gymnastics at the Olympics again and I've always had the idea that at some point I'll get laser eye surgery. Yeah, not so much now. As with the rest of the films in the series, it begins with a premonition of a catastrophe, and this catastrophe is the best since the motorway pile-up of Final Destination 2. It's utterly brilliant and totally believable, a marvel of CGI and expertly directed. I haven't seen it in 3D, but from what I've read, the 3D actually enhances the effect, rather than being an annoying after-thought. The death scenes, as mentioned, are better than ever with some innovative twists and downright shocking ways for the characters to come to a sticky end. The demise of a particularly odious character during an acupuncture session provides perhaps the best thrill of all.

Tony Todd's return as William Bludworth is a welcome one and with him having signed up for Final Destination parts 6 and 7, it will be interesting to see if the creators take the series in a different direction or if they waste the opportunity. The ending is an excellent way to link the film to the preceding instalments and create new avenues for the series to explore.

In conclusion, Final Destination 5 is a much better film than I had anticipated. It's formulaic, but a spectacular disaster scene, effective characterisation and fresh and bloody deaths combine to make a worthy entry in the series.

7 out of 10.

Superbad (2007)

Having completely forgotten about this blog for 2 days short of 2 years, now is as good a time as any to start it up again. Having recently graduated from university and with the economy in the toilet (thanks, Dave), it seems that a lot of my time will be devoted to watching films. With that in mind, here's my first review. Well, it's more of a double review, actually. When I first began this blog, I wrote a review of Superbad, but didn't publish it for whatever reason. Having recently watched Superbad for the second time a short while ago, I thought it would be interesting to publish my initial review alongside what I think of it having seen it again.

Here's my initial review:

A few days ago I settled down to watch Superbad. Having heard nothing but good things about it, and having enjoyed two of Judd Apatow's other films (The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up) I figured it would be a good way to ease myself in to the world of blog reviews.

The film stars Michael Cera and Jonah Hill as Evan and Seth, two best friends in their final year of High School. With both of them about to graduate and go to different universities, they decide to try and lose their virginity with their respective crushes: Becca and Jules. Their plan revolves around getting their friend Fogell (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse) to use his new fake I.D. buy all the alcohol for the party at Jules' house, and get the two girls drunk enough to sleep with them. However, when Fogell reveals his fake I.D. lists him as a 25-year-old Hawaiian named "McLovin", things start going downhill. When Fogell appears to be busted by the police and Evan and Seth enlist the help of an ex-con to secure the booze, things hit rock bottom.

As it turns out, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Not once did I have to stop the film because I was laughing too much. In fact, I didn't really laugh that much at all. The funniest part of the film is probably the moment the stain on Seth's jeans is revealed to have originated from a rather "intimate" dance he had with a drunk girl earlier on.

Yes, McLovin is a classic character and Christopher Mintz-Plasse was superb, but the trailers for Superbad seemed to be nothing but McLovin clips. Having seen the trailer ad nauseum when it was on TV back in 2007, the film suffered from that classic problem of "putting the funniest bits in the trailer". McLovin being interrupted in bed with a girl? Seen it. McLovin revealing his fake I.D. lists his name as just McLovin? Seen it. McLovin saying "I am McLovin"? Seen it. McLovin tackling someone in a kitchen? Seen it.

That feeling of familiarity carries on throughout most of the film. Guys desperate to lose their virginity before they all go off to college? Where have we seen that before?

Resemblances to American Pie aside, the film was a fairly easy watch. The first hour or so seemed to breeze by. McLovin is a brilliant character; Cera and Hill have real chemistry as the two leads and Seth Rogen is his usual brash self. However, once the trio reunited and got to the party, it began to drag. Apatow and co-writer Evan Goldberg don't seem to quite know how to end the film and it meanders to a very predictable conclusion.

7 out of 10.

And here are my thoughts from almost two years later, having seen it recently for a second time:

I enjoyed it much more than the first time I watched it. Yes, the same feeling of familiarity with other films was there, but I laughed more and the ending is better than I gave it credit for. Rather than having the trio lose their virginities, the film has a much more authentic ending: they don't. Mintz-Plasse is superb and Cera and Hill have great chemistry. Emma Stone also shines out as not only very sharp and funny but one of the most beautiful young actresses in Hollywood today and it's tantamount to her considerable talent that she has gone on to give such good performances in a wide variety of films.

Yes, it's familiar and yes, it meanders at the end but it's warm, realistic, very funny and features some marvellous performances from four fantastic young actors.

8 out of 10.