PULP REVIEW: noun//A review devoid of a thorough or complete synopsis, but including snarky snippets of ideas and overall opinions/recommendations.
Alt. def. A review of a movie that was not worth my time to write a full review.
If I’m writing a review this short, then I probably wouldn’t recommend it. That said, here are three movies I don’t recommend.
The Mirror (2014) started off with a bit of promise. In this found footage film we are quickly introduced to our young British protagonists and I found them to be instantly likable. They have bought an allegedly haunted mirror and set up cameras in hopes of capturing evidence of the paranormal so that they can win some contest. It’s clearly a very low budget film, but I’d blame this film’s eventual degeneration on poor writing. Once weird things start to happen, the likability of the characters is squandered, I stopped supporting them, and I found myself just waiting for something interesting to happen…but to no avail. The best part of this film was meeting the characters in Act 1. Act 2 simply set up some interest that never found a satisfying conclusion in the 3rd. Most disappointing was how components of the final act were blatant bastardized rip-offs of Oculus (2013)…not that this is surprising. I’m always glad to give any film a shot, but this turned out to be wholly dissatisfying. I’d recommend avoiding future projects by writer/director Edward Boase. I saw this with my girlfriend (also a general cinephile and horror fan) and she was even less impressed than I was, expressing that she didn’t even find the characters likable. We don’t recommend this.
Extracted (2012) features sci-fantasy fan favorite Sasha Roiz (Grimm, Warehouse 13, Caprica) as a scientist who has engineered a method of “seeing” people’s memories. He ends up in a dangerous situation after he is trapped in the mind of a felon–not unlike the concept behind The Cell (2000), but without all the cool stuff and suspense. Somehow the story remained interesting while the movie itself felt completely uninspired and unexciting. Sadly good premises are often lost in subpar movies, and this is sort of the case here. I was expecting something of a thriller mystery that would have me at the edge of my seat for a fun movie night with the girlfriend. What I got was a ho-hum mystery that I’d watch while laying on the couch alone and half-asleep with a cold on a Tuesday afternoon after calling in sick from work. My girlfriend summarized that this movie felt like Inception, Awake, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Ghost, Groundhog Day and Sublime…but clearly not in the best way, nor as effective as any of the aforementioned. This could have been an awesome film, instead it was merely a serviceable direct-to-DVD flick. It wasn’t bad per se, but I wouldn’t recommend it either.
Exorcismus (2010) was shockingly helmed by the director of The Returned (2013). I say “shockingly” because I thought The Returned was fantastic, yet this film felt stale. I’ll start by pointing out that I was drawn to this movie because of Doug Bradley (Pinhead of the first several Hellraiser movies). As it turns out, his role was very small. Not making up for that at all was the hardly passable “possession acting.” By this I refer to the lead role (a possessed teenage girl) when she is acting under the influence of an otherworldly force. They tried to spice things up with a clever twist to the story, but the only way I was moved was by the rolling of my eyes. Ultimately this may have been one of the least impressive possession movies I’ve seen. The Rite (2011), The Devil Inside (2012) and even The Possession (2012; which I had called the “the Diet Coke of Possession movies”) were all more effective–but likewise, I wouldn’t recommend any of them either. :/
