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32 reviews in total

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23 out of 28 people found the following review useful:
The worst film I've seen in years., 11 March 2005

Author: cbarclay99 (cbarclay99@hotmail.com) from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Stereotypic characters which made me ashamed to be British (I was watching the film abroad), hackneyed premise, unbelievable plot. Horror films work when you want people to survive. My final regret, therefore, was that they didn't all die. Only good news was that Paris Hilton gets killed off quickly, not I hope because she had another film set to go to. By the time she dies, Paris has stripped to her knickers, (shot from the back), and therefore exhausted her acting ability.

As for comments such as those of the guy, who wrote 'the return of British horror?' all I can say is 'don't agents ever feel shame'? Sure 'Nine lives' was a horror, but only to those people who still dream of a British film industry that makes good films. When will the people who finance British films realise that we don't all want to see films made by public school boys about their old school mates?

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19 out of 22 people found the following review useful:
The Hilton is closed, 5 June 2004
Author: Dr. Gore (drgore@hotmail.com) from Los Angeles, California

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

In many ways, "Nine Lives" is the epitome of B-movie horror. It grabs some name actress/model/eye candy/blonde of the moment to stick on the front of the video box. It places all of the action in one setting. It has a very cheap monster attacking a lot of clueless dolts. Yet all of these elements fail to coalesce into a satisfying B-flick. "Nine Lives" is such a shamelessly cheap rip-off you can't possibly derive any joy from it. All I wanted was to check into the Paris Hilton and get some room service. Instead, all I got was Murray the Scottish Cookie Monster.

"Nine Lives" was interesting up until the point Paris Hilton checked out. That point was twenty minutes into the movie! Get me the front desk! I want to complain! The rest of the movie was lame and tedious. Murray the black-eyed beast attacked the rest of the cast while Paris left the set for better things. I should have shut this movie off the minute her body went thud. The whole movie dropped dead after she left. No blood, no nudity (!), no nothing. All you get is Murray.

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20 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
I'm not sure what I can say is good about it, 14 July 2004
Author: shattenjager777 from Saint Paul, Minnesota

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

As I begin to write this comment, I have nothing jumping to mind as being good about this movie. Perhaps something will come to me, but at the moment I have only negative comments.

This movie has a TV-movie opening followed by a long, slow, drawn-out attempt to show us the characters--who are not interesting in the slightest and most of whom are not even likeable. The first fifteen minutes, which are the most important part of a script, are this stupid, too-fast beginning followed by absolutely nothing interesting, which makes me wonder how on earth this script was sold.

And as the plot unfolds, I wonder even more! It's a tired, boring plot of *SPOILER ALERT* a group of people trapped inside a house with a centuries-old evil spirit killing them off by taking over their bodies--it's been used a thousand times and the only time it's really been pulled off was with "Fallen" (1998). *SPOILER OVER*

Now, the acting was hampered by a lack of character, yes, but was still inadequate. These people absolutely could not decide who they were, it seems. The awesomely talentless Paris Hilton didn't even stand out as bad (and I frankly found her the least attractive woman in the movie) next to the other "actors."

Next up: the music. The music was absolutely terrible. After the shameless pilfering of the "Halloween" theme in the opening, the music was constantly overdone and/or the wrong emotion (for example, many times, it takes on a heroic sounding trumpet theme when there is nothing heroic happening or about to happen). If the music can't heighten the experience, the least it can do is stay out of the way, but it didn't do that here. For the second time in my life (the first being with "Vanilla Sky" (2001)), I found myself being distracted from the movie by how bad the score was.

I do have one almost positive comment now: the direction was not spectacularly bad. It wasn't good, certainly, but it was better than the movie's other elements. The director cannot be blamed fully for terrible actors and a terrible script.

All in all, "Nine Lives" was an absolutely pathetic attempt at a movie--boring and slow despite clocking in under an hour and a half; badly acted; with terrible dialogue; with worthless, unlikeable characters; and one of the worst scores I have ever heard. Don't waste your time with this--you'll need nine lives to survive all the deaths of boredom that you'll suffer.

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15 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
I've seen worse, but how do films like this even get made?, 26 August 2002

Author: tenten76 from London

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I saw this at a film festival, with the director (and apparently, the cast) in attendance - and I can't have been the only person who wondered how they felt, having the entire audience laughing their heads off at the acting and the dialogue!

So, nine mostly upper-crust school friends reunite at a Scottish estate, and before you know it they're all being killed off (which is no great loss, unfortunately). If you've seen Shocker (1989) or Fallen (1998) you'll already know what sort of thing I'm alluding to.

And now, some thoughts:

The story is not particularly original, and the dialogue (above all else) is, occasionally, the most appallingly fake I have ever come across.

I don't like to single people out, but (here I go, obviously) Paris Hilton somehow fails at playing a ludicrously wealthy and vain socialite WHICH IS WHAT SHE IS IN REAL LIFE! Astounding.

All of the characters get their fair share of atrocious lines, but only one person figures out what's going on - and then (out of nowhere!?) comes up with a set of 'rules' of what's going on, and spends the rest of the movie explaining them to the others.. It's as clumsy as as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.

I could go through what's wrong with almost every scene, but the one that really sticks out (and had everyone screaming with laughter) was..

*SPOILER* ..when the trainee doctor hears the bad guy trying to break into the drawing room, picks up a poker from the fireplace (as a weapon) and hands it to the girl dying on the couch!! It's much funnier than it sounds. And while I'm here - how come nobody remarked on the book pages changing from all saying 'I am returned' to having a burned hole through the middle (?) and being full of illustration? And where did the staff go!? And was there a single person in the audience who didn't know (after the first five minutes) who was going to survive?

*END OF SPOILER*

Was there anything I did like? Well, to be honest - the special effects were fine (although the fake snow was awful). I liked the decor in the house. The cast are quite attractive. And the opening credits are quite cool (although most thriller opening credits are starting to look the same to me - with the notable exception of Panic Room).

The climax was fairly run-of-the-mill, but the terrible Epilogue (on the porch) had us all in fits of laughter again. Stepping out of the cinema just afterwards, I heard one of the Festival guys chatting to a small group of people say "..but I promise, all the other movies are better".

And finally, to revisit my summary - how does a terrible script and a poorly contrived plot ever get to this stage without someone saying "you know what, we really need to re-write this rubbish before we can shoot it." - before the entire audience says it for you? There are all sorts of reasons for terrible acting to sneak through (budget, nepotism, that sort of thing) - but no excuse for such an awful screenplay to begin with.

Horror/Thriller fans who can get this on cheap rental - there's a good chance you'll find it hilariously bad.

Non-Horror/Thriller fans - stay away, because you won't see the irony and you'll think they're all this bad.

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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
All the fuss surrounding Paris Hilton should've made this a hit. Unfortunately it couldn't have been a bigger miss..., 11 August 2005

Author: Luisito Joaquin Gonzalez (RareSlashersRated) from Spain

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Whilst staying at my cousin's house recently, he showed me a film starring Paris Hilton that left me overwhelmed by her talent. What a performance! From start to finish she was totally convincing, and she certainly had feelings for the, err, part. No it wasn't Nine Lives. Actually it was her starring 'roll' in that 'other movie', which probably grossed a damn site more worldwide than this British slasher flick ever would. Now I'm no expert on porn actresses. I never really went through that whole top-shelf magazine/video phase. Perhaps it was because ever since I can remember I've been in one relationship or another? Or maybe it was because I got married at the tender age of 21? Now I'm 24 and still haven't got much knowledge on all things X-rated. But I do have a fairly good eye for talent, which has served me well throughout the years of enjoying cinema. I soon realized that if this feisty young heiress could show that much conviction, dedication and (ahem) experience when the camera is concentrating on her face…well…who knows?

I first learned about Nine Lives from an extremely generous preview in Empire magazine late 2002. After that the movie mysteriously seemed to vanish and I heard nothing more until I came across the DVD in Amsterdam under the alias title The Terror in summer 2004. To the best of my knowledge this wasn't released in Britain until June 2005, which seemed like a long delay for a homegrown movie. In fact it graced American shores at least a year before it hit UK shelves. I couldn't track down any information anywhere concerning the belatedness of Andrew Green's debut feature. I can only assume that not many distributors were rushing to pick it up for release?

Nine high school pals head to their friend's remote mansion in Scotland to join him for his birthday celebrations. Emma (Rosie Fellner), Lucy (Vivienne Harvey), Jo (Paris Hilton), Laura (Amelia Warner), Linda (Maureen Turner), Tim (Patrick Kennedy), Andy (Ben Peyton) and Damian (James schlesinger) are soon joined by Pete (David Nicolle), who was late arriving due to a hazardous snow storm that is crashing against the secluded house. (British weather, eh?). The group is pleased to be together again and they spend hours drinking and reminiscing over old times. As the evening gives way to a severely weather beaten night, the drunken youngsters decide to retire and sleep off all the alcohol. Before they have even had the chance to turn out the lights, the tranquillity is shattered by an ominous scream. On exploration, they find Jo's mutilated corpse sprawled across the bathroom floor. It seems that there's a maniacal killer amongst the group and he's intent on making this the last reunion they'll ever share. But these 'friends' have known each other for years, surely there's no motive for mass slaughter amongst them…?

In all honesty, Nine Lives starts really well. The location is fairly alluring, the characters interesting and Green manages to pull off a decent early shock. It's somewhat ironic then that as soon as Madame Hilton checks out twenty minutes into the feature things go down hill…DRASTICALLY! It seems that Ms moneybags' on-screen demise starts a chain reaction of bad-movie-syndrome that doesn't take long to completely engulf the entire feature. You'd think that nine victims is more than enough to pad out an eighty-minute runtime. But the murders are so poorly constructed that it doesn't take too long for things to start feeling tediously humdrum. The embarrassing lead performance from Amelia Warner didn't help, and the rest of the cast seems to spend too much time staring blankly at the camera as if they're thinking, "What do I do next? What's going on? Why am I here? HELP!"

I'm going to give away the crux of the plot, which isn't really a spoiler, but if you don't want to know then stop reading now. OK it seems that the spirit of an ancient Scotsman that was tortured by the English when they evaded his homeland has taken possession of one of the kids in order to get revenge on the three lions. So we have a deranged Scotch killer that wants to bump off the English. So why does he kill Paris Hilton – a blatant American – first? Perhaps he had seen what Mel Gibson and Randall Wallace did with Braveheart? When it comes to plot holes, Nine Lives is the cinema equivalent of a kitchen sieve. You'll laugh out loud when Warner manages to work out the killer's methods and motives from nothing more than a couple of scrappy pictures. The closing dialogue is no less than hilarious and sounds like an ambitious seven-year-old wrote it for a homework project. There's no gore, suspense or attempts at building tension and by the 45-minute mark the whole movie has pretty much fallen apart.

It's a shame, because Andrew Green is a fairly talented director. You also have to give him credit for managing to get Paris Hilton to come all the way to Hertfordshire for a cameo, just a few months before 1 night in Paris was about to make her a superstar. He certainly picked the right time to offer her a contract. But with that said though, his screen writing abilities are non-existent and next time that he's hired to direct a feature he should make sure that the scrip is someone else's. Unfortunately Nine Lives is yet another British horror-failure to add to the list. Maybe one day someone somewhere will make a good UK slasher. Hitchcock was English, so why have they failed so since his demise? I guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer to see if Hilton can match the skill of that (ahem) breathtaking breakout performance…

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9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Even Lions Gate Has Some Flaws, 20 November 2006

Author: gavin6942 from United States

Nine friends celebrate at a mansion in Scotland. After a little dinner and drinking and too much conversation, one friend stumbles upon a curse and one by one the guests are faced with the threat of death.

This film has so many problems with it, I don't know where to begin. First, the film "stars" Paris Hilton, even though she has the smallest role in the movie. I suspect her presence is the only reason the film was picked up at all, even though she serves no purpose and cannot act in this movie to save her life (she's worse in this than in "House of Wax").

When the Lions Gate logo came on, my friend and I thought we might be safe. Lions Gate makes some great films. Well, they make bad films, too, it seems. What possessed them to put their name on here, I don't know. With all due respect, I hope they lost money.

The first half of the film is a dinner scene with people sitting and talking about literally nothing. Nothing of interest, nothing related to the plot, nothing. A brief philosophical debate arises, but goes nowhere. As my friend says, this film was very innovative for a horror film: it might have been the first one that tried to kill the audience.

The death scenes are horrible. Basically, all deaths consist of a stabbing in the stomach: a magic stabbing! Shirts are never torn, but somehow a small blood stain appears and the victim becomes quite dead at a rapid pace.

None of the actors are worth caring about and the whole film is in shambles. Most annoying for me (besides the utter boredom) was the tendency to remind us we were in Scotland (the words "Scotland" or "Scotish" were repeated many times... for no reason. And there was a golf club).

This film is even too slow and pointless for "Mystery Science Theater 3000", so if there is a way to make something blink out of existence (like a memory hole), someone please make this your first target.

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8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
I Have Returned, 19 December 2006

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

In Scotland, the wealthy Tim (Patrick Kennedy) invites eight friends from school to celebrate his twenty-first anniversary in his isolated mansion. After a dinner party, his friend Tom (Lex Shrapnel) finds an old book written by an old Scottish that has been tortured centuries ago in the house with many pages written only "I Have Returned" and somehow his spirit is unleashed and possesses Tom. He hits Tim and kills Jo (Paris Hilton), switching bodies among the friends and threatening everyone in the house. From this moment on, suspicion rules the relationship of the friends that do not know who might be trustful.

I did not believe in IMDb rating and reviews and bought a couple of days ago this DVD on sale. Unfortunately, the flawed story that mix "Fallen" with the usual clichés of "slash movies of people trapped in a house" is really very bad, with a terrible screenplay and awful and ridiculous dialogs. Most of the young cast shows strength, but the script really does not help. The greatest attraction, Paris Hilton, with the name highlighted on the cover of the DVD, has a minor participation and her character is the first one to die. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Nove Vidas" ("Nine Lives")

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6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Save you cash! Rent something else!, 17 July 2005

Author: SammySpazmo from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I've seen LOADS of slasher films in my time. I've also seen loads of low budget British films. This is the worst example of either that I've ever seen! First off, there was a HUGE picture of Paris Hilton on the cover. It said it was a horror film on the back of the box. "Wow! This could perhaps be a kitsch laugh" I thought as I went to the video store counter. How wrong I was.

Paris is only in the film for 10 minutes - she's the first to die. Which leaves it to 8 really really terrible British actors to end up getting chopped up. To give you an idea how bad this is I have never seen any of these actors before or since - they haven't even been on the likes of The Bill of Hollyoaks. Oh! And they're all very posh! They're probably pals of the writer/director! The plot is so tedious that I had to fast forward through the majority if this film - even though it was only 80 minutes - because it was so flaming tedious! Steer clear viewers! It's not worth it!

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5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Not Bad Enough to be Enjoyable, 30 July 2008

Author: Nikolaus Maack from Ottawa, On

It's bad. But it takes itself very seriously, and it's not bad enough to be enjoyably bad. When will someone let Paris Hilton completely loose, so she can make a truly abominable film? I'm talking something of "Glen or Glenda" caliber. That's why I rented the flick -- I was hoping for a true abortion of cinema. Instead, this film is merely born brain damaged,

Things get close to deliciously terrible when one of the characters begins to piece together parts of the puzzle. Without spoiling the plot, it goes a little like this:

"Wait a minute! Maybe the Titanic didn't sink! Maybe it was a ship from outer space! That would mean the iceberg is still out there, trying to get revenge!"

"It's crazy! But it's the only thing that makes sense!"

And then it turns out that this really is the plot of the movie.

You get that here, only the premise of the film is so incredibly bland, you couldn't care less. People wandering around in a mansion, being chased. Whoopee. If only they would die faster.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
The best parts of the movie, 23 June 2006

Author: cgtony2000 from Chicago, IL

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This movie was terrible, but I enjoyed myself. Because it is unintentionally HILARIOUS!!! I'm going to list all of the things I loved, in no particular order. The things that made me laugh hysterically. If you've seen it, you'll probably know what I mean, and if not, you'll just have to see for yourself

1.The pointless handoff of the cell phone by Paris to the other chick. "Is this yours?" *holds phone like she's doing an ad for Motorolla* 2.Paris making a line like "you're scaring me" sound like "boo hoo hoo". 3.The amazing way that the main girl figures out what is going on so exactly and so quickly, without any real direct evidence. 4.The scene where the med student guy thinks his dying girl was killed, he's all sad, then her eyes open, and he stabs her as if to say "Oh well". And it all happens in less time than it takes to read that. 5.Why was that guy in the bathroom for 45 minutes. It's like the writer saw that in another movie and just HAD to have it in their story too. Even if it didn't make sense. 6.Of course, the ridiculous voice over at the end. 7.The Scottish guy sets the book on fire, and then throws it in the POURING RAIN!!! 8.The Scottish guy just hangs out at the house after all of his friends have been murdered, changes clothes, steps over his friends corpses like they are so much garbage, sits out on the porch and has a smoke. 9.Med student guy sits by the big window that seems to be just big enough for, say, a killer to crash through. 10.girl dying on couch- "I don't wanna die" med student- "You're gonna be fine. I'm gonna go try and make it through this snow and find help" amazingly intuitive girl- "You can't. The snow has made the roads too dangerous." med student- "She's gonna die if I don't" girl dying on couch- "what?" med student- "Shh. You're gonna be fine." (I'm paraphrasing the dialog of course, but that's like how it plays out)

10 is enough I guess. Just avoid this movie unless you like MST3K type flicks.

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