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Reviews
The Messengers (2007)
Predictable Rehash of More Successful Films
Very mildly entertaining. Special effects not so good. No one questions the hired-hand that suddenly shows up to work on the farm. Some found Corbet a creepy character but I didn't at all. You want to see creepy, Bruce Dern is, hands down, the creepiest hired-hand ever (Alfred Hitchcock episode). Never cared for Dylan McDermott. If that young girl, Jess, really saw and experienced the things she is supposed to have witnessed she would either hit the road or willingly go to the loony bin. Yet, she keeps going down in the cellar from which all the creepy action emanates. And what's with the "ghost" that crawls on the walls in that over-computerized, jerky, way? Why are the spirits so mean to Jess yet they don't come near their murderer until the very end. Of course, the hired man was the very guy who lived in their farm before and whose family never really left. Yet, the stories spread around that small community where everyone knows everyone and everything is that the "Rollins" family left. It was supposedly only 5 or 6 years earlier when the family went away not 50 but people remember the name wrong? Seems like everyone around would know that it was the Burwells not the Rollins who owned the farm and that Mr. Burwell (Corbet) is still around while his family left for parts unknown (cause he murdered em.) Kinda sloppy work don't you think? Don't know much about the Pang brothers but they could learn from some of the Japanese horror filmmakers. I know they seemed to like movies like The Birds since they used all those attacking crows. Not really worth seeing this film as opposed to so many others you could spend time watching.
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The Monkey's Paw--A Retelling (1965)
60's "update" of old Jacobs' book version
In 1902, British author W.W. Jacobs first published the story of a monkey's paw talisman cursed by an Indian holy man before being transported from India by a soldier returning home to England. The Jacobs' story was made into a play and, later, many film versions. Hitchcock takes the story out of the 19th century and into the 20th. Paul and Anne White acquire the paw from a gypsy while in the Bahamas to see their "beautiful" only son, Howard, race in the Grand Prix. The paw comes with three wishes. In the book the couple is given the paw and told it is more of a curse than a blessing. The Whites soon find this out when financially-strapped Paul White uses the paw to wish for money. Not long after, the couple is visited by an insurance man with a check; insurance payment on the life of their son who was crushed to death in a terrible racetrack crash. Paul identifies the body and knows how horribly their "beautiful" son was disfigured. After a séance arranged by Howard's creepy girlfriend fails to bring Howard back to grieving mom Anne, Anne urges Paul to use the paw again to make Howard "alive again." Paul gives in and makes the wish. Immediately a knock comes at the door but it is only the girlfriend, who they learn, never really loved Howard. She gets the house and they must get out by morning. After she leaves, the couple go upstairs. Knowing the cursed nature of the wishes granted by the paw Paul begins to fear what it means to make Howard alive again. After all, he saw their son's remains. "He had no face," Paul recalls. Just then they hear the sound of a car drive up. Anne, undaunted, runs down to unbolt the front door. Paul looks out only to gaze upon the nightmarish face of his son (unseen by viewers). He yells a warning to Anne who is struggling to unbolt the door. Paul fumbles through their luggage to find the paw. Just as Anne slides back the last bolt, Paul makes the third and final wish that Howard not be alive. The door opens and all that Anne finds heaped on the stoop is the scarf, now torn, that she had given her son for luck before his fatal last race. Chilling. One of Hitchcock's best in the series.
The Robber Bride (2007)
Not so bad
My take on this movie is not that of an Atwood fan. I never read the book. As to the movie, I missed the first part of it, but, unlike others, had no trouble following the plot. I liked the twists and turns.
Zenia is a total user; so resentful of the "happy" lives of others that she enters a life, like that of Roz or Tony or Charis, and takes over an aspect: husband, child, or career. If it doesn't work for her she moves on leaving a mess behind. Along the way she makes herself unforgettable but unforgivable, apparently not. Here comes in the notion that the three women friends, for various reasons, will help Zenia despite her actions. As Zenia puts it she helped Roz's business, Charis' daughter, and Tony's career which flourished when her husband was lured away by Zenia. Why not help her, after all Zenia was the potential victim of a violent boyfriend who threatened murder and Zenia gave him a taste of the punishment had he actually killed her (though he never learns she is alive until she actually isn't.) Pretty cool idea.
I really liked Shawn Doyle in the role of ex-cop John working to clear the accused boyfriend-cop, Henry. You're sure he is too strong to be over-powered by Zenia until he meets her. Then, he too nearly becomes a victim. But, in the end they all get their revenge. Roz asks: "Are we like her?" John's reply: "No, we're good." They became the only people who could stop her wickedness without adding John to her list of victims. Not perfect, (What movie is?) but I enjoyed it.
Children of the Grave (2007)
This boring, disjointed, docu-drama, could have been 15 minutes long.
I labored through this program for two hours wondering what was the point? This show was evidently a forum for two guys, the Brooke's brothers(?), upset over learning about mass graves where hundreds of unnamed orphans were buried in numbered graves. They try to weave into this message comments by paranormal "experts" and writers, snippets of paranormal investigations at abandoned orphanages, graveyards, and a road (Zombie Road), in several different states, along with a supposed news interview of some woman and a presentation at a high school. Confused? You should be. And that's not all. They have little children actors portraying abused and neglected children and or their spirits. There are numerous EVPS (electronic voice phenomena) of what is supposed to be either children or their abusers. This gibberish is interpreted for us in order to fit into the theme of orphan hauntings. Sifted throughout are antique photos and vintage video of children, supposedly orphans, and old photos of ghost children. I need not add that the latter were made in an era when the faking of ghost photos was rampant. I'm still not certain what Zombie Road near St. Louis and a photo of shadows had to do with orphans buried in Indiana. The film makers here tried to do two things at once: 1. present an expose of the poor treatment of orphans in America's past and 2. take viewers on a paranormal investigation of several reputedly haunted sites. They needed to focus on one or the other. Some parting shots: I couldn't stand the dialog mostly spoken through a tin can (or so it seemed) and couldn't they choose a narrator who didn't sound like he had a speech impediment? This one wasn't ready to come off the editing table. Could have been condensed to fifteen minutes, maybe thirty with commercial breaks.
I'm Dickens, He's Fenster (1962)
I'm Dickens, He's Fenster
I was 6 or 7 when this show aired. Even though I was very young I was impressed. I thought this show was hilarious. I don't recall specific episodes but I remember a lot of slapstick-type humor. I do know that I looked forward to this show coming on but it was canceled all too soon. I'm happy for IMDb where I could check on this show since I didn't even remember the name-just that it starred Astin and Ingles. I was glad when John Astin showed up on The Adams Family, one of my favorites as a child. I was sorry that Marty Ingles didn't show up again, at least on anything I might have watched as a kid. It would be great if someone would dig up the old episodes, there wasn't many I'm sure, and make them available. It says a lot that I remembered aspects of this show, the actors and that they were carpenters, from when I was so very young -esp. since its run was so short-lived.