The Raiders of Atlantis – 1983 – Cheesy and too confusing

Even though I’ve heard quite a lot about it before I wasn’t sure if it would be too cheesy or just about right for an enjoyable time. It’s been in my possession for quite some time but I haven’t gotten around watching it. It’s directed by Ruggero Deodato which makes it very interesting to say the least. His best known feature film is by no doubt Cannibal Holocaust and if you haven’t heard about any other of his movies, that one is so infamous that even those who haven’t actually seen it knows about some of the gruesome scenes in it.

In my opinion there are many more flicks directed by Deodato that’s mentionable. One of my favorites is The Barbarians Brothers starring David- and Peter Paul, two body builders with massive bodies. Just the right thing for a barbarian flick!

But this one I had not seen before. I must confess it’s quite confusing. I don’t know who is after the treasure and who is avenging who when it comes to the end of the movie. Basically there are some people trying to raise a Russian submarine. While doing that some of the radioactive material leaks out which causes a chain reaction that eventually makes the sunken island Atlantis rise to the surface. There are a couple of different gangs trying to collect the treasures and there is some gang, they might be native to Atlantis, which acts very violent.

As a whole, it’s a bit too confusing to me. And to tell the truth, I fell asleep several times when I tried to watch it. It was kind of boring. Still, there were some nice cheesy action and some costumes that should never have seen the light of day which was quite entertaining. This is not Deodatos best work. It’s quite overacted and with little to none continuity. It wasn’t my cup of tea.

4/10

Midsummer Nightmares 2: Summers End – 2014 – There’s a lot of cleavage!

Director: Ryan Stacy

Horror

I write this without the benefit of having watched the first one. The reason for this is that I want to treat this as an individual movie rather than a sequel. This might also be the cause for why I don’t totally get it. It seems to me that there’s way to much talk about stuff I don’t really connect to the movies main plot. Correction: of course it’s connected to the main plot, just not in a way that makes a lot on sense.

I can’t really say that it works as slasher. It’s not suspenseful enough, it’s not bloody enough. As a thriller? Well, there’s that thing about suspense again. A thriller more than anything revolves around suspense. The actors are quite bad most of the time but the thing the flick lack is suspense sounds and music. These things can do wondrous things with a mediocre plot.

To be honest, I don’t get this plot. There’s way to much talk about what happened before that’s unknown if you haven’t watched the first movie. I will watch it later though and see if I can connect the dots. The things I get are that some crazy killer from the past returns to kill off a bunch of friends. I don’t know why, there isn’t much motivation to anything in the movie. Why, why, why? That’s always the thing we should get to know one way or another. Except if you’re David Lynch, then you can get away with a totally confusing movie.

It’s hard to separate the acting from the direction. Who’s really to blame? I can’t say for sure but there is at least one saving grace – Christy Faulkner, who does the part of this hot ginger head Amber. She’s by far the most skilled actor in this production. That’s my opinion anyway! Many of the others, not all of them of course, seem to be in the production just to add cleavage values! That’s not necessarily a bad thing saying so makes me feel like a dirty old man. But perhaps that’s just what I am. The thing is that there’s a lot of cleavage but not enough boobs for it to be really sleazy. The attempt is fine to begin with but it does not work all the way.

All in all this is a little to amateurish for me to get off on. It’s a pretty short movie, about 70 minutes – luckily! It feels much longer than that since the pacing is so slow. Why don’t the killer come out and kill some of the characters already. There’s a decent teaser in the beginning of the film, but then there’s all that cleavage… In the end there’s an obvious attempt to surprise us which only add to the confusion. Just make it simple next time!

But did I regret seeing this? Do I want my time back? Not really. It was still worth my time and it should be worth your time too. It may not be top notch but very few movies are and there are after all some intriguing things about it. Did I mention Christy Faulkner?

4/10

Ps. having watched the first instalment of this I can now say I get it! At least I get it more than I did before. My views above haven’t changed, it’s still a confusing movie but if you have seen the first film you much better off. It would facilitate your understanding for this! Ds.

Review: Alive or Dead – 2008

The film starts out quite different to what I’m used to; a woman driving a car and having phone sex by cell phone at the same time. She soon reaches an open area though and she stops playing with herself when she finds a bus with the words “Help me” written in blood. She does not seem to scare easily and explores the area and eventually gets trapped in the bus together with a redneck and a captured and chained girl.

Sounds interesting don’t you think? That’s what I thought but I never got the hang of it. The bus driver takes the bus into a dessert castle or something like that and nothing is what it seems to be anymore. I don’t know who’s the victim or the perpetrator. Well, most of it makes sense in the end but it’s not very clear. I feel like it’s a bit sloppy script where there are twists and turns just for the hell of it. There’s no real logic to what happens and why.

There are som nice acting and gore though. I don’t mean to say that’s it’s a real gore- or splatter film, but there are blood and it looks pretty decent! In the end this doesn’t carry the movie as a whole though. It gets quite boring and hard to understand. I can live with that if there’s a point made out of making it hard to understand but here I feel like its just plain bad storytelling.

4/10

Review: Scary or Die – 2012

We get to follow a computer screen where someone visits a site called Scary or Die. The hand on the user is all that’s visible to us and it’s a hand full of scarred tissue. It’s obvious once the anthology themes are established that the final segment will explain what the hell is going on. I, myself had no idea what kind of film this was; I just though the cover looked cool and didn’t expect an anthology at all. I was into it just for the clown on the cover!

And the clown does have its own story; you just have to wait a bit for it. I think the film contains about 5 or 6 episodes but who’s counting? In either case, there’s varies quality aspects as far as entertainment value is concerned. The film as total has quite nice acting and cinematography and doesn’t feel amateurish at all. I don’t mind a little amateur feel from time to time but I’m very sparse on what I really enjoy.

Same thing goes with anthologies. Most of the times I think these are a waste of time and the build-up is always too short to get it really interesting. This is so-so in that department and a couple of the stories are really good! A couple of them are way too boring though so I guess that evens it out a bit. The finishing story which is supposed to connect them all and explain what’s going on is a big disappointment and as a whole the film can’t withstand a second viewing. I’m sorry to say that this is one of those movies where the cover is actually more interesting than the flick itself. There are some great moments but not enough to make it really enjoyable.

4/10

Review: Cut - 2000

There’s a low budget horror movie being made. At least until the film’s director get killed. She’s murdered on the set and the actor playing the killer also dies. After this the film seems to be cursed and every time someone tries to finish it someone dies. Now a group of students are about to give it another try. They convince the original films star to once again appear in the film and goes to the original location for their completion shots. It doesn’t take too long before people starts to die… Writing the above made me think a bit of A Return to Horror High even if the comparison is truly unjust. I also get vibes from one of the Urban Legend films, can’t remember which though, probably the second one. I think this is supposed to be silly though, it’s a comedy first and a horror/thriller after that. It works but it’s no masterpiece. Kylie Minogue is in it and that’s about as fun as it gets. Yeah, and Molly Ringwald does a real diva bitching part too!

4/10