Category: Fantastic Fest 2009

Fantastic Fest 2009: RAMPAGE Review

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Matt’s Take:

I must confess, this is the first Uwe Boll film I’ve ever seen. And if he continues down this path, it may very well be the last.

RAMPAGE is a story about a douchebag kid who’s got a terrible job, is something of a loner, and has no prospects in life. He gets treated like crap at work, at restaurants, and his parents are sick of him living at home. He just can’t get a break… which is why he must go on a RAMPAGE, brutally murdering everyone who has insulted him and finally getting his justified revenge!! Hmm, now that film sounds kind of cool. It perhaps sounds like a Falling Down, but where Michael Douglass is the hero, right? In fact, even Uwe Boll himself compared Rampage to that version of Falling Down, which I must confess, got me very excited for the movie. I’d love to see that movie. Unfortunately RAMPAGE is not that movie.

RAMPAGE is instead the story about a completely unlikeable douchebag terrorist, who decides to kill random people for no reason. (OK, actually he does have a reason, but it’s so lame and unrealistic that it doesn’t count) And to add to that, he doesn’t even kill the people in cool ways! He kills people with machine guns. Machine guns with infinite ammo. This is not interesting. It’s not exciting. In no way is the “hero” ever in any danger whatsoever. Apparently in the Uwe Boll universe, you can blow up a Police Station and then basically never be bothered again by the Police. Hmmm… yeah, I guess if there was only one Police Station in the entire country that might work, right? But forget realism, at least this movie looks cool, doesn’t it?

NO. It doesn’t. This movie looks like it was shot by a cameraman who had Parkinson’s and they forgot to hire a focus puller. I’d say at least 90 percent of the movie was out of focus, even in shots where two actors were sitting motionless at a table!!! I mean, come on, is it too much to ask that we can actually see what the hell is going on? To add to this nonsense, random flash forwards are interjected into the film throughout. These bits add absolutely nothing to the film, except giving away the ending ten minutes in, and annoying the audience. The first half of this movie is so boring, it’s almost hard to comprehend, and sadly the action in the second half isn’t nearly interesting or exciting enough to make this film worthwhile.

Kent’s Take:

Is RAMPAGE a good film? Kinda. Is it a great film? NO FLIPPING WAY! But it is easily the best thing Uwe Boll has made and if you saw it, I doubt you’d guess he had anything to do with it. RAMPAGE is the basic story of a young man that’s just had enough with his mediocre life and how everyone just craps on him. His parents are kicking him out, he can’t even get a simple coffee order made correctly for him, and the disaster that happens at the local fast food joint really sets him over the top. He takes it upon him self to teach his crappy little town a lesson but suiting in a large armor plated battle suit and just blowing everyone in town away.

This is a violent movie with a lot of innocent people getting killed. In fact everyone in the movie is innocent except for the main character Bill played by Brenden Fletcher. Bill’s rampage on his town is enjoyable to watch, or at least it would be if you could see most of what was going on. The biggest problem I had with RAMPAGE is that it’s shot terribly. I enjoyed it’s ideas but I could barely see them half the time because of the terrible cinematography. Uwe Boll is able to shoot a good looking film. Tunnel Rats is decently well shot but here we get a grainy shaky movie that has a hard time focusing on any of it’s most important elements. Why this movie was shot on film and not on HD is beyond me. I think a very shiny glossy look would have been a great contrast to the brutal violence that takes place during Bill’s killing spree.
I can see how some people find this film unwatchable or bad, but I really do think it shows progress in Boll’s sense of direction. Most of the movie is improvised and it does show, especially in Linda Boyd’s performance as Bill’s mom. She stammers so much that it becomes very obvious she has no improvisation skills what so ever. I’ve never heard a movie have a character saying “um” so much. Another big issue with the film is literally the last 30 seconds. It’s a tag onto the film that explains some things that are totally unnecessary. Putting that in almost defeats everything that came before it, especially with the things that are revealed in the last act.

Overall, RAMPAGE should be seen, but by no means should you rush out and see it immediately. It has some solid moments, a lot of morbid, dark humor and a lead character that you’ll cheer on and then when it’s over you’ll hate yourself for it. It’s an interesting movie to be sure. I give Rampage 3 out of 5 stars.

Fantastic Fest 2009 – DOGHOUSE Review

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I have to say that Fantastic Fest goers were the perfect audience to enjoy this soon to be cult classic with. DOGHOUSE is a British zombie film that has a truly unique and funny take on the genre.

DOGHOUSE starts out by introducing us to Vince, a divorcee who’s friends are determined to get him back on track. His friends Neil (Danny Dyer) and Mikey (Noel Clarke) come up with the idea to go to Mikey’s home town where the ratio of women to men is 4 to 1, and apparently the women are all gorgeous. They along with several more friends rent a van with a hot driver Candy (Christina Cole) and head off to this supposed heaven for single men.

When they get there, not everything is as promised. The house they’re staying at is a mess, the place is filthy and it’s in the middle of nowhere. Sure there are loads of beautiful women, but they’re all braindead mutants hell bent on killing every man they see. Now Neil, Mikey, Vince and the rest are in for the worst holiday imaginable.

This movie is hilarious. There are some truly laugh out loud horror shock moments that had me rolling. This is a great companion piece to movies like SHAUN OF THE DEAD and ZOMBIELAND. It really knows it’s material and the genre that spawned it, and director Jake West knows how to take Dan Schaffer’s writing and turn it into some thing fun.

The only real issue I had with the film is a passing one. The conclusion to everything just feels a little tagged on. It’s not a bad ending by any means, but it feels like they just didn’t quite know how to bring everything to a close

Fantastic Fest 2009 Panel: The Future of 3D

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So Matt (one of the amazing writers here) and I went to the Future of 3D Panel at Fantastic Fest on an early Sunday Morning. We both fell asleep right away. Why? Well 6 dudes in one hotel room with an average of 4 to 5 hours of sleep will make any non-movie experience boring. But we learned some things and now I’d like to think of myself as a bit of a 3D film expert. There’s a lot I’ve learned about how the cameras are set up, what kind of lenses and filters you have to use and how to tell when a movie was either not made for 3D or poorly shot and constructed.

The biggest thing I learned was how you’re supposed to edit and shoot a 3D movie. Many techniques that have grown over the past 10 years need to be thrown right out of the window and the cinematographers need to get back to basics. Smooth steady shots and long takes are the key to a great 3D movie. The more you cut, the more of a headache your audience will suffer. An example I heard from one of the panelists was about how you’d typically structure your movie in the past. Before if you wanted to show a woman in red dress in a crowd, you’d simply cut to her… now with the advent of 3D, especially digital 3D you want to make the move to push to her. This brings the audience in and let’s the experience the 3D effect as much as possible.

Another thing I learned is that you don’t want to shake the camera EVER, and would never want to shoot with a steady cam. A steady cam, which can often lead to shaky cam, is for inflection. It’s supposed to give you the feel that you’re in the scene and show you the pressure or urgency or force of whatever is happening. Now with 3D you’re already there. You’re experiencing the event much more dynamically than you normally would, so there’s no need to shoot it that way. You want smooth steady shots, the head doesn’t really bounce around like that after all.

There was a movie trailer being showed at Fantastic Fest quite a bit and seeing it made me really sad after this panel because of what I had learned. If you read my favorite films of FF list then you Mandrill was way up there and if you read my review then you know that I have a lot of respect for Marko Zaror and want nothing but the best for him. Sadly his new film Defender 3D is a remake of a classic he was already in, MIRAGE MAN. Defender 3D literally does everything wrong when it comes to 3D cinema. Luckily it’s trailer isn’t anything more than a test to try and get more funding, but as it stands right now, it’s an epic fail on the big screen. It’s full of quick cuts, misaligned 3D shots, and camera angels where the camera is at a 45 degree angle with the ground. These shots all lead to a large headache and make the movie very very hard to watch.

So where am I going with all this? Well It’s become very clear to me that 3D films are meant to be shot a very specific way in order to be effective. They have to be shot and edited in an extremely precise and meticulous manner. Not every film can simply be transfered to to this style, and most shouldn’t be. Some films can, especially older films could be transfered and not really have this problem. Films like STAR WARS which are shot rather steady and don’t have many quick cuts, would do perfectly. But now I hear Joss Whedon’s new film CABIN IN THE WOODS is being transfered to 3D simply because the initial buzz on the movie is good. I’m very sad about this since the film is admittedly not shot in 3D.

Shooting in 2D and transferring to 3D isn’t the worst thing you can do with a movie, but hearing this makes me wonder if the movie can even handle the transition. Was it shot in a way where 3D will add to the experience or will it make the movie one big giant headache of a film? Pushing the movie back a year is rather sad since it’s apparently so good as it is, but will the final product suffer because the studio is trying to jump on a bandwagon of 3D cinema in order to cash in a little more.

Here’s a simple trick to find out of your 3D is good or not: Put your 3D glasses on the edge of your nose so you can quickly peer over them. You should see double images up on the screen. IF they’re exactly level with each other, then you’re seeing properly aligned 3D and that’s how it should be. If they’re not then you’ll notice one part is slightly higher than the other, which will be lower. This is a misaligned effect and can give you a massive headache in the back of your skull. Apparently some really big films that were made in 2D and transfered into 3D have this problem.

Be smart about your 3D cinema choices. It’s a very cool technology and sitting through the Real D presentation and the AVATAR footage, I can tell you that it can truly revolutionize the way we watch some films, but only those that can be properly transfered or that are properly made. Not every film is a prime candidate for 3D. As much as I hate to say it… no matter how much you love a movie it just might not be right. I loved this year’s STAR TREK and I thought it might really fit as a 3D feature. Looking back on it now though I realized it would do nothing but give me a throbbing skull… Here’s hoping Hollywood gets smart about their choices for 3D conversion and fast.

FANTASTIC FEST 2009: Matt’s Top 10 Picks

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Fantastic Fest did indeed live up to its name, and thus it was tough to pick just ten movies that were my favorites, but here’s my best attempt:

10) K-20: The Fiend with 20 Faces

A superhero story set in an alternate timeline Japan just after World War 2, K-20 puts a Japanese spin on characters similar to Batman with a dash of Zorro thrown in. It starts off a little slow, but about 30 minutes in, the story picks up and doesn’t let go until the finish line. Containing some of the best CG I’ve seen out of Japan, this film definitly deserves to be seen.

9) Yatterman

Pretty much everything you could want in a PG (ish) action movie based on a Saturday morning cartoon. Humor? Check. Action? Check. Giant robots? Check. Giant robots having sex? Check… Wait, what? Yes, this film is completely insane, and as a result it’s a whole hell of a lot of fun.

8) Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

The violent, ridiculously crazy sister to Yatterman, this film is a whole ‘nother kind of insanity. It doesn’t take itself seriously for one second, which means we get things like the wrist cutters club at school and one of the most (unintentionally) racist bits of comedy ever put on screen. This is a film that could only be Japanese, and it is a wild ride.

7) Trick r Treat

Yes, there were non-Japanese films at this fest too. This is one that I’ve been waiting to see for what seemed like an eternity. Luckily, it did not disappoint, not one bit. Several stories woven together, and all linked with a very creepy little demonic pumpkin child named Sam make for a very creepy, and at times, very funny Halloween movie. Be sure to check this one out on DVD/bluray.

6) Fish Story

Yet another Japanese film, this one is about a punk rock band who’s music will save the world. Easily the best looking film of the fest, this multi-decade spanning film is something that should not be missed. The music is incredible and the story will keep you completely enthralled until it’s conclusion. Also, for those of you who may be turned off by the completely insane Japanese-ness of Japanese movies, this one is quite different and should have a large mainstream appeal.

5) Avatar 3D Footage

Like a lot of people, I just wasn’t impressed by Avatar’s teaser trailer. It’s not that it looked bad, it just lacked the wow-factor. After seeing 20 minutes of the movie, I have to say.. I was wowwed.. A lot. If you have any interest in 3d cinema, this will be the film to see. Every second of footage looked incredible, and James Cameron shows that all his 3d work/research over the last ten years has payed off.

4) [rec] 2

[rec] is one of the scariest horror films of all time. [rec] 2 ups the ante and delivers and hour and a half of action, suspense, and scares. And to top it off, the story’s not too bad either. I had a blast with this film, and can’t wait for the inevitable [rec] 3.

3) House of the Devil

One of the best 80’s horror films that just happens to be released in 2009. The fantastic camerawork, moody music, and characters that you actually care about all combine to make this one of the best movies of the fest. Incredibly creepy without having to resort to cheap gimicks, this is one film you should not miss. It’s available on VOD at Amazon.com right now, and I highly recommend that you check it out.

1-tie) Zombieland

80 minutes of pure entertainment. There’s not a boring second in there. Great performances by every single actor, more laughs than you can count, and a fantastic list of zombie rules that more people should follow make this one of my favorite zombie films, behind Shaun of the Dead, and one of my favorite films this year.

1-tie) Love Exposure

Of all the great Japanese films at Fantastic Fest, this one takes the cake. At 4 hours long, and spanning just about every genre out there, it’s anything but typical. In fact, I can pretty much gauruntee you’ve never seen anything like this. Never once during its 4 hour runtime did I get bored, and in fact when the intermission hit, the entire audience couldn’t wait for it to start back up. This was the surprise hit of the fest for me, and I will do whatever I can to track down a copy of it to watch again as soon as possible.

Fantastic Fest 2009: Kent’s Top 10 Picks

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Fantastic Fest was a very strong festival with a lot of amazing movies battling it out for the top position, and while there’s voting that happens, not everyone gets to see every movie and that makes the awards ceremony a little unfair. Some people vote for one movie, but not another, or they vote 10 on everything, or they just don’t vote at all. It’s messy all around. So here I am telling you what my top ten favorite films of the festival were… that I saw anyway. Don’t be offended if your favorite movie from the festival isn’t on here. Chances are if it was great I just missed it, like Zombieland.

10.) K-20 The Fiend with 20 Faces

K-20 is an incredibly adventure film that feels like a great radio drama ala The Shadow. Part Batman Begins part Dark Man, K-20 tells the story of a circus performer who’s set up and framed as a world renowned thief known as K-20. Endo, the hero must learn how to be a thief in order to clear his name and battle K-20. It’s a lot of fun and probably the best superhero movie of the year.

9.) Bronson

I thought Bronson was a serious drama the first time I saw it as an import DVD. The fact is, it’s funnier when you’re with an audience. The shock factor floats away and you’re left with one of the best dark comedies and true stories put to film in years. Bronson is a dangerous criminal but with charm that can’t be denied. Tom Hardy’s insane physical conditioning is epic and will have people comparing him to Christian Bale for years.

8.) The Revenant

A vampire movie that’s one part Boondock Saints and another part Evil Dead. The movie is gory, hilarious and fun. It’s your basic “Soldier comes back from Iraq dead, and wakes up to find he’s undead” story that we know so well… which is not at all. There are a lot of amazing sight gags and funny moments between the two heroes Bart and Joey, including a moment involving a dildo and severed head.

7.) Paranormal Activity

A movie about a demon that’s been haunting a girl her entire life and suddenly her fiance decides it’s time to fuck with it. Not a smart move. The entire movie is shot as if the main characters chose to document the events that happen over the course of a month, and boy is it scary. A minimalist budget, maybe the cheapest movie at the festival, and one of the most impressive by far. The scares ramp up perfectly and it’ll keep you talking long after it’s over. A room full of 6 guys couldn’t sleep for hours after we saw this movie, and now almost ten days later I saw a tweet from one of them saying it’s got them freaking out since they’re home alone. It’s that effective.

6.) Yatterman

Takashi Miike is messed up. He takes a classic children’s cartoon from over thirty years ago and turns it into a bizarre series of battles between the heroes Yatterman 1 and 2 and the Doronbo Gang. What makes this film work is how self aware it is. The heroes do a stupid dance when they win, everyone sees how dumb their outfits really are, and Yatterman’s giant robot dog’s way of transporting them from place to place is stupid when not a cartoon. There’s a great moment involving the original Japanese cast that made me chuckle, but more than anything this movie disturbed me. It’s shot and acted out like a children’s film, but it has several over the top sexual moments that rival what you can get away with in a Pg-13 movie here in the states. Titty-Missiles won’t fly with the MPAA. It’s still a blast and a must see. The insanely crazy projection we were treated to was half the fun.

5.) Secret Screening 1: Robog Geisha

Not as good as Yatterman, but very much in the same vein. Robo Geisha is about two sisters and their rivalry which leads them to become cybernetically enhanced killing machines or Robo Geishas. It’s not as violent as the director’s last film, The Machine Girl, but it’s just as funny. The Japanese ratings board said to put less bleeding people in the film, so instead the movie has buildings that erupt with blood. It’s odd compromises like that, that make the movie fun. It’s cheap, it was made in 2 weeks, it shows, but it’s a blast. The Q&A afterwards really did push it higher on the list.

4.) Mandrill

Chilean actor Marko Zaror really is the next big action hero. Mandrill is part James Bond, part exploitation film, and all bad ass. The stunts and fights are amazing, and considering Marko has doubled for The Rock in films, it’s crazy to see him do moves so fast, and kicks with such crazy extension that he rivals many of Asia’s best martial artists. I said it before, who knew Chile had the world’s biggest action star?!

3.) House of the Devil

It’s hard not to just tie this with Mandrill because they’re both so good, but they’re totally different films. House of the Devil feels like a movie made in the 1980s and it’s genius in how it accomplishes that. Shot on 16mm film with a perfect film stock, and set of actors, the movie is amazing. Save for a few cars and locations, the movie really does feel like something that was lost for almost thirty years. House of the Devil tells the story of a girl hired to be a baby sitter for an evening but gets herself into the worst situation imaginable. It’s scary beyond belief and stuck with me long after I saw it. It really is a period piece and puts director Ti West at the top of his field.

2.) Love Exposure

It’s four hours long, it’s about a kid who chooses to be a pervert after his Catholic priest father tells him to start confessing his sins every day, and it’s from Japan, AND that’s barely touching on the surface of what this movie really is. Love Exposure has so much insanity running through it that I can’t possibly start to tell yo about it all. But it’s never boring, always funny, and always surprising. It’s a must see for any Japanese or Asian film fan.

1.) Fish Story

Yet another Japanese film and possibly the best film of 2009. Can music save the world? Fish Story will truly leave you believe that yes, music is that powerful, even if it’s from a band that is unpopular or unknown. Fish Story is actually a few stories woven together with an over all narrative of hope. We start in 2012 with the world coming to an end and find ourselves going back to 1975 with a punk band that’s struggling to find it’s place in Japanese society and culture a year before The Sex Pistols got popular. It’s perfectly paced, amazingly well acted, and very very funny. It has almost everything anyone would want in a movie, and it’s not just my choice for best movie of Fantastic Fest… but of the entire year.

Now there are a few films that simply were awful at fantastic Fest… I’ll be posting a blog about those soon so keep your eyes open for it.

Fantastic Fest 2009: FISH STORY Review

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Can a punk rock song from a failed band in 1975 save the world in 2012? Fish Story will tell you and you’ll believe every minute of it. The story isn’t simple at all, but by the end you’ll understand everything and where it’s all been headed. When the movie begins it’s 2012 and a meteor is headed for Earth. It’s hours away and most of Japan has evacuated except for an old man rattling through the streets of a closed down neighborhood. He’s knocking over bikes, making a mess and just being a cranky old pain. Soon he comes upon a shop, a record shop that’s still open. Out of pure shock he gets off his little scooter, and walks into the store to not only find that it’s open, but that some one is actually browsing and listening to music, and that some one is still running it. This is where we’re introduced to Fish Story, a song from 1975, by a punk rock band that didn’t go anywhere, right before The Sex Pistols made it big. Huge pioneers that will never get the respect they deserve.

The song Fish Story links us to several more stories, each one amazing in their own right and all of them very funny, touching and moving. This is a story about hope, dedication, strength and love. It works so well that it’s easily one of the best movies of the year, if not the best. I can’t express enough how wonderful this movie is and how great every single performance was.

Fish Story is a rare kind of film. It’s the kind where right away you know you’re watching something truly amazing and when it all comes to a conclusion you immediately want to start it over again to see where all the hints to the future are, where are all the links between one story and the next. And the stories are really diverse. You have a guy driving his friends around that stumbles upon a terrible scene, you have a champion of justice trying to save people from terrorists on a boat, and a band failing at every turn to try and break out into the main stream before their genre of music has even blown up in the west. To top that off you keep coming back to the end of the world where a discussion about what you should do in the face of death.

If you have a chance to see Fish Story on the big screen, take all your friends and run out and see it. It’s a true masterpiece and one of the best films of the past 20 years. It’s incredibly smart, well written and acted. It is one of the few films I can actually call PERFECT. It was the highlight of Fantastic Fest for me, and I will always cherish it.

Fantastic Fest 2009: SALVAGE Review

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Talk about a disappointing film. Salvage is the story of a girl being dropped off at her mom’s house on Christmas eve against her will. Her father is going on to his mother’s house and they’ll all meet back up on “boxing day”. BUT THEN out of no where the girl finds her mother having sex with a random guy and leaves, going across the street dropping her character almost completely. We spend a large portion of the movie with a character only to have the entire movie shift to her mom’s perspective and it ruins all of the set up.

But that’s not the plot. The plot is that just a mile from a small British town a unmarked cargo container has washed up on shore and brought something dangerous with it. When a random military group shows up telling everyone to get in their house after shooting the local doctor single mother Beth must find her daughter and save her from what’s outside their house.

The premise actually isn’t bad, but the execution is so poor and the characters are so bad that there’s nobody worth rooting for. Beth is a selfish bitch, her daughter is an annoying snot, and Beth’s lover Kieran is even worse because he’s a father and cheating on his wife.

The scares in the film are few and far between, and when you finally see what the container has brought it’s the most underwhelming thing I’ve seen in a movie in a long time, very disappointing.

Fantastic Fest 2009: ‘Cropsey’ Review

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Cropsey is an urban legend from Staten Island NY. The villain changes from wielding hooks to knives to axes but the outcome always ends with children getting cut up into tiny pieces and buried in the woods. The legend spread and documentary film makers Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio both thought that maybe the legend is there for a reason… maybe it’s real.

Cropsey dives into this mystery by questioning whether or not a series of missing kids over the course of 20 years is what spawned the legend. The possible perpetrator of these kidnappings and murders is Adrian Rand, a man who used to work in an insane asylum for children in Staten Island. After a really big news expose’ by Giraldo Rivera in the 1980s the asylum closed and Rand was  left without a job, roaming the woods around the “school”.

Sadly the film doesn’t really stick with the legend of Cropsey much more than saying they all grew up with it. Instead the film boils down into whether or not Rand is really this murdering sociopath. We meet the parents of the kids, families that looked for the bodies of the kids, and more. It’s a truly creepy and disturbing story and you will get sucked in.

Without the initial premise though, this film is really just a documentary that could be on any crime channel. It doesn’t elevate itself beyond a tv doc level.

Fantastic Fest 2009: ‘[Rec] 2’ Review

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WARNING: since this is a direct sequel to [rec], there will be spoilers for [rec] in this review.

[rec] is one of the scariest horror films of the past ten years and my personal favorite horror film of all time. For those who don’t know, [rec] tells the story of a news lady and her camera crew as they are doing a late night feature on firefighters. Of course, this quickly turns into a disaster when the firefighters are called to a building which just happens to have an outbreak of what seem like zombies. [rec] 2 picks up just seconds after the first film ends, as a swat team comes to the same building to take care of the mess that was made in the first movie. Or, at least that’s what they think. The real plot of the movie isn’t revealed until later, but suffice to say it gets a little deeper than typical “zombies” and quite a bit more interesting.

While the entirety of [rec] was shot from the perspective of a single news camera, [rec] 2 puts you primarily inside the helmets of the swat team. The majority of the movie takes place from the team videographer, since the mission is deemed so important that they need archival footage from it. This swat member is, for the most part, weaponless, and sticks back behind the main force of the team. However, any time they need to send a single member off on his own, for example: to crawl into a tight space where only one person will fit, the video taps into that members helmet, giving us a grainier and more ‘first person shooter-ish’ point of view. This helps spice things up visually, and keeps us from thinking, “why are they still filming?”

If you don’t like to be scared, this is not the movie for you. It’s creepy, atmospheric, and dives right into the horror within the first five minutes. Making the main characters of the movie part of a military operation means that they get right up in the creatures’ faces, unlike [rec] where the news crew tended to stay back as much as possible. A lot of the creepyness stems from the creatures jumping right at the camera, which is a great scare tactic that obviously isn’t possible in a more typical horror film. There are very few moments in this movie where you feel safe, and luckily directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza manage to keep the tension from getting stale throughout.

Aside from the perspective of the swat team, [rec] 2 takes us into the views of several other cameras which show us the same parts of the story from different vantage points. On paper, this is a good idea, and for the most part, it is. However, the first time we cut away from the swat team is such a jarring difference, that it ends up being the weakest part of the movie. For a this portion of the movie, we follow around a group of people who are filming with a camcorder, and for a good part of this there are no creatures present and the group of people are completely unaware of any supernatural  occurrences. There is a bit of a jarring contrast between this and the swat team, since we leave a group of characters that are very interesting and taking on creatures on a regular basis to follow a regular group of people that act stupid and are very annoying. As I watched this segment, I really wanted these people to die as soon as possible. Luckily, after a boring ten minutes or so, we kick back into the greatness of the beginning of the film, which continues on until the end.

Although the entire film is shot digitally and is meant to have an amateur sort of look, the cinematography is fantastic, and the long takes in the movie are very impressive. Unlike films such as Cloverfield, which put some people off due to the shakyness of the camera work, at least 90 percent of [rec] 2 is very smooth and realistic with the concept that they’re going for. The acting, as well, is top notch, and I really believed that these people were the characters they were portraying and not actors.

I’ve been telling people to see [rec] ever since I saw it, and I feel the same way about [rec] 2. It’s a great sequel, and manages to stay fresh, despite taking place in the exact same place as the original.

Fantastic Fest 2009 ‘Antichrist’ One-Sheet

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Among the badass things about Fantastic Fest (movies, red carpets, boxing matches, etc.) are the awesome posters and t-shirts that can be found at the infamous Drafthouse.   As you can see, one of this year’s awesome posters is for Lars Von Trier’s controversial film, ‘Antichrist.’   The image you see above comes to us today courtesy of Shock Till You Drop, and the artwork is courtesy of David D’Andrea.

‘Antichrist’ hits theaters on October 23rd.