Devil: The Review

Once again the delightful sweetpeas at Review Brisbane presented me with free tickets, this time to Devil, and in return I have reviewed it.

"Holy dooley. This was epic. The end. Okay, I’ll go into detail, shall I? I adore horror movies, especially ones that aren’t exactly like every other horror movie in the history of ever. I never would have thought about a movie where a bunch of people are trapped in an elevator with the devil and I certainly would not have expected it to be so delightful. Like, seriously, how do you come up with that?

Like any good horror movie, it keeps you guessing right up to the end. My thoughts were all over the place trying to figure it out. Who did it? OMG it was him! No it was her! Argh I don’t know! Ohhhh it was him! No, it was the other fellow. No it was that lady. This hurts! Just tell me who it is!

It’s more complex than I thought it would be, though I shouldn’t be surprised as it an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I WISH I COULD TELL YOU MORE BUT THEN I WOULD GIVE AWAY ALL THE COOL BEANS CRAZINESS. And I must refrain from doing so.

Instead, I shall tell you that my attention was kept by this movie the whole time (apart from once, for like a second when I was briefly amused by the glowing exit sign) and while I wasn’t scared, I was a tad disturbed. I definitely could see this movie a few hundred more times, which is always a plus. It’s complicated to an extent, along with creepy, suspenseful and even a tad emotional. For realsies. See it."

Paranormal Activity 2: The Review

Last night, my little brother and I went to see Paranormal Activity 2. As I won the tickets from Review Brisbane, I was required to write a review.

Here we go;

Let me preface this by saying just how much I enjoyed the first Paranormal Activity. The way the movie was filmed was unlike any other horror movie I had seen, and the fact that they relied on something unseen as the main premise of the movie certainly was brave, so I was quite excited about seeing the second one. The cinema was practically empty when we got there, which I kind of expected as it was a Monday night, and I’d heard a few bad things about the movie.

The movie started much like the first one; a happy family played by overzealous actors are playing around with a camera, filming mundane things like bringing a baby home from the hospital for the first time. Uh fine, I’m sure it was very exciting for the family, rah rah rah.

One minute you’re watching some baby and the next they’re filming their wrecked house. This is when things should start to get interesting, but to be honest it was still quite slow going. That demon sure must have had a lot of time on his hands if he was dragging it out that much. And seriously, what kind of well respected and feared demon messes with people by dragging their pool cleaner out of the water? A lame one, that’s what. I don’t even care if that demon hears me, because it’s not like he’ll do anything bad to me. He’ll probably just slam a few doors, and drop some pots and pans on the kitchen bench.

What a bad ass.

The last quarter of the movie is when things start to pick up, but unfortunately I wasn’t concentrating on it fully because a group of kids behind me were farting, laughing and talking non-stop. Since no one else in the theatre said anything, I was forced to turn around and ask them to please shut up and give them numerous stern looks. It scared them quiet for a while, so I was able to turn my attention back to the film.

So, things were finally starting to get interesting. The demon messed the dog up something chronic, which is just plain rude if you ask me, and the father and daughter took her off to the vet.

This is when the female lead (I have no idea what her name is) starts getting owned by the demon. FINALLY. She’s standing in the baby’s room when all of a sudden she’s being dragged down the stairs by some invisible force. She fights back and runs back upstairs but the demon owns her again and drags her down to the basement. A few hours later she comes up from the basement and is obviously possessed. She has an epic staring problem, and seems to have forgotten how to blink.

 

This is where I have a big problem with the movie. The whole storyline is that the demon is after her son (the baby), so when the demon possesses her you’d think he’d be running right up those stairs and stealing that baby. But noooooo. It sits in a chair in the baby’s room and stares some more, and not even at the baby. I will admit that the possessed lady is damn creepy and let me just say that I’m glad to went to the toilet before the movie, but seriously? Sigh. All of a sudden it’s the next day and the daughter and father come home from the vet. They think something is wrong with the possessed lady, but don’t really do anything about it. You know, because they’re really bright.

 

More stuff happens, and they manage to get the demon out of the woman, and everything is happy chappy la la nothings wrong we’re awesome and defeated a demon. You’d think that would be the end of the movie, but wait, there’s more! Katie from the first movie (who is the sister of the possessed lady) ends up in their house one night, snaps the dad’s neck, then goes upstairs to kill the sister and FINALLY STEALS THE BABY! Gawd, it took the stupid thing long enough. What an ineffective demon.

But honestly, that ending sucked a lot of something. It ruined the movie for me, and my little brother totally agrees (he just told me). Overall, the movie wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. The acting was sub-par, it progressed too slowly for my liking and the demon is a total loser. They did say “pussy” though. So I guess that made it okay.