El Orfanato "The Orphanage" (2007) - ★★★★

Director: J.A. Bayona
Writer: Sergio G. Sanchez (screenplay)
Stars: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Princep

I rented The Orphanage, expecting to be scared out of my wits. I did not expect it to be one of the most touching horror films I've ever seen. It holds a very dear place in my heart now, for it is one of only two horror films that has ever made me shed a tear (the other being Hideo Nakata's stunning Japanese horror, Dark Water) (2002). It's the kind of movie that spends most of its time creating such a stunning, perfect atmosphere. With this atmosphere, there is no need for cheap scares and thrills. The suspense was constant for me. While The Orphanage was suspenseful, it made me scream out loud only once (and trust me, I scream many times during most horror films). So it isn't all that horrifying, but the story, the acting, the music, the cinematography... every other aspect in this film truly captivated me. I really enjoyed The Orphanage. It's one of the best "horror" films I've seen in many years.

Wolf Creek 2 (2014) - ★★★½ The Comeback Review!

Director: Greg McLean
Writer: Greg McLean
Stars: John Jarratt, Ryan Corr, Shannon Ashlyn, Philippe Klaus

Wow. Wow. Wow. When I sum up my experience of watching Wolf Creek 2, all I can say is that it is one darn entertaining, suspenseful piece of cinema! This is the kind of film that will put you through a roller-coaster of emotions. It aims to horrify the audience, and keep them in a constant state of suspense. While I wasn't horrified in the least, there were moments that had me at the edge of my seat in anticipation of what would happen next! Not to mention, the humour and hilarious stereotyping that is the serial killer, Mick Taylor, made me laugh more than it should have! He said some truly hilarious things, and his over-the-top accent and Australian slang just made the funniness of it all increase by ten-fold. So one second I would be biting my nails in suspense, and the next I would be laughing out loud in the cinema! I really liked Wolf Creek 2. It's far from horrifying, but so worth watching!

High Tension (2003) - ★★★½

Director: Alexandre Aja
Writer: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Stars: Cecile De France, Maiwenn, Philippe Nahon, Franck Khalfoun

High Tension is a really good horror/thriller, sharing traits with classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. Its strength lies with the searing performances and brilliant suspense building techniques, but its weakness is that it's too over the top. At times it goes so overboard that I felt some scenes should belong in a spoof of a horror movie, rather than an actual horror movie. It was the masterful ending that pushed the film into the depths of my memory, making it unforgettable. While I didn't love the film, I loved many things about it. It certainly shocked and surprised me.

Lady in a Cage (1964) - ★★★★

Director: Walter Grauman
Writer: Luther Davis
Stars: Olivia de Havilland, James Caan, Ann Sothern, Jeff Corey, Jennifer Billingsley, Rafael Campos, William Swan

Lady in a Cage is such an exhilarating movie! Olivia de Havilland is one of my all time favourite actresses, and her performance in this film is up there with her very best work (Oscar worthy stuff). It has a wildly interesting concept, fantastic supporting performances, masterful cinematography, and heaps of suspense. What more could you ask for really? It's like watching a Hitchcock film, but it's refreshingly different. There's a more modern, defiant edge to Lady in a Cage. It drops in some social commentary through hinting of the degradation of society's youth, the absurdity of people paying taxes to feed criminals, and there's even a homosexual character (well, I assume he was a homo). That's pretty big for the 1960s. It does this without sounding too preachy, because we're mainly focused on its tale of survival. The whole way through my heart was beating fast, hoping that our protagonist would make it out alive. That's why this is such a great film.

Oldboy (2003) - ★★★★★

Director: Park Chan-Wook
Writers: Lim Chun-hyeong, Park Chan-Wook, Hwang Jo-yun
Stars: Choi Min-sik, Yu Ji-tae, Kang Hye-jeong, Ji Da-han

"Woah. Wow. What the f#ck?" 

That was my initial reaction to Oldboy. I loved this movie. LOVED IT! It's one of the craziest, mind bending movies I've ever seen. It also happens to be funny, charming, exciting, thrilling, and filled with cringe-inducing moments. I adored everything about this film. From the chillingly beautiful score to the stunning cinematography, I just found Oldboy to be a masterpiece from head to toe. The performances are just remarkable, as is the story. The twists and turns made my jaw hit the floor in shock, and they just kept coming! If there's one word to describe this film, it's "engrossing." I couldn't take my eyes away from the screen. To me, Oldboy will always stand up there with the very best movies cinema has to offer.

Evil Dead (2013) - ★★★½

Director: Fede Alvarez
Writers: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues (Screenplay), Sam Raimi (Original Screenplay)
Stars: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore

Evil Dead is the scariest movie I've seen all year (and yes, I've seen The Conjuring). It had me in a constant state of fear for the last 45 minutes, and few films have ever done that to me. It's your average Cabin in the Woods plot/story, done more gruesomely and effectively than ever before. The demonic possessions were almost as scary as that of The Exorcist (1973), and the acting was pretty good for the most part. There's no way I could form an emotional attachment to a movie such as this. All I know is that I never want to see it again... partly because it scares the crap out of me, and partly because it will never be as exciting as the first time I saw it. I don't know about you, but my faith in the horror genre has officially been restored in 2013!

In Bruges (2008) - ★★★★½

Director: Martin McDonagh
Writer: Martin McDonagh
Stars: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clemence Poesy, Jordan Prentice

*Warning* Inappropriate language used in this review.

In Bruges was such a breath of fresh air! It's one of the funniest, intelligent, well made dark comedies of all time. Every once in a while I stumble upon a movie filled with high points, and that's exactly what happened with In Bruges. The humor and wit reminded me a bit of Father Ted (1995), but instead of priests they were hit-men. It's the classic 'grown-up partnered with man-child' routine, yet McDonagh managed to make it fresh and consistently funny. In Bruges was so darn entertaining that I literally watched it again the very next day.

Perfect Blue (1997) - ★★★½

Director: Satoshi Kon
Writers: Sadayuki Murai (Screenplay), Yoshikazu Takeuchi (Novel)

Perfect Blue is one of the creepiest animated movies I've ever seen. It's pretty run-of-the-mill stuff for the most part. Well, up until the end anyway. This isn't a movie I'll ever want to watch again, but I respect the cool twists and beautiful animation. At times it was boring, and other times it was very thrilling. The deal-breaker for me was the amazing psychological twist at the end, which left me shocked and pleasantly surprised at how exciting it all was. It's rude, it's disturbing, and it's nightmarish... but it's also very interesting.

The Conjuring (2013) - ★★★★

Director: James Wan
Writers: Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes
Stars: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston, Shanley Caswell, Hayley McFarland, Joey King, Mackenzie Foy, Joseph Bishara

The Conjuring is the scariest exorcism movie since The Exorcist (1973). I couldn't control my screams, gasps, and the occasional "Oh my God!" I found the performances to be fantastic, and I really liked the character development. Everything was surprisingly believable, which is what made it so scary! The camera-work and music is pretty out there, it reminds me of the classic horrors from the 70s and 80s. The cheesy stuff in-between the scares is what really lets this movie down, yet it didn't bother me much at all. There's something really nostalgic, yet masterful about The Conjuring. Anyone who loves horror will love this movie.

At the start of the film, a bunch of drunk teenagers sat near my friends and I. They were loud, rude, rambunctious as usual, so someone asked them politely "Would you please be quiet?" They didn't stop, so a woman from the other side of the theatre said, "Are you going to talk through the whole movie?" The kids still wouldn't be quiet. Then this huge woman stood up and shouted "WILL YOU SHUT UP... FOR FUCK'S SAKE!" The cinema went deathly silent, then roared with laughter. Suffice to say that no one interrupted the movie after that. Thank goodness for people like that woman! :)

The Incite Mill (2010) - ★½

Director: Hideo Nakata
Writers: Honobu Yonezawa (Novel), Satoshi Suzuki (Screenplay)
Stars: If you really want to know, click HERE.

The Incite Mill was such a draining experience for me. The characters were all stupid, annoying, irrational and completely unbelievable. This directly resulted in the whole story becoming a catastrophic mess, which is sad because it had potential. Perhaps the worst thing of all was the excruciatingly terrible performances by most of the cast. It's like Hideo Nakata wanted this to be like an Agatha Christie novel (albeit way more radical), but it lacked the wit and the suspense of most basic mysteries. I think it took about an hour before it became painful to watch. (Also, I swear I've seen the exact same story before. I can't quite put my finger on it).

Piranha 3DD (2012) - ★½

Director: John Gulager
Writer: Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan, Joel Soisson (Screenplay)
Stars: Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner, David Hasselhoff, Christopher Lloyd, Gary Busey, Ving Rhames

Piranha 3DD is, as you would expect, a god-awful movie. It's raunchy, amateurish, and filled with horrible performances. However, it's not all bad. I laughed my ass off towards the end of the movie. This is probably the lowest form of comedy, yet to me a lot of the gags were just plain hilarious! If not for the irritatingly slow and unfunny first half, I'd probably have given this 3 Stars.

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) - ★

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Writer: Paul W.s. Anderson
Stars: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Sienna Guillory, Bingbing Li, Oded Fehr, Johann Urb

Wow. Resident Evil: Retribution is easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The first 15 minutes alone is just gun-violence and a re-cap of the previous movies. Then we finally get to the story (if you can call it a story), and it's the most repetitive, mind-numbing experience imaginable. It's not scary, it's nothing new, the special effects are awful, the acting is atrocious, the product-placement is despicable... but everyone involved in the film knew this. In fact, everybody knows this. Paul W.S. Anderson seems to take pride in making these incoherent pieces of garbage, and his fans just lap it up. For anyone who enjoys good movies, I think you already know that this one stinks to high heaven.

Pet Sematary (1989) - ★½

Director: Mary Lambert
Writers: Stephen King (Novel and Screenplay)
Stars: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, Brad Greenquist, Miko Hughes, Blaze Berdahl

I'm at a loss for words to describe how bad this movie is. The acting is so bad that I was either gritting my teeth or laughing my ass off the whole way through. It isn't the least bit scary, with minimal suspense and thrill. The special effects are atrocious at times, but what can you expect from a B-grade horror movie from the 80s? The story is actually pretty awesome, it's just executed terribly in every possible way. For me, the one redeeming factor is that Fred Gwynne (AKA, Herman Munster) is in this movie! Pet Sematary is a classic, but it's actually a terrible film.

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) - ★½

Director: Drew Goddard
Writers: Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard
Stars: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kanz, Jesse Williams, Bradley Whitford, Richard Jenkins

I absolutely hated this movie for the most part. For the first three quarters, it grained on me and gave me a headache. As a horror movie, it fails miserably at scaring the audience. As a comedy, it just fails at being funny enough to maintain interest. In terms of originality, most of it are hand-me-down stories from previous horror movies... that is until the end. The last quarter of the film was pretty cool, which brought entertainment and a little bit of originality. Overall, practically everything about this movie was awful. Unless you like mindless films where drab characters get killed off one by one,  I'd give this one a miss.

The Cell (2000) - ★★½

Director: Tarsem Singh
Writers: Mark Protosevich
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vince Vaughn, Dylan Baker, Marianne Jean-Baptiste

What do you get when you cross Alice in Wonderland with Silence of the Lambs? You get The Cell. It's a bad movie... but slightly better than most modern horror flicks. You can put that down to it having better special effects, amazing costume design, stunning cinematography, and an interesting story. However, it lacked in terms of acting, character development, and perfecting the story. It had a hell of a lot of potential! Like I said, it was very interesting. Oh, did I mention that this is one of the weirdest freaking movies I've ever seen! It's the kind of thing that would disturb the masses, but it didn't disturb me as much as I thought it would. In that sense, it was also a let-down.

Alien³ (1992) - ★★½

Director: David Fincher
Writers: Vincent Ward (Story), David Giler, Walter Hill, Larry Ferguson (Screenplay)
Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Paul McGann, Pete Postlethwaite, Lance Henrikson

In my opinion, Alien³ is the most unnecessary sequel ever made. However, it wasn't a terrible movie. What I hate about it is that it pretty much ruins the ending of Aliens (1986). With this new installment, it turns out that everything that happened in its prequel was pointless and futile. It was super depressing to see, which is why I'd prefer to act as if this movie never existed.

Empire of Passion (1978) - ★★½

Director: Nagisa Oshima
Writers: Itoko Nakamura (Story), Nagisa Oshima
Stars: Tatsuya Fuji, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Takahiro Tamura

Empire of Passion is a majorly creepy movie. I'm not gonna lie, I felt the suspense all the way through it. That didn't stop the movie from being really boring though. All of the shouting and sex was overkill. Save for a few masterful scenes, Empire of Passion is a movie worth a watch, but not worth buying.

The Paperboy (2012) - ★★★½

Director: Lee Daniels
Writers: Peter Dexter (Novel and Screenplay), Lee Daniels (Screenplay)
Stars: Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, Macy Gray, David Oyelowo

It's gritty, it's nasty, but most of all it's entertaining. The Paperboy pushes every single actor involved to perform roles you'd never imagine them to play. Though it didn't always keep my attention, the performances alone were enough to make this a very interesting movie. That's also the problem; a movie can't be that good when the performances are by far the best component.

Mulholland Drive (2001) - ★★★★★

Director: David Lynch
Writer: David Lynch
Stars: Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, Monty Montgomery, Mark Pellegrino

Mulholland Drive is a wild and wickedly entertaining movie! The first time I saw this film, my exact words were, "What the f*** just happened?" I got the gist of what had transpired, but I couldn't connect many of the angles in the story. So I looked up the explanation, breathed a sigh of relief and understood much of what I had seen. Today I saw this movie for the second time with the explanation in mind. All I have to say is, what a masterpiece. 

Rear Window (1954) - ★★★★½

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Cornell Woolrich (Short Story), John Michael Hayes (Screenplay)
Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Wendell Corey

Hitchcock is the master of suspense and Rear Window is the reason why. It's one of the most suspenseful movies I've ever seen. The momentum of the mystery gradually builds and makes your heart beat a little bit faster with each development. If it wasn't for the unsatisfying climax, I'd call it a perfect film.