Silent Night (2012)

"He Knows Who's Been Naughty"

RATED- R
RUN TIME- 94 MINS
WRITER(S)- JAYSON ROTHWELL
STARRING- MALCOLM McDOWELL, JAIMIE KING AND DONAL LOGUE
DIRECTOR- STEVEN C. MILLER

Synopsis taken from IMDb

The police force of a remote Midwestern town search for a killer Santa Claus who is picking off citizens on Christmas eve.




STORY: If you've followed my blog over the last year you've seen that I've watched and reviewed all of the "Silent Night, Deadly Night" films. While I'll never watch any of the sequels again, the first became one of my favorite slasher films ever. I loved it. When I heard of the remake I was indecisive on how I felt, I wanted to know if this film would do the original justice.

The story of this film is fresh and not copycatting the original, I liked that. This story centers around a guy who goes around wearing a Santa suit and is murdering townsfolk who've been naughty. In the original they spend a lot of time on the killer and on this one they just throw you right into it. Not to be discouraged, they do show you back story and the murderers past. In this one instead of knowing who the killer is the whole time, you gotta wait until the end to find out and that was something I liked as well. He leaves a track of bloody footprints after every scene, showing he's a massive guy.

Aubrey Bradimore (Jaimie King) is local law enforcement trying to take down the mad Santa and get a lead on who he is, how to stop him. Her superior, Sheriff Cooper (Malcolm McDowell) has the same intent on catching the Santa, but he has his own way of running things that cause tension between him and Aubrey.

He knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.

ACTING: The acting in this film was fairly decent, the leads (King and McDowell) do a good job in their roles. The acting suffers a bit with some of the minor cast, but the movie has a bit of dark humor to it so it makes even the weaker acting go over just fine. The actors this film has works with the type of movie this is and the environment created for it.



KILLS/GORE: This film didn't hold back on the violence, brutality or bloodshed.  It's a real treat for you gore-hounds out there. This film is easily the bloodiest Christmas movie you'll ever see. Blood flows throughout the entire film practically and this Santa doesn't care how old you are, he targets little children as much as adults. There's flamethrowers, axes, scythes, knives and even fire pokers and a wood chipper (which is probably my favorite).



OVERALL: The story isn't as strong and important in this film as it was in the original, but this film is definitely scarier and more suspenseful. It doesn't surpass the original to me, due to the charm 80's horror films have on me, but this film here delivers. I was very pleased with "Silent Night", it will make even adults scared of Santa.

THIS FILM GETS 3 REAPER SKULLS OUT OF 5

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM GRIMM REVIEWZ/BLOG UPDATE

I wanted to take the time to check-in and say happy holidays to all the bloggers out there and horror fiends. I hope your Christmas was as kick-ass as mine. 

I haven't been around lately due to lack of horror watching during the Christmas season. I take this time of year off from horror films and spend it watching Christmas classics. I'm still around and this site is still kicking and I will begin the reviewz again starting with Silent Night (2012).

During my short break I've gone over some things that I need to correct in order to continue successfully reviewing movies and I've decided that from here on out I'm going to review movies in a different format. I always run into problems where sometimes I feel I say too much, giving away spoilers and other times I feel I'm too subtle. 

So from here on out I'll be breaking the movies I review down into categories in order to sum up what I want to say, I know a lot of people don't like to read really long reviews so I'm condensing it and making it more efficient.

So while I'm updating things I would like to ask any and all of you to give me feedback if you have anything you think I should do differently or things you'd like to see me review. I look forward to hearing from you all in the future.

The Apparition (2012)

"ONCE YOU BELIEVE, YOU DIE."

RATED- PG-13

RUN TIME- 82 MINS

WRITERS- TODD LINCOLN

STARRING- ASHLEY GREENE, SEBASTIAN STAN AND TOM FELTON

DIRECTOR- TODD LINCOLN

Synopsis taken from IMDb

A couple is haunted by a supernatural presence that is unleashed during a college experiment.

The Apparition went into production back in 2009 and was released August 24th, 2012 to 810 theaters. This film was Director Todd Lincoln's debut. Despite having a decent poster and well edited trailer, the film was panned by the majority of people who have seen it. Brian Orndof from Blu-Ray.com said "The trailer for 'The Apparition' contained more story than the picture it was promoting. In fact, I think the trailer for 'The Apparition' is actually more of a movie than 'The Apparition'".

The film bombed at the box office, placing #12  it's opening weekend and making $2.84 million. Some are saying that Warner Bros tried to bury this picture and succeeded by not marketing it and giving it such a low theater count.

My first impression of 'The Apparition' was that it was going to be pretty good, based on the trailer. But I couldn't find this movie anywhere and I had to practically hunt it down. There's this thing with me that always seems to happen: I see a movie that interests me and want to watch it. I search it out 'til I can find it, regardless of the source, and then I sit down and watch it and wonder why I wasted my time. It happens quite often actually but it's a trap that I keep falling into. This film was cut from the same cloth.

The opening seance is very cheap and cheesy, it is suspenseful for a brief moment but never scary. I already had my guard up for a bad movie and I kept it on. The story isn't original, it's hacks and pieces of other films put into one film. It doesn't have an original thought and it clearly rips The Grudge off with 2 big scenes in the movie. 

How can you make a horror movie comprised of nothing more than things you've already seen done better in other movies? It's an invalid attempt, an obsolete film that's already fell through the cracks and forgotten. 

Kelly (Ashley Greene) and Ben (Sebastian Stan) see weird burn marks on their counters and can't explain it. In the middle of the night they wake up and all of the doors in their house are open, these scenes, if done right, can be particularly scary. But in this film they were built up with suspense and never the payoff.

Kelly then notices the laundry room floor has begun peeling, she investigate and peels back some of the floor and sees nasty looking mold and spores. Ben goes into the crawlspace and finds even more upon investigation.

Ben then finds e-mails that are urgent and that he hasn't gotten to yet and they're from Patrick, one of Ben's friends who were involved in the seance at the beginning of the film. The e-mails are warnings, trying to get Ben out of the house. Ben holds onto the information and doesn't inform Kelly, so when she finds out it's hell to pay. The haunting's become more severe and dramatic as they come closer to answering what it is.

As the movie unwinds it becomes more predictable and the ending is lackluster. The bad and over dramatic acting did nothing more than help kill this movie and it's attempt at being a horror film fails badly. This comes off like the dreadful straight to video horror movies you'd get at blockbuster.

THIS FILM GETS 1 1/2 REAPER SKULLS OUT OF 5

The Collection (2012)

"Every great collector has a vision"

RATED- R
RUN TIME- 82 MINS
WRITERS- MARCUS DUNSTAN AND PATRICK MELTON
STARRING- JOSH STEWART, EMMA FITZPATRICK AND CHRISTOPHER McDONALD
DIRECTOR- MARCUS DUNSTAN




Synopsis taken from IMDb
A man who escapes from the vicious grips of the serial killer known as "The Collector" is blackmailed to rescue an innocent girl from the killer's booby-trapped warehouse. 

Regardless of the bad reviews I heard and read about 2009's The Collector, I really liked it. I found it fun, exciting, somewhat original and suspenseful. So yeah, I was pretty pumped for the sequel to come out. I wasn't disappointed.

The movie starts off with a television broadcasts that speak of the Collector and his recent crimes, there's a manhunt out for him. Arkin (Josh Stewart) is the Collector's most recent victim from the ending of the previous film.

Elena Peters (Emma Fitzpatrick) goes to a secluded party that her friends drag her to. The party takes place in a dingy  alley that looks suspicious. There they're greeted by a man with piercings all over his face and dreadlocks, they have to give him the password "nevermore" to enter the party. Upon entering, all of their fears and suspicions  disappear when they see the party is all they had been hoping it would be.

The fun doesn't last too long as the Collector has made this party his latest death maze, full of sick, sadistic torture and slaughtering devices that turn the entire club into a crimson mass. The traps, the deaths and the gore are really upped in this film and I was pleased, bring it on.

Arkin makes a lucky escape during the party after seeing Elena being taken by the Collector. Arkin gets treatment at a hospital. Where even there he isn't safe, he gets a card from the Collector threatening his family. Soon after, Arking is approached by Lucello and his team of hired mercenaries. Lucello is Elena's father's right hand man, and he' watched after Elena since she was a child. He's leading his team to find and kill the Collector, and find Elena.

Arkin gets strong-armed into leading Lucello and his hired team to the Collector, but he warns them of what they're getting into. Once they enter the Collector's lair, a run down hotel, it becomes a bloodbath. People being picked off one by one in pure brutality. I like how calm the Collector is, he has the odds stacked against him but he's always two steps ahead of everyone, he's meticulous.

As Arkin and Lucello dig further into the Collector's residence we see some of what makes the Collector tick, seeing how sick he is and learning what he does with his victims. I especially like this because there was no development with his character in the first film. This was definitely the right way to go for a sequel.

The film is incredibly violent, it pulls no punches. It comes packing a big punch. If you're not one for gore or torture you should probably turn this movie down, unless you want to lose your lunch. The acting wasn't anything fancy, but it worked. There's a lot of chaos going on in this film and it's a bloody good time.

I'm looking forward to where they go with the future of this series, if they're is one. I'd be interested to see where they go with a sequel, which will hopefully happen. The ending of The Collection is spot on and a good, refreshing change in cliche endings.

THIS FILM GETS 3 1/2 REAPER SKULLS OUT OF 5