vinyarb

There are only so many scenes you can write into a horror story, especially that of a haunted house story. Darkness just beyond the doors, creaking noises, automatic doors, smashed photo frames, figures in mirrors, being pulled out of your bed.

They’ve been done to death, honestly. But when James Wan does it, fuck it’s scary!

Of course, it helps when the tag “Based on a True Story” is neatly sewn on at the start of the film.

The Conjuring tells the story of 2 families, the Warrens who are a couple of paranormal investigators and the Perrons, who shares their new home with 5 daughters, a demon witch, and a few other wandering ghosts.

Kids, this is what banks do when you don’t pay your mortgage…

The usual things happen. Strange noises at night, unexplained bruises appearing after a fitful night’s sleep. Then things begin to escalate. At almost 2 hours long, which is unusual for a horror flick, it allows for a pretty slow burn, and to establish the characters, so that when shit hits the fan, we really wish to see the Perrons come out of it alive, rather than anticipate the kill scenes.

Compared to James’ earlier effort Insidious, I find The Conjuring a much more suspenseful film. The hide and clap scene in particular, and the subsequent cellar scene was intense!

Now excuse me while I go hide under my sheets.

Rating: 7/10

The Annabelle Doll Story

In an unrelated case in the film, a large part of the story revolved around an earlier case investigated by the Warrens, whereby they retrieved the Annabelle Doll.

The doll would apparently move on its own, with minute position changes initially, and then moved on to appearing in a different room altogether. A medium was invited, and he told of the story of 7 year old Annabelle Higgins, whose spirit had latched on to the doll, and who felt an affinity for the doll’s owner, Donna, and wanted to be friends.

Being a nursing student and probably never seen any horror movies, she felt sympathy for the ghost, and allowed her to remain in the doll. Then things escalated.

The Warrens were invited, and they said it was not a ghost, but a demon that was manipulating the doll in order to get close to, and possess Donna. They did an exorcism and brought Annabelle the doll back with them,

The doll currently resides in the private Occult Museum (where it apparently still moves, sometimes), managed by Lorraine Warren at the back of her house, together with other supernatural artifacts / possessed stuff.

That story really intrigued me, and I hope James Wan will pursue that story in the inevitable sequel.

Of course, how “true” this is, depends entirely on how much you believe in the supernatural, and one couple’s word.

Below is an image of the real Annabelle doll. Above is the movie’s version.

Which is scarier?

The Wolverine takes place after the events of The Last Stand, where Logan had to ultimately put a knife to his beloved Jean Grey. Deeply saddened by this, he goes to live a hobo lifestyle and moves into Canadian wilderness with the grizzlies.

A little later, he’s persuaded by a Japanese chick Yukio, to take a trip to Tokyo, to meet with Yashida, an old but powerful CEO who owes Logan a life debt, and wants to repay him. Turns out Logan once saved a young Yashida at Nagasaki from the Atomic bombs, and shared with him his regenerative abilities.

An inspired Yashida has since spent his entire life trying to recreate Logan’s agelessness and awesomeness. He ultimately reveals to Logan that he doesn’t want to die, and has found a way to transfer the regenerative cells from Logan to himself, and grant both their respective wishes.

Caution handling ‘live’ foodstuff

Logan says ‘No’, and proceeds to go all badass on Japan.

He takes on ninjas, lovehotels, Japanese chicks, bullet trains and the Silver Samurai.

The Wolverine works as a stand-alone story within the X-Men universe. The set in Japan plot also helps keep it fresh. There’s decent action, but in terms of ninja action, I still think the G.I. Joe: Retaliation mountain-side scene still rocked.

Oh, and stay for the post-credits scene. It’ll lead very very nicely into ‘Days of Future Past’.

Rating: 6/10

RED 2 is really fun.

If you’ve seen RED, you’ll need no introduction to the main cast of Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren as former black ops agents disrupted out of retirement in the last installment for a lesson on how being older doesn’t necessarily make you less of a badass.

Think The Expendables, but funny. And good.

In RED 2, we waste no time on introductions and within 8 minutes of run time, we’d have witnessed an explosion, a funeral, an interrogation and the decimation of a crack team of CIA agents. In a fun and light-hearted way of course.

The sequel adds Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones and Korean eye candy Lee Byung Hun on top of the main cast, and piles on the action. Although entertaining, it does feel a little too long at times as they team travel the world in search of a new, portable nuclear bomb capable of escaping detection while under fire from all directions by all sorts of frenemies.

It’s one of those films where you’d imagine the cast having a ball of a time together, fooling around, having fun, then collecting their paycheques, like I imagine the Oceans franchise to be.

Bastards.

Rating: 6/10

Thank you omy.sg for the preview tickets to RED 2.

Way before you step into the movie theatre for a screening of Pacific Rim, you’d already be expecting a massive, action packed film filled with as much testosterone as one can fill, with a synopsis that reads “humans build giant robots to fight giant monsters to the death as a last resort to defend humanity”.

But just in case you had any semblance of hope that there might be some level of plot or intelligent discourse as to the origins of the giants, all you had to do was look at who plays the scientist, and you’ll know, nope.

Yeah, when Charlie Day is the resident scientist in any film, all plot goes out the window.

But if you’re here to watch giant robots fight giant monsters to the death, wow. You’re not going to be disappointed. The robots are shiny, the monsters are ferocious.

Aaargh! Kaiju of the Opera!!

An interdimensional portal opens up under the sea floor in the Pacific, and from the portal enters enormous monsters (named ‘Kaiju’) who surface and lay waste to cities such as Japan, US, Hong Kong and Australia. As their appearances increase in frequency, humanity bands together and builds giant robots called Jaegers to fight the Kaijus.

As the Jaegers are starting to prove inefficient under increasing attacks and the Kaijus’ adaptations to their fighting style, the Jaeger program, headed by Stacker Pentecost, decide to use their remaining Jaegers in a last ditch attempt to use a nuclear device to blast and seal the portal.

In the meantime, scientists are trying to study the remains of the monsters in a bid to understand them, and find a way to defeat them once and for all. Will the plan work? What will the scientists find? Do you really care? All you want are great fight scenes between Jaegers and Kaijus, and that you’ll get plenty.

face obscured by shadow. Still a better actor than you.

Unfortunately, the film is let down by the mainly C cast of actors, who really jolt me out of the movie experience everytime they try to emote. It’s especially sad, when among the cast, the best actress is little girl Mana Ashida, who plays young Mako Mori.

The “Tonight, we are cancelling the apocalypse” sounds good in the trailer, but when you listen to the entire speech, it’s out-of-this-world lame.

Rating: 6/10