The other night I watched Event Horizon twice because it's one of my favourite movies and I was drunk. Other people got home when I had just finished so I made them watch it as well. Then I watched Donnie Darko for the thousandth time. Every scene in that movie is well shot and beautiful to watch.
Recently I watched Black Sheep, the NZ horror comedy movie about genetically engineered sheep killing every body. It's not too bad, there's a few funny moments, and the gore is well done. However it didn't blow me away and I thought the Kiwi accents were downplayed a bit too much. That accent cracks me up like no other.
There's a few minor spoilers in this:
The other night I also saw Rogue at the movies. When I first saw the ad I dismissed it out of hand as a piece of shit that I would never waste money on. Then I realised the director is the same as Wolf Creek (Greg Mclean), and I was more than a little intrigued.
If you don't like creature features don't bother. I really liked this film but I know that a lot won't. For a start there is not enough character development, which is always a bad move for a horror movie. If you can't feel for the characters and you're sick like me you just start yelling for them to be murdered brutally. I wasn't quite doing that in this film but I didn't really care when most of the characters died.
John Jarrat (the evil fuck from Wolf Creek and of Better Homes and Gardens) is in this film as well. His character is a lot less psychotic than Wolf Creek but ten times as much a jerk. Whoever played the female lead played her role well and pretty faithfully for what it is.
Ok the CGI is pretty passable. I hate CGI as a rule but it's getting to the stage where it's a lot more convincing, not quite there though. I liked the fact that although the crocodile was pretty big it wasn't a monstrous 50s movie giant. They do grow to like 7 metres so this one wasn't too much of a stretch of the imagination.
I also like the fact that there was no larger than life heroic characters. Every character is probably a bit like someone you know or have met, you can understand how they react mostly. Another thing I liked about the movie was how abruptly it ended. In some movies of this genre it's nothing short of ridiculous how many times the monster comes back to life.
But the best thing about this movie is just how stunning some of the camera work is. If you've seen Wolf creek you already know what you're in for. If Mclean hadn't have decided to make horror movies he could have made a brilliant wildlife and landscape documenter. With a bit of sound effects he is also able to make the most mind-blowing natural landscapes appear foreboding and almost like another character.
Anyone who has been to the Northern Territory will probably notice that the movie boat trip seems to travel through Kakadu, Katherine Gorge, and Adelaide River. That's not geographically possible
