RIGOR MORTIS (aka Gueng si)

Rigor Mortis Movie Review

A down on his luck actor finds himself living in public housing in Hong Kong. After he fails to commit suicide he finds the building also houses ghosts, vampires, and zombies. After a quick read I discovered this movie pays homage to Chinese vampire movies of the 1980s, so I have that genre to look into now. This film starts out slow but soon picks up and packs the weirdness one might expect from an Asian horror film.

See...weird!

The story itself reminds me in many ways of Day Watch and Night Watch, which takes away from any points it would earn for originality, but hey, if you're going to steal borrow from a movie, those are pretty good choices. 

There two might remind you of another movie too

There is a tremendous amount of blood and gore, and some scenes are so graphic they border on disturbing. The film is shot wonderfully as well, and if you're into martial arts films, there's some of that thrown in for good measure. The ending is one you may not see coming, but this is an example of a twist ending taking the air out of everything leading up to it...and it's been done to several times already. That said, Rigor Mortis is a very interesting, intense film, and, assuming you are not completely anti-subtitles, you should check it out.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 7

Rigor Mortis Movie Trailer

KNOWING

Knowing Movie Review

Fifty years after an elementary school class leaves a time capsule filled with their visions of the future, it is discovered one girls paper, which appears to be just a random numbers, is actually a series of numbers predicting disasters that would occur over the next fifty years. This 2009 Nicholas Cage film isn't so much horror as it is a sci-fi big screen disaster movie, but I feel it has enough horror elements to warrant an addition to this site.

This would give me nightmares

The underlying question in this film: is everything predetermined, where every little thing in life leads to the present, or is everything random? Sooo....smoking a joint before watching might not be the worst thing you could do. The acting is...well, it's almost all Cage and Chandler Canterbury, who plays Cage's son Caleb--you know what to expect from Cage, and Canterbury is pretty unbearable. An actress horror fans are very aware of, Rose Byrne (Insidious, 28 Weeks Later), stops in about midway through the film as well. The effects are very CGI laden, to very mixed results.

This one is particularly good

Another debate in this film is angels or aliens? I know where I stand on this, but I won't make an argument here. The lead up to the ending is actually pretty good, but the actual ending falls flat. Knowing is one of those films that hit the box office, did fairly well, but didn't set the world on fire...

Or did it?

...and was a decent movie, but one that ultimately is forgettable, having been surpassed in many ways by several similar but better outings--still, this is a movie worth checking out--just be sure you have a bowl of popcorn (and possibly a bong) in hand.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 6

Knowing Movie Trailer

STRANGER THINGS (Season One)

Stranger Things Season One Review

It has occurred to me that in the X number of years I have been doing this site I have never reviewed a television show, so on this Thursday night, in honor of the social media theme related to this day, lets look at a TV show that throws things back to the 1980's: Stranger Things. After a middle school aged boy disappears in a small Indiana town, his group of friends, his mother, and the police department go looking for him. Along the way they uncover government secrets and experiments, mysteries, a monster, and a little girl who possesses incredible powers.

Her...yes, this is a girl...I think...

This Netflix original series is a wonderful blend of horror, science fiction, a dash of comedy, and a Twilight Zone creepiness. There isn't really a great deal of gore, but the suspense throughout the season more than makes up for this. For the most part the acting is good--even the children, believe it or not. Some of the teenagers turn in questionable performances, and they certainly could have casted a better actor for the sheriff. The biggest name attached to the show is 1990s icon Winona Ryder--Gen Xers, be warned--seeing Winona at this age, and playing the mother of a high school kid, may be a shock to the system.

My thoughts exactly

The show isn't entirely original--it borrows a bit from Insidious, and its nods to Poltergeist, E.T., IT, and A Nightmare On Elm Street are anything but subtle. As for the 1980s, they really nailed the look and feel of an 80s horror film, and the selection of music is fantastic--you can't go wrong with The Clash, Joy Division, and New Order, but it can be distracting when a show set in 1983 plays a song that wasn't recorded until 1987.

Specifically, this song

But hey, we all love The Bangles, so this can be overlooked. Overall, Stranger Things breaths fresh air into a genre of television show that is rarely good, or even interesting for that matter--a better ending could have done wonders with how the show (or at least the first season) will be remembered. While season two has not been announced officially as of this moment, one can only assume it's inevitable, and one can only hope they maintain the momentum of season one.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 8

Stranger Things Season One Trailer