Mother's Day (2010) Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman

Yet another remake of an 80's horror, this could only be bad, right?
The plot:
A couple have recently moved into a new house and seem to be throwing some kind of birthday party, so their disgustingly attractive friends are around.
Meantime, three brothers are in a spot of bother. One's been shot in a bank heist gone wrong, badly, and is going to die, so they decide to head back to the family home which is, yep, you guessed it, the very same home the new couple have moved into. Once there, all manner of threats ensue as they take control, then call for Mother to tell them what to do next.
Enter stage right Rebecca 'Hand That Rocks the Cradle' De Mornay to pull her mad as a bucket of frogs schtick.
And it's pretty nasty, and pretty violent, which is no surprise since director Bousman also directed Saws 2,3 and 4.
Thing is - and this is a big problem for me - it's 112 minutes long.
What the fuck?
This is an exploitation movie. Why on Earth is it so long? 90 minutes tops, people which, coincidentally is the precise run time of the original, a movie I am yet to see but which, by all accounts, is not very good at all.
So here we have it.
2011.
They've remade all of the decent horror from the 70's and 80's - well, maybe not The Exorcist or Hellraiser, but they can't be too far away - so now they are turning to the mediocre.
Save for one pretty entertainingly disturbing scene next to a cash machine (I won't spoil it, but it is nice and twisted, and shows Bousman's Saw related heritage) this is not even deserving of the accolade average.
Boring.

2 out of 5

Bad Taste (1987) Dir: Peter Jackson

Peter Jackson is now world renowned as the Oscar winning director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy but, way before his rise to multiplex filling prominence, he was just a splatter fiend from NZ.
The plot:
Somewhere in rural New Zealand, an entire town, population around 75, has disappeared. A team of pretty inept investigators are on scene and discover that the citizens have been chopped up and boxed up by some form of intergalactic alien race to replenish their own version of MacDonald's, and only they can stop the menace from spreading.
Very silly, very gory and quite, quite nasty, this is gonzo, guerrilla film-making with bags of energy.
Jackson himself stars as the clumsy Derek who foolishly falls off a cliff whilst battling some alien nasties, and smashes his skull open, spending the rest of the movie having to pop bits of his own brain back in to keep him functioning properly.
With lashings of gore, and I mean really, really icky gore, this is a genuine cult classic that Jackson would go on to better with 1992's Braindead.
An amateur New Zealand gore movie that manages to be more engaging than most Hollywood horror?
Now there's a surprise.....

4 out of 5

1408 (2007) Dir: Mikael Håfström

Based on a short story from Stephen King, initially released only in audiobook form, annoyingly, this starts out rather promisingly.
The plot:
The always interesting John Cusack plays Michael Enslin, a writer of paranormal tales rooted in genuine research. His style is based on visiting famous haunted locations, and reporting on how and why they are actually not haunted.
Coming from a sceptical point of view, Enslin feels that he is invulnerable to the paranormal until, one day, he checks into room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel in New York and, before even an hour is through, he is stark raving mad, seeing phantoms of his deceased daughter and, most traumatically of all, hearing The Carpenter's on a permanent loop.
How ghastly.
Swedish director Mikael Håfström crafts an interesting tale, though one that does veer towards the ridiculous towards the end.
After an initial promising build up, and some moments of genuine fright, we drift into the surreal and, much like this year's Insidious, it quickly loses any sense of menace, instead leaving you goggling at the screen at the preposterousness of what's happening.
Still, Cusack is always an engaging on screen presence, and the tale does just about have the momentum to carry through to the end, but this is no classic.
Average fright fodder.

3 out of 5

Toy Story 3 (2010) Dir: Lee Unkrich

The best of the Toy Story movies and, it must be said, one of the best third parts in any movie franchise, with the movies getting stronger as the series progressed.
The plot:
Andy's all grown up now, 17, and heading off to college. His mom instructs him to sort out his room before he leaves, take what he wants with him, store what he wants to keep in the attic and junk the rest. Intending to keep Woody with him, and store all the other toys, his mother misunderstands and mistakenly sends the bag with the toys out for the bin men to collect.
So begins a rollercoaster ride as Woody tracks them down and tries to convince them to return home. Along the way, they'll be imprisoned, be menaced by a giant baby-thing and a large purple bear, and slide inexorably towards a fiery pit of death.
With lashings of humour, this is multi-layered to the point that it is almost like two films are playing at once; one for the growed ups, and one for the kids.
The sentimental stuff is dealt with wonderfully well - at no point is the bile gland ever activated.
With some genuinely heart-plucking moments, an ending so riven with pathos, seriously, if you aren't touched you have no fucking soul, and a really fantastic cameo from Studio Gibli's Totoro, John Lasseter paying due deference to Miyazaki, as well he should.
Don't be put off by the thought that these are kids films.
They are that, but much more besides.
Loved this.

5 out of 5

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Dir: Frank Darabont

I'll let you in on a secret.
I have avoided watching this movie simply because I was sick and tired of being told how fantastic it is.
I was sick to the back teeth of the hype, of the fact that it is at #1 on IMDB, by the film critics banging on about it in a seemingly endless back-slap-a-thon that brought tears flowing out of my ears, such was the build up of pressure in my cranium.
But you know what?
It's bloody great.
I'll forsake the usual plot details here as, frankly, if you don't know what this is about by now, you're really not trying. Suffice to say there's a whole bunch of time spent in Shawshank, then we get fifteen minutes or so of redemption at the end.
The performances all round are exceptional, the stand out for me being Morgan Freeman, just slightly ahead of Tim Robbins.
But the real star turn here is by Frank Darabont, writer director and all round good egg, he seems to have a real passion for the writings of Stephen King (he also directed The Green Mile and the stunning The Mist), on whose short story this is based.
Compelling, funny, violent, harrowing, heart-warming (though in a good way), this is complex and riveting from start to finish and, frankly, I now feel I have wasted 17 years of my life that could have been spent watching this every few months.
Magical stuff.

5 out of 5

Toy Story 2 (1999) Dir: John Lasseter, Ash Brannon, Lee Unkrich

Four years in the making, this sequel to 1995's Toy Story is a more mature, more ambitious affair.
The plot:
A toy collector steals Woody from a yard sale, knowing something that Andy and his mom clearly do not: the cowboy toy is actually valuable, being the only piece missing from his collection associated to an old TV show and, with Woody now procured, he is set to make a mint.
But Andy's toys are having none of it, and set off on a quest to rescue their friend from the thieving collector's clutches.
With more thrills and spills than the original, and the blessed relief of only one fucking song, this seems altogether more accomplished.
Laugh out loud funny at times, even for adults, the creators chuck plenty of entertainment at the screen, including some knowing nods for movie buffs, my personal favourite being the Jurassic Park reference as Rex chases the toy car.
With a great plot, a cast of characters you can't help but like and an excellent script, this can't help but entertain.

4 out of 5

Toy Story (1995) Dir: John Lasseter

Pixar's breakthrough smash hit is a sentimental, though reasonably engaging affair.
The plot:
Woody is a toy cowboy whose owner, Andy, receives a birthday gift of Buzz Lightyear, a swanky, confident spaceman, with wings, a laser beam and communications systems.
Understandably, Woody is concerned that, with Lightyear in the picture, he will be cast aside with all the other unwanted toys.
And it is really enjoyable.
Pixar somehow manage to walk that line between sentimental cosiness and puke inducing saccharine, always staying just this side of acceptable, their movies feeling warm and lovely rather than racking you with stomach cramps.
Even the presence on lead voice of Tom 'despicable entity' Hanks can't ruin this one.
Not perfect - the songs are a little hard to take - this is nevertheless a confident, engaging introduction to the creative powerhouse that Pixar would swiftly become.

3 out of 5