jeffa123 Reviews

Strange Evidence (2017– )

no conclusions

[1/10 · 2 April 2021]

What is this?

It could be a yoyo it might be a burrito .... next video repeat.

Antebellum (2020)

review below, Spoiler Alert

[1/10 · 13 March 2021]

There's a simple way to review this, which provides the rating and story summary in a two word movie title...

Spoiler Alert

you've been warned...

look away now if you don't want to know...

The Village

The Endless (I) (2017)

depends what you look for in a movie

[9/10 · 19 September 2018]

This is not a knock on those giving low ratings. nor applause for those giving high marks

it's acknowledging that people look for different things in film

I'm not surprised to see this getting 8's and 9's and 1's and 2's

if you like fast rollercoasters at 6 Flags; not much in theme, but evokes a strong physical reaction, this might not be for you

if you like Disney rides such as Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain, then you might go for this

slower paced, with abstract themes. some people want to see a beast, others want to imagine it

I dug it, but I like this kind of thing. you may not

The Girl on the Train (2016)

i get some of the negative reviews, but i dug it

[7/10 · 20 October 2016]

many of the negative reviews complain about the slow pace, the language, the sex scenes (tame imo) and so forth. i get that

--spoilers--

to me this isn't a simple story about a missing girl. that's the superficial. look deeper. it's a story about a person falling from her idyllic life into her own personal prison. the one person she thinks she can count on has not only betrayed her in the first place; he uses her alcoholism against her to drive her further into despair.

this is about Rachel's spiral down and ultimate redemption. which, btw, was very well done by Emily Blunt. yadda yadda about a missing girl. nobody likes her anyway. for me, that wasn't the *real point of the story. Rachel is the story

Don't Breathe (2016)

not the best American horror film in 10 years

[2/10 · 20 October 2016]

their claim in the trailer that this is 'the best American horror film in 10 years' caught my ear. enough so that i looked up '1996 horror films' to see what they were referring to. scream came out that year. not sure they were referring to that

--spoilers--

to me, for a film to be 'scary' i have to care about someone in the story. you're scared for them. you can put yourself in their shoes.

this film immediately gives you 3 people to hate. they break into houses and steal stuff. whatever lame back story we're supposed to ingest is lost in the simple fact that these people are common criminals.

totally cliché' triangle between the scummy leader, the hottish girl who's with the bad boy despite her better judgement, and the 'likable' 3rd guy who thinks she can do better (with him).

they decide to break into his house and rob a blind gulf war veteran... who's daughter was also killed in a car accident. these are the 'victims' we're supposed to empathize with. i wanted to shoot them in the face myself. whatever happens to you breaking into someone's house is on you.

so for a minute i was cheering for the blind guy. expect for the fact they already ruined the 'twist' that he too is bad with the opening scene where he's seen dragging a girl by the hair.

so who are we supposed to root for here? the bad guys or the worse bad guy? i hated all of them and couldn't have cared less what happened to any of them. thus not scary.

jump scares with common items is played. don't try to make us jump with a sudden loud noise. lame

and not to mention, how did a blind buy manage to kidnap his daughter's killer and lock her up in the basement without anyone (like the police) thinking to look there? she killed his daughter and now she's missing. should we look in his basement? nah

this only gets a 2 for production quality. it's well made from lighting, sets, etc. but the story is cockamamie.

how about no?

Oculus (2013)

finally a decent haunt film

[8/10 · 13 June 2016]

i don't think it's a spoiler to say this is a haunted object film. you can tell that from the previews

i remember when this came out a couple of years ago wanting to see it, but never did. finally picked it up at the library. they just put R movies right out in the check out area. i wonder if they card kids trying to rent these?

reminds of Sublime (recommended) where your own mind is your worst enemy. also illustrates that what you perceive as reality, is your reality.

jumps back and forth between present time and when the two main characters were kids. i mean like every 2 minutes. but... it works, and it's not that distracting. some clever scene cuts where you the time jump flows as part of the scene transition

as someone who's see a LOT of horror films, i can happily say this one offers something new. mind games the mirror plays make the film

only other thing i was wondering is whether the idea comes from the Mirror of Erised from the Potter films. maybe call this one 'Mirror of Rorroh' ?

The Boy (2016)

spoiler alert: below review summarizes this film in 2 words!!

[3/10 · 8 June 2016]

spoiler: you are warned

film summary: housebound 2

"have you seen 'the boy'?" "no, but i've seen 'housebound'" "so, 'yes' then"

this was going fine until the reveal. then nothing was explained. i have several questions, but who to ask them to?

1. why make greta American? to force lauren cohan to do an American accent? 2. why did he kill the girl? 3. did the parents put him there, or does he choose that? clearly he can come and go if he wanted to 4. the cast list exposes the reveal, do the film makers realize that? 5. what happened to the other nannies? none of them ever mentioned anything to malcolm? 6. why does malcolm just leave on their date night when she doesn't answer the door, when every other time he lets himself in? 7. how did he throw greta 5 feet across the room? clearly he's not athletic 8. you're telling me no one, not a nanny, not malcolm. no plumber, no doctor, no one who ever came to the house ever saw brahms in 20 years. OK 9. none of the other nannies wondered who was eating the leftovers? 10. what about the fire?

so on and so forth

it gets a 3 for everything prior to the reveal

The Martian (2015)

it is what it is

[8/10 · 23 October 2015]

The Martian tonight. have not read the book, so there's no reference point there.Overall entertaining movie. what you might call typical Hollywood fare.

--spoilers--

basic gist: astronaut team has to hastily abandon their mars mission. during the evacuation, botanist Watney (Matt Damon) is believed dead and left.

only he isn't.

remainder of film is a) him figuring out to survive b) everyone else figuring out how and whether to rescue him.

suffers a bit of suspense kill once it becomes apparent they are not going to exchange Watney's life for one of the others. you have this vibe all along, but not too far in you can start guessing what's coming next.

not sure on some of the science. I won't nitpick anything specific. a lot the scenes may remind you of Apollo 13 where people on the ground try ideas on duplicate equipment, they relay directions to Watney.

I actually like the humor, but I know others did not. And for some reason a few IMDb reviewers really wanted Watney to lose his sh** and deep dive into depths of despair. why couldn't he be a problem solver as well?

I gave it 8/10. it is what it is. a glitzy Hollywood bacon cheese burger. not supposed to be a gourmet five course meal.

it's a story about the moral dilemma (not to mention financial) the space programs have faced, and will continue to face if and when we ever go back out there.

I wonder if NASA PR had anything to do with this?

Crimson Peak (2015)

not what it appears to be

[5/10 · 23 October 2015]

OK... Crimson Peak.

--spoilers throughout--

well, first off 'peak' is not a mountain. it's the peak of the clay mining season where red clay seeps through the snow making the snow red.

ghost story. but you know that from the previews. not what it appears though. ever heard of Casper?

lavish sets. lavish wardrobe. solid cgi. it's a polished well made movie.

is it scary? not for me. pop up gags with an accompanying sudden noise just don't really work. when someone is creeping around in a quiet scene, you come to expect some sort of cuckoo clock or tea kettle. when you're expecting it, it doesn't scare you.

once the real story is revealed, you want the ghosts. so despite their gruesome (aka awesome) appearance, they're a welcome site.

pretty slow moving. probably better at the theater. I might have dozed off on the couch.

didn't really need to be 'R'. they'll pay for that at the box office. couple of graphic gore scenes must have been it.

I'll tell you what was weird. it has Jessica Chastain, who was in The Martian, which we just saw the night before. talk about a change in scenery for her! going from an astronaut in space to turn of the century (last century, as in 1900) England. wow

I give it a 5 or 6 out of 10

Feeding Grounds (2006 Video)

let's face it, if a two year old tells you you're ugly, you're ugly

[1/10 · 16 October 2015]

this showed up in one of those bargain bin 'horror packs'

as my tag line implies, some truths are unavoidable and speak for themselves. it took me literally 4 tries to make it through this thing; and it's only barely over 1:15 in length.

that speaks for itself. i would just get bored and doze off. try again the next night. same thing

there was a version of the 'Elephant Man' i saw once as a kid where the guy playing Elephant Man wore absolutely no makeup. he just looked like a normal guy. with no context as to what the real Elephant Man looked like, that version made utterly no sense

same problem here. i get a 'horror' movie trying to let your imagination run wild and picture the creatures, but in this; we don't get anything to go on. some tufts of fur and few bits of goo on the ground and our mind is supposed to supply the terror.

second issue is there are too many characters. too hard to keep track of who's who here. are we supposed to like this guy or that girl. no time to develop back stories. so then, when they start arguing amongst themselves (the creatures affected their minds, i guess?) my reaction was 'stop it! that's so annoying.. and btw, who cares?"

ultimately a jab at meat-eaters where the lone survivor is also the lone vegan. direct quote: "why aren't you sick?".. "because they know i won't eat them"

plot hole: why do the cops come and go and not get lost or eaten?

second plot question: what's the point of the opening sequence with the two lesbian girls?

comes off like a film school project with zero budget for effects. post edit adds a bunch of creature sounds, but this thing barely held my interest. might have been made a better short?

Tales of Halloween (2015)

the next great Halloween tradition

[10/10 · 5 October 2015]

i don't give '10' flippantly. this is a 10

this turned up at the Mile High Horror Film Festival. it plays like a block of shorts in that each tale stands on it's own as a CreepShow style short story. consistent look and feel, and loose tying together though plays like a feature

each vignette has its own hook. don't be alarmed! watch each to the end to have that "aha!" moment

campy, fun, plenty of goo. not really scary in the traditional sense, but very entertaining all the same. more like a haunted house with little jumps and gags here and there

characters overlap as extras from story to story, very clever

mostly practical effects, yay! goo looks like props teams had fun coming up with these gags

recommended!

Ex Machina (2014)

loved it, especially the ending

[10/10 · 24 September 2015]

spoilers throughout

i loved this film. 10 out of 10. that's correct

while others whine about the ending, the ending for me completely made the movie. imo, it ends the only way it *can. not a sappy par Hollywood ending, but a logical necessary ending

my favorite films are those you ponder for days or weeks after. the ones you discuss with friends. this is one of those

the central theme here is: what does it mean to be human?

a necessary first step in AI achieving genuine emotion, and empathy for others, is that it has to first be able to *simulate empathy and emotion

it has to understand real human beings' emotions before it can either simulate, much less acquire them

in this aspect the film is brilliant. ava is ultimately still just a machine. she successfully simulates human emotion to her own end. afaic, that's the *only way this film should end.

in reading some of the other reviews, it appears some people have an issue with the sexual aspects. ava appears nude briefly, and there's some discussion of her design being based on caleb's porn searches.

again... this is spot on. real humans' emotions and behaviors are very strongly influenced when in the presence of a person they find sexually attractive. that's simple biology. this film puts that in your face. caleb is ultimately duped, and behaves against his better judgement because of his primal attraction to ava.

imo, some people are either missing the point of this, or they are in denial. the film exposes some ugly truths about human behaviors and emotions. but guess what, that's who we are

on my short list of all time favorite films

Inside (I) (2006)

puzzling ending

[3/10 · 24 September 2015]

its hard to discuss this at all without immediately getting into spoiler alert. this thing reminds me of many m night shamalan films where the it gets off to such a good start, then the 'twist' lets all the air out of the balloon

this one is that way. first half is very good. keeps you interested and has your mind wandering about many possible story outcomes.

then it takes a turn down a path that only has one logical conclusion, based on the prior evidence

but guess what? it doesn't go there in the end! the way it ends unravels much of the prior story. if *this is it, then none of it fits together without some utterly astronomical coincidences

off to a good start, then falls flat with the incredulous ending

The Nurse (1997)

plain vanilla ice cream, the store brand

[2/10 · 18 September 2015]

this showed up in one of those $5 horror movie sets you can get a wal- mart

it smacks of lifetime movie of the week, other than a couple of 'f' words here and there

totally vanilla horror/thriller. it's like a betty crocker cake mix version of a movie: 1. open with cursory detail-devoid back story 2. token scene to show villain started out normal, but was driven to kill by actions of others, who become the target 3. misdirected murder/suicide (why the wife and son???) 4. deus ex machina (contrived plot device) event to disable the culprit 5. materialize convenient opportunity for revenge 6. preposterous hiring/back ground checking 7. suspicious daughter, heightened by repeated gaffs from killer 8. love triangles 9. dramatic showdown where killer gets whats coming to her 10. everyone lives happily ever after

the only thing missing was the false death where they think the killer is dead and then pops back up. but other than that this follows a tried and true recipe for 'generic thriller'. you'll forget everything about it 10 minutes later

next

Unfriended (2014)

4 for an original idea, but that's about it

[4/10 · 9 September 2015]

it's hard to come up with anything new in the horror genre. this gets a 4 for inventing a new format. 90 minutes of snagit screen capture with a fixed camera angle

all action occurs within a bunch of windows spawned by social media / web browser. everything from skype to fb/messenger, to youtube, to iMessage, etc. the tech seems believable enough, although you have digest a 'presence' making a computer do something it's not programmed to do; and these people can sure type fast

-spoilers-

OK... story itself. let me sum it up. this is the 2014 version of a 50's classroom scare film. topic: cyberbullying and online positngs

drunk girl in embarrassing youtube video. girl kills herself in second online video. one year later, surviving 'friends' are joined in skyp chat by mysterious presence claiming to be dead girl

it's puzzling that they left in 5 seconds of sex and a few F bombs enough to warrant an R rating when clearly the target audience for this is middle school and early high school

hour and a half of "don't do that" finger waving, ala It Follows. i happened to like It Follows for the cinematography, editing and sound; but hated the story as a thinly veiled std warning. same thing here. this is nothing but 90 minutes of be-careful-what-you- post-because-it-will-be-there-forever!

there's also no one to root for here. they all have skeletons. the 'person' claiming to the dead girl draws the ugly truth out of each of them to the shock and dismay of the others. by the end, you don't like any of them; so who's to root for?

acting not bad for 20 year olds playing high schoolers. in particular the girl playing blaire. we'll see her again no doubt

kill shots are brief and grainy (recall everything is a skype window). can't tell the quality of the effects, but you get the point

big story hole in why: "just unplug the g.d. thing!" (war games). all they had to do was stop doing what they were doing. maybe all go to one place, like the police station? didn't make a lot of sense to just sit there and take (yes, i know what they were told, but still... just unhook the computer!)

if you're over 15, then you're not the target audience, which as i mentioned, makes the R rating puzzling

so, kudos for a new format. boo for story

Night of the Naked Dead (2012)

title dupe

[1/10 · 1 September 2015]

i don't mind watching poorly made movies. they're usually entertaining in their own right. what i do mind is a title/cover intended to dupe the viewer.

'night of the naked dead' implies 'night of the living dead' (aka zombies), but they're naked. this has neither

--spoilers--

what you do have is a poorly written ghost story about two people who died in the 50's coming back to the house where it happened (well, near by, in 'the marshes')

the girl is naked when she shows up on the porch. it's a poorly backlit shot of her for 2 seconds. that's it

as for 'the dead'... it's her and the guy who killed her the first time posing as a cop. those are the two dead people. they look normal, just act odd

i can't tell whether the two leads are any good, because the dialog they gave them is atrocious. the girl has an irish/Scottish accent (i guess?) but its very inconsistent. either she is irish/Scottish and is trying to hide her accent; or she's not and is trying to act the accent? either way she sounds off the whole time

i do applaud the casting director for getting very average looking people. no super models here. the lead guy looks like someone from your softball league.

there's randomly cut scenes (literally appear at random) of a bizarre stuffed-animal fetish girl laughing insanely into the camera that for the love of pete i have no idea her purpose

then there's the two creepy old guys who appear out of nowhere; one of them nude for no apparent reason.

slow, dumb, boring, unoriginal. poorly lit and poorly edited.

something smells... and i think its this movie!

Hotel (2001)

no

[2/10 · 8 May 2015]

when the local Hollywood video went out a few years ago this was in a pile of horror films. i grabbed a stack of about 15 without really looking at the titles. grab bag!

finally got around to watching it the other day

there's no point to this. there's no story. it's just a bunch of vignettes that somewhat relate to each other. very abstract. not for everyone

the only thing 'horror' about it was a couple of human arms and legs hanging in the kitchen prep area

i get what they were going for: artsy abstract film. try to make the viewer do the work in piecing it all together

for me, it was doo-doo

Blindness (2008)

contrived, pessimistic, unrealistic

[1/10 · 24 April 2015]

this turned up in a horror collection box set. "eerie encounters"

i absolutely hated this movie. i've never wanted to crawl into the TV and smack someone in face more than i did the main character played by julianne moore. in a world gone blind, and you're the only one left with vision, why do you do what you do? which is: nothing

the acting and whatnot is fine. it has a decent cast. the ruined city shots took some money and effort. yay, that's all great

but.. the thing that renders this near unwatchable is the story itself. its another metaphoric dystopian tale ala snow piercer where the back story is just a vehicle for the writer to expose his utter disdain for humanity. is this how he really thinks things would go down?

its a complete affront to real blind people. just because you're blind doesn't mean you're going to walk around nude and pee on the floor

so, spoiler alert, here we go

film is set in non-descript south American (?) country. maybe brazil. everyone speaks English except for an Asian couple who is biligual. the Asian guy is the first victim. he suddenly goes white blind (ie: he sees only bright white light rather than complete darkness.) here's your first hint of biblical overtone as to the cause of the blindness.

someone steals his car, then he goes blind. eventually enough people have contracted the 'white sickness' that the now martial law government hastily quarantines all the afflicted into what appears to be an abandoned hospital of some sort.

and here's where the thing immediately nose-dives. 1) there is absolutely zero official administration or other supervisory presence in the facility. it's a literally a dumping ground where all of the afflicted are left to fend for themselves. 2) anyone who doesn't comply is shot. there are guards, but they're not there to help anyone, just shoot those who don't conform 3) the one person who can see feels compelled to keep it a secret. for god's sake, why?

you're going to hate her. why in the name of all things logical is she afraid of a blind guy with a gun. clue: he can't see you. she not only allows, but leads, a group of women from her block to the thug block to allow all of them including herself to be raped in exchange for food. here's an idea, grab the gun and shoot him and the other thug leaders. done.

why. why does she have to pretend to be blind, even to blind people. this makes no sense. why would the guards shoot her if they found out she can see? they should rejoice. yay! you're immune. let's get some doctors over here right now and study your blood to see why you're immune. and since you're immune, we'll pay you to help take care of everyone in quarantine.

nope. use the back story to show your disdain for humans. show how you predict people will devolve into animals within a few weeks. show how everyone except for the one with vision and her chosen few will be unable to survive the adversity.

then at the very end, have the first guys vision return to show that he is now cleansed by god(?)

maybe the book goes into more story development, especially timewise. all of this happens within a few weeks, not years. the state of the world when they finally escape the hospital is more like what you would expect after years of everyone living blind, not a few weeks

all in all i found it unrealistic, extremely pessimistic and contrived. i hated the julianne moore character more than anyone. she totally wastes her immunity to the blindness. and maybe that's the point?

The Giving Tree (2000)

lifetime or abc family fare - not a horror movie!

[1/10 · 21 April 2015]

if you're like me and come to IMDb to check ratings for movies found in the $5 dollar bin 10 movie horror collections, then i can stop you right here. despite it's inclusion in "10-Film Horror Pack V.3", this is *not* a horror movie. it's more like lifetime or abc family movie of the week. also note that it has at least 3 titles: "giving tree", "brutal truth" and "shaded places"

as for the film itself, regardless whether it's mislabled as a horror, it's a really bad film. i can't recall anything i've seen in any genre that was less compelling than this. my two word review is "who cares!?"

there are too many characters with too many back stories to get into any level of development. you get a few lines here and few lines there that are supposed to make you care about these people

the premise is too contrived. **spolier** a bunch of high school friends are invited to one of the girl's mountain house (years later) for a reunion. they all show up and then she hangs herself in the front yard. they put her body in the barn and then spend the next several days talking about her and each of their relationships with her. zzzzzzzzz. 90 minutes or whatever it was felt like about 5 hours.

it has an annoying hipster soundtrack cut in between and/or over every scene.

then there's the peculiar subplot of them kidnapping the blind neighbor's dog, only to have it accidentally die. blind neighbor is the principal from breakfast club.

at the end you finally see what you knew was coming all along... the story line that ties it all together. someone else on here said: watch the first 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes and that's all you really need. i agree

all in all for me a complete waste of time. i didn't like anything about this film

It Follows (2014)

vintage, but not too scary

[8/10 · 4 April 2015]

being as i'm off today and no one else is home, naturally I went to the 10:00am (that's correct, am) showing of It Follows. touted by some as 'the scariest movie in 10 years'

not

I will say this though. only those who have seen a lot of horror movies, especially those from the 70's and 80's such as Exorcist, Shining, Omen, original Evil Dead and so forth will appreciate the retro style here.

hats off to the cinematographer and director for use of old school 360° pans, camera following behind person, eye level car rides slightly sped with no vehicle reference point (ala evil dead in the woods, but from a car)

the soundtrack was like something straight off of Halloween or Friday the 13th.

story time period is cleverly disguised behind vintage TV sets, cars, furniture and what not. you even see corded phones. the only give away that this is later than you think is one girl has a little clam shaped e-reader of some sort. very well done ambiguous time setting

now, as for the story... a demon inhabits people and follows the latest affected victim. as in literally follows them around at walking dead zombie pace. the trick is, it can change form (always a person), so you're never quite sure.

you 'pass' the curse through sex (what else?) don't worry, strictly pg-13, which is odd because the movie is R. anyway, the other person starts being followed, but previous victims continue to see "it" (no one else sees it). if it catches you, you die, and then it returns to following the prior person

well made from the nostalgia of the retro styling, but *far from the scariest film in the last 10 years, or ever

I would describe the ending as "It Follows 2"

Snowpiercer (2013)

don't be fooled... this is terrible

[1/10 · 8 February 2015]

don't be fooled by the list of awards this thing supposedly won nor the average rating of 7, this is a really terrible film

the problem with the dystopian genre in general is that the backdrops for the film maker's social commentary are so far-fetched that whatever message they have is lost in the deluge of preposterous plot holes. this one is the worst so far.

--spoilers head--

the entire remaining world population lives on a train. quaint. we get it, you like trains. the train is powered by a perpetual engine. uhh... OK... couldn't you just use that same technology to live in buildings? why a train? you're one broken track from derailing

you have entire train cars devoted to luxurious living of the well off. sauna car, hot tub car. night club car. and yet precious few cars devoted to sustaining an enclosed eco-system. one fish tank / aquarium (which btw... serves sushi twice per yer, yay!) one greenery car. where's the distillery/brewery for a the coctails we see the elite drinking?).

the idea that this is a self-sustaining enclosed eco-system dooms the credibility of everything else

this message about caste and everyone in their place is blunt and tiresome. nothing new here. we've seen this theme in a dozen other science devoid post-apocolyptic films

some of the performances might have been good, but they are utterly wasted on a premise so cockamamie that the entire thing cannot be regarded as anything above trite drivel

Salvage (2006)

nice little indie - tucked away in one of those horror sets

[9/10 · 5 February 2015]

i love picking up those horror collector sets out of the clearance bins. 5 bucks for 8 or 10 movies. majority of them are strictly B fare... as in bush! entertaining in their own right, but usually pretty forgettable

but... this one was a hidden little gem. well worth the watch. production values are decent; acting is good enough; but its the original story idea that i loved. kept me guessing most of the way through

at least... its not a story idea that i've seen yet, and i've seen hundreds of these. seems like something someone would have done by now

hats off to the writers for coming up with something new

Divergent (2014)

preposterous premise preteen poopoo

[1/10 · 6 August 2014]

this film is not recommended for adults. another dystopian hero's journey with the teen girl lead falling for the unlikely seems-like-a-bad-boy-at-first-but-turns-out-to-be-worthy-co-hero. hokey, incredulous, cliché'd, sleep inducer clocking in at 2+ hours. problems arise immediately with the ridiculous back story. world war, world destruction, except chicago, 5 factions. you're born into a faction, but you can choose another. if you flunk out your're now factionless, directly contradicting the stated goals of the factions. something is beyond the 300 foot high wall/fence (necessitating the wall), but whatever it is ignores the farmers faction (they farm outside the wall.) new founding fathers. new world order. tired devolution film lacking any credibility. yawn. nothing new here

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

no credibility

[1/10 · 20 July 2014]

the purge concept is little more than demonaco's racist/caste genocide fantasy. solve society's problems by eliminating {insert group name here}. the thing is laden with 100's of plot holes and burdened by a tiresome load of clichéd plot devices. exhibit 1: why would a group (white) with the 'right' to kill anyone they want spend the whole night trying to break into a house to go after one guy (black)? exhibit 2: why would anyone be out driving around 30 minutes before the purge starts? so that their car can break down on a bridge stranding them. the intended 'social commentary' cannot be regarded with any credibility. i'm bored with these social de-evolution films (hunger games and elysium come to mind). these scenarios would NEVER happen. let me restate that. these scenarios would *NEVER* happen. again... once more for clarity.... **NEVER** **HAPPEN**. is that clear demonaco? this scenario would *never* happen, so whatever you try to do in the film socially becomes utterly meaningless. there can be no political statement, no social commentary, no speculation on the future state of society because your concept is so cockamamie it simply cannot be regarded as anything but utter drivel. i love horror. i love sci-fi. i have over 500 horror and sci-fi films in my collection. good ones. bad ones. campy ones. the difference between those absurd premises and the purge premise is that those are *supposed to be taken tongue in cheek. we know they're stupid with stupid characters and tired plot devices. that's part of the fun! demonaco though doesn't seem to want us to have fun and get a few chuckles. he seems to want us to take his pile of doo serious, as if it could really happen. and that's where you fail demonaco. i dub this series "assault on intelligence"

The Purge (I) (2013)

premise problems

[1/10 · 19 March 2014]

my main issue with 'the purge' is the utter unbelievability of the entire premise. all crime is legal for 12 hours? this is supposed to reduce crime the rest of the year by giving people one night per year to vent? if your house were invaded and destroyed by the neighbors; and members of your family were killed in the name of 'the purge' i doubt you would have a very good time at the next culdesac barbecue. you would be enraged. and the next purge, what would you do? go on your own rampage? where does this cycle end? here's what you could do: go rob a bank; or empty the lottery ticket bins at the nearest 7-11. if anyone tries to stop you, shoot 'em. crime is legal after all. go kill all your co-workers. no stupid project to go back to. see where this is going? 12 hours is enough time to devastate society. their only disclaimer in the film is you can't use specific weapons above a certain rating; and you can't go after government officials. it doesn't say anything about your boss. why not wipe out your rival businesses. now you're a monopoly. how about killing off the rival sports team? league champs! there's so many things that would go wrong with 'all crime is legal for 12 hours' that it would NEVER EVER be implemented as an actual law. and this thing was supposed to be in 2022. thats 8 years from now, and that was with it already in place a few times. come on. what you have here is some twisted writers genocide fantasy. how can you reduce poverty and unemployment? kill off the impoverished and unemployed. problem solved. really? this movie sucked in every way. it doesn't make any sense. the boyfriend scene? how does that work? why does the angry mob waste their precious 12 hours trying to go after 1 guy, when they can go wipe out all the 'swine' they want? why not drive up to canada; or Mexico for the night? why even be home that night? NOTHING about this makes any sense.