Horror Movie 2012: Barricade

This movie really shocked me.  Not by what actually happened in the movie, but by how good it really was.  I don’t know why I’m so surprised. It being a WWE production should have tipped me off that it would be nothing but extraordinary.  This movie was pretty much The Shining, but without the terrifying Shelly Duval and that punk bitch Danny.   Barricade was full of twists and turns.  The story was lots of fun.  A father and his two kids drive up the mountain to stay in a cabin for the holidays.  And much like any other horror movie, the mother had recently died by innocently falling over and hitting her head on the wall (Like we didn’t see that coming.)  So they wanted to get away and just enjoy each other’s company.  That’s exactly what they did until the son gets a mild cold.  When the kids gets a little sick that’s when they need to stop playing and go to the hospital.  But when they went inside to put some going-to-the-hospital clothes on, their car gets completely covered in snow.  Probably because the girl took forever to choose the right pants to go with her winter coat. And then they start seeing things outside the window and freak out and barricade themselves in the cabin.  Long story short, the dad took his pills with alcohol and it was him all along, and then it ended. 

In all seriousness, this movie was a lot of fun to watch. It kept you wondering the whole movie.  The big problem was that the ending was too easy.  Nothing was wrong the whole time.  It was all in his head. And for that reason I only gave this movie a 55 out of 100 stars. 

One more thing, I would like to retract what I said about child actors in my last post.  The kids in this movie were very impressive.  They were no Caulkins or Joshes from Heavywieghts, but they were very good.  So what I am trying to say is that not all child actors suck, just most of them.

Horror Movie 2012: The Tooth Fairy

As October approached this year, I put a lot of thought into what movies I was going to watch for the 31 days of horror.  That’s not true I didn’t even think about it until the 1^st.  That is why I started the month off with such a stinker.  The Tooth Fairy is the movie I chose to watch first.  And much like the presidential debate, I didn’t care for it.  I know what you’re thinking, “But The Rock would never agree to be in a bad movie.” But it isn’t that tooth fairy.  It’s a much more horrifying and poorly made tooth fairy. It made me wonder what happened to all the great child actors of the 80’s and 90’s.  What happened to the Kevin McAllister’s, the Cory Matthews’, the Joshes from Heavyweights?  The young girl in this movie was almost as bad an actor as the rest of the cast.  I keep wondering where these people get their money to make a movie, obviously they didn’t spend much on the actors.  The movie in and of itself… Well it was bad too. The only good scene in the movie happens when a farm hand fixes a wood chipper that has been out of commission for years.  As you might have expected, he get knocked out, tied to a board, and pushed through.  This poor man had to die a really cool death just because some snot nosed little brat lost her last tooth.  Several other people died in the process, but none of them went out quite as memorably as the farm hand.  In the end, I was really disappointed in myself for not putting more thought into this.  One word of advice before I go, if you want to choose a horror movie from home, use netflix, not hulu plus.  Hulu plus has its perks, but when it comes to horror movies, netflix takes the cake.  My rating for this movie is 9 out of 100 stars.  And I rounded the 9 up.

Follow Your Dreams

So its come to this.  Another year past, a new one begins.  When I look back and analyze what I have accomplished this past year, it’s bleak.  I ask myself if I am any further along in accomplishing my goals. I am not.  I decided that this year will be different. But instead of boring you all with my own story, I have decided to throw out a few pointers on how to make your path a little easier.  I don’t believe that any of us are completely content with where we are in life so I gathered some thoughts that might help everyone.

1.              Don’t Get Too Comfortable.

·      Sometimes in life we all find a place that we are comfortable with.  I say move along.  Did Voldemort sit back and say he was ok with only being the second strongest wizard in the world? No! He went out there and had someone kill Dumbledore for him. Did Rocky sit back and live life merely as a beloved boxing legend after he was defeated by Clubber? No! He wanted to but Apollo wouldn’t let him.  And he was better for it.  We all know what we want, and we all need to get out there and earn it.

2.              Find a New Hobby.

·      At some point in our lives, we have found something that we love to do.  For me it is watching baseball on TV while I am taking a nap.  Perhaps for you, it is judging people who ride public transportation, or maybe its gun shopping. While that is all good and fine, we need to get out there and find something new.  When you start a new chapter in life you may find something that can catapult you within inches of achieving your goal.  Whether it be through new people you meet, or something as simple as a new experience that reignites a flame that once burned deep in your soul.

3.              Never GiveUp.

·      After about a day of pursuing my dream, I feel like I have done a lot and deserve a break.  I wake up the next morning with the intentions of building on what I had done the day before, but when the alarm goes off I decide that I deserve a year off.  When in all reality, I have done nothing, but I take the year off anyway.  You don’t deserve a break until you have gained something.  One step isn’t enough; it’s a start.  Lots of people start something worth starting and never finish.  So don’t stop until you finish.  Even if it seems impossible.  I never thought I would be able to read or write, but here I am.

4.              Don’t Have a Stupid Dream.

·      Lastly, and most importantly, don’t have a stupid dream.  Don’t have a dream of getting an OK job to support a family that you might have one day.  When you were a kid you didn’t want to be manager of a Starbucks.  You wanted to be an astronaut, or a garbage man. Don’t get me wrong, being the manager of Starbucks is great, we all need some money to pursue our dreams.  But don’t ever be content with what you have.  There is always going to be something better out there.  Even if it is writing a blog after work, or breeding and selling dogs on the weekends. Whatever you want to do. 

So my point wasn’t to discourage people who have steady jobs, but to dig up a dream you once had and light a fire under your butts.  What you have isn’t bad, but it could be better.

Sincerely

Rage

31 Days of Horror: Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary.  The soil of a man’s heart is stonier.  Creepy Indian burial grounds, cats, Herman Munster, and spinal meningitis.  This combination makes for one incredible movie.  This movie is full of people and animals rising from the dead, incredibly disturbing sister-monsters, and people getting hit by trucks while they are jogging.  Still the most disturbing part of this movie is when the cat dies.  It gets me every time.  Did they just kill the cat for the movie? Either they killed the cat or they got the Tom Hanks of cats because he is one heck of an actor. This movie does a good job of showing you that children will make you lose your mind. But no matter how crazy you are, you will never get along with the dead unless you are dead too. The best part of this movie is when the baby boy shows how much he wants to be like his father by playing doctor with the neighbor.  Like father like son. It truly is heart warming.  Because of Gage’s last second attempt at being a playful kid, I give this movie respectable 7 out of 10 stars. I want to leave you with one last word of advice. Remember, sometimes dead is better.

31 Days of Horror: Black Swan

Black Swan.  I initially wasn’t planning on allowing this to be one of the 31 days of horror, however, after I started watching it I realized that this has all of the classic traits of a horror film.  It’s got it all; mystery, suspense, disturbing images, and a girl turning into a swan.  Not to mention guys in tights.  Wasn’t it weird when Natalie Portman’s legs turn into bird legs?  That’s when I knew this movie was a horror movie.  I like how this movie answers the thousand-year-old question.  What do you have to do to take your ballet skills to the next level? You have to lose yourself and go completely crazy.  Seriously, nothing can make any sense.  It makes me wonder if I can take whatever I do to the next level if I lose my mind.  Maybe some day we will all find out.  This movie also proves once and for that no matter what you do backstage, ballet is still going to be just awful. Although the ballet was boring, the movie was actually quite interesting. I give this move a 7.9 out of 10.

31 Days of Horror: Scream 4

Scream 4.  The one where Mr. and Mrs. ex-Cox-Arquette struggle to act like their marriage is struggling on set while at home their marriage really was struggling.  I can see why a guy would use a knife to murder all of those people.  No one can shoot the broad side of a barn in Hollywood except Tom Selleck in Quigley Down Under.  Why is it that no one can shoot a person from 20 feet away if their life or the life of the person who is getting stabbed to death depended on it?  The thing that bothered me the most, however, was that Hayden Panettiere didn’t die in the first scene of the movie.  What was with her?  She is supposed to be a girl in high school and yet she always looks like she is on her way to the courtroom.  Her weird t-shirt/pant suit combinations along with her reverse mullet make her look like another 40-year-old Courtney Cox.  This movie was interesting in the way that it made fun of something just like the Scream series and yet it tried to make it serious at the same time.  I can’t say that it was good.  So I decided to give this film a 3.4 out of 10 stars.

31 Days of Horror: The Thing

The Thing.  The movie where Kurt Russell looks macho.  How about that one alien who can take over an entire human race?  That is pretty unbelievable.  But what is more unbelievable is Dr. Blair’s computer that predicted that an alien could take over the entire world population in 27,000 hours.  It’s hard to believe that they had anything back then that our app store doesn’t have now. I’m not claiming that Kurt Russell couldn’t have predicted that, but no computer would have had the balls to say something like that.  But I digress.  Do you remember when that guys stomach turned into a big mouth and then bit the Doc’s arms off?  And then that guys head turned into a giant head spider that almost sneaks out unnoticed.  Those are the types of things that make John Carpenter stand out.  Only a guy who really knew what good cinema was would think of making a guys stomach turn into a mouth that then bites off a guys arms.  I don’t exactly know what The Thing was, but I know that it was one crazy monster that could bite your arms off.   I think the scariest part of this show is the unknown.  The only thing we know about The Thing is it can replicate any living thing and it can bite your arms off.  I think I would rather have it bite my head off then my arms.  If I didn’t have any arms I would just die. But again, I digress.  This movie kept me on the edge of my seat.  It makes you think.  Because it was so much fun to watch, I give The Thing a rating of 7.6 out of 10 stars.