Ruptured Review: Shark Night 3D

Country of origin- U.S.A 
Year of release- 2011 
Director- David R. Ellis
Stars- Sara Paxton, Dustin Milligan, Chris Carmack

Let me preface this review by saying I didn’t see this film in 3D, and to be perfectly honest it really doesn’t matter whether or not you do either. 

The film opens with a credit sequence straight out of a History channel documentary; it’s a medley of swirling red water and sharks looming towards the camera. The film then cuts to a woman swimming in shallow water on the edge of a lake, we are them forced to see the very annoying boyfriend of this woman give her a scare. To say he is an inconsiderate asshole is a bit of an understatement, he “jokes” around with her and then swims back to shore. As she continues to swim she is suddenly and violently torn apart by guess what? That’s right, a shark! This opening did kind of annoy me, because the dumbass boyfriend didn’t get torn apart which would have been very amusing to see.

The film then cuts to “Tulane University” where we are slowly introduced to are little group of characters. I was expecting to see an irritating group of whiney collage brats, but instead we get funny and kind of enjoyable characters. They are still the basic B grade horror stereotypes; the stoner, the smart guy, the football player and so on. But I liked them, and I get pissed off at these types of characters very easily so the fact I liked them was actually surprising. 

The group are meeting up to celebrate a good examine result, by taking an impromptu trip to a lake house owned by Sara who is sort of the second lead next to the main character Nick. The group drive out to a boat rental dock on the edge of the lake, but on the way they bump into two of the most stereotypical racist hillbillies I have ever seen. This is of course the start of some unintentional comedy, which was great. After this little confrontation with the hillbillies the group get in the hire boat and eventually reach Sara’s house, which is predictably massive.  

After a few scenes of the usual collage partying stuff the film starts to get bloody, as one of the group has his arm ripped clean off by a shark while out on the water. After a terrible attempt to get there friend to a hospital the group not only loose one of there number but the boat as well, leaving them trapped on the small island that the house is situated on. As the group are very gradually picked off by sharks we begin to realise that perhaps the sharks are not the only thing they have to worry about. 

This film missed a big trick by calling itself Shark Night a much more accurate and entertaining title would have been Snuff Films of the Hillbilly Shark Men. This would have not only advertised the film more accurately, but it would have made me run down the street in my boxer shorts to go and buy it as soon as I could. This film really is a cut above the endless shity-shark films that get churned out nowadays. Sure it had dodgy CGI, yes the story was about as believable as a 70s DJ’s alibi, but it was fun. Which is not something I tend say about a lot of modern killer shark movies which are mostly dull, cheap and mean-spirited which is not a good combination. This film had surprisingly good production values; the acting was fine and the characters likeable. So I am going to give this one 7/10, it was a lot of fun and well worth a watch. And no I am not going to explain why Snuff Films of the Hillbilly Shark Men is a more accurate title, your going to have to find that one out for yourself by watching the film.                                                                                                         

   

                      

Ruptured Review: Arachnid

                        
Country of origin- Spain 
Year of release- 2001 
Director- Jack Sholder
Stars-  Chris Potter, Alex Reid, José Sancho

This film began to ring alarm bells from 30 seconds into the runtime. Because the very first thing the film shows us is a very poor quality CGI infested scene of water being drawn from the ocean, and into an semi invisible aircraft. This aircraft has presumably triggered some kind of alarm at an Air force base, because a fighter jet then appears and starts heading in its direction. Then for some insane reason, which by the way is never explained, the pilot of the jet bails out, and his plane crashes in the unknown aircraft. This leads to possibly the laziest and cheapest CGI explosion I have ever seen, it was so shoddy it looked as though a toddler with a ten year old laptop had made it, I know this film is from 2001, but there is no excuse for a complete lack of effort.

 

We then see the pilot of the jet fighter land safely on a tropical island, how he got there I have no clue! The entire last scene took place smack bang in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight. After the pilot un-straps his parachute, he wanders off into the jungle. He eventually finds the unknown aircraft, which also crashed on the island, as you have probably guessed this unknown aircraft is in fact alien spaceship. The pilot approaches the crashed ship, and sees an alien standing in front of it. Suddenly the alien is savagely killed by what looks like a giant spider, after seeing this, the fighter pilot seems remarkably relaxed, until he is killed by the same spider like creature. As this was the pre credit sequence, I was not really looking forward to the rest of the film, because this whole scene was absolutely terrible. 

After the credits, the film cuts to a small hospital on the island of Guam. Where a man from a near by island has be admitted with strange bite marks. And because the films characters don’t know that the film they are in is called Arachnid, they have no idea what kind of creature caused them. So a doctor from the hospital decides to put together an expedition to the island that the injured man came from. The doctor hires a pilot by the name of Mercer to fly him and a small group out to the island. The group consists of; the doctor, an adventurer called Lev Valentine who is a complete dick head, and a couple of mercenaries backed by a few natives of the island. The only interesting character in the group is an entomologist who is actually pretty fun to watch, and has more charisma than all the others combined. 

As the group’s plane gets closer to the island it suffers some kind of unexplained loss of power and crashes, which somehow doesn’t injure anybody on board. The plane crashes on the beach of the island, and the group begin to squabble about who is to blame. Listening to a group of people you really don’t care about auguring about something you really don’t care about is irritating, but when it’s done through poor acting and dull dialogue it makes you want to bang your head off the wall.

Eventually the group find the village the injured man came from, and surprise surprise it’s deserted, and the only signs of life are spider webs and some strange “blood ticks” that infest one of the mercenaries. After extensive wandering around being incredibly annoying the group eventually find the cause of the mysterious bites, but they wish they hadn’t. 

I apologise if this review is a little vague but I am trying to reflect the attitude of the film. I have never seen a film that has as much indecisive bullshit in it as this one, throughout the course of the film I kept forgetting what exactly they were meant to be doing. And it felt as though the director and writers had the same problem. The characters feel incredibly one dimensional and dull, and the acting is sub par at very best. Although this film does have some redeeming practical effects, that actually made me laugh out loud, it suffers very badly from its indecisiveness and a general lack of effort. I am going to give this one 3/10, if you can sit though all the irritation, the effects will at very least provide some entertainment.                

   

 

                       

Ruptured Review: Night Of The Living Dead Resurection

Country of origin- UK 
Year of release- 2012 
Director- James Plumb
Stars- Sule Rimi, Kathy Saxondale, Lee Bane 

(Contains Spoilers)

 

I never like to judge a film before I have seen it, but I had a hard time with this one. Like most horror fans I love Georg A. Romero’s classic 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. It redefined the zombie in modern pop culture, and its influence has touched every zombie film that came after it. So shamelessly cashing in on it with a cheap shoddy “prequel”, that even tries to rip off the originals poster is a big no-no in my book.
 

The film begins with some crappy found footage style camera work that thankfully doesn’t stick around long. It is being filmed by a group of morons outside of a small shop, they see a middle aged guy walking past, and they make him go in side the shop to buy them some cans of lager. They do this even though they are clearly old enough to do this themselves, for gods sake one of them looks about thirty. But eventually this poor unfortunate guy go’s into the shop which is worryingly empty and quieter than a dead mime. He starts looking for the shopkeeper, and eventually stumbles into the stock room, where there is the grisly sight of a zombie munching down on somebody’s guts. This poor guy is pretty alarmed by this, and as he staggers back in horror, the zombified shopkeeper pops up and rips his throat out. After a minute or two, the guy who they sent in to get the cans wanders out looking very ill. The morons don’t seem to notice the fact his throat is mangled, and he looks like the undead, and so inevitably he bits one of them on the face, before being repeatedly stabbed. At this point a very anxious looking man arrives in his car, he warns the morons to get there bitten friend some help, but they take no notice. The anxious man realizes he is wasting his time, and drives away. 
 

The film then begins to follow this anxious guy, who appears to be driving to meet with somebody close to him, to try and find a safe place to hold out against ever worsening zombie problem. It appears from the information coming from his car radio, that the dead are beginning to come back and infect the living, he obviously tuned into the captain bleeding obvious hour! Eventually he runs out of petrol, and has to start looking for somewhere to get help. Very soon he finds a farm house with lights on and signs of life inside. He knocks on the door and calls for help, and gets a double barrel shotgun blast to the face for his troubles! Yes that’s right the character that the audience thought was important just got his head blown off at the 20 minute marker, thus rendering everything in the film up until this point completely pointless. 
 

The man who pulled the trigger on the anxious guy thought he was killing one of the zombies, and when he finds out that wasn’t the case he feels pretty damn guilty, for about 10 minutes. The rest of the film basically just revolves around the man with the shotgun, and his extended family who are holding up in the farm house. Which is about as interesting as a cricket bat to the knees. To say I don’t care about these characters doesn’t even come close, I have seen better character development from a house brick. The whole group are as one dimensional as cardboard cut outs, that just had a run in with a steam roller. 
 

Frankly this film was dreadful in every possible aspect; the acting was laughable, the cinematography looked as though a five year old had done it. To be honest I could go on for hours about how boring and terrible this film was, and how it has the audacity to repeatedly try and rip off the masterpiece that is Night of the Living Dead. So I am going to give this film 1/10, if you ever feel the need to see this film, resist.                                

                          

Ruptured Review: The Jackhammer Masscre

       THE JACKHAMMER MASSACRE

Country of origin- U.S.A. 
Year of release- 2004 
Director- Joe Castro
Stars- Aaron Gaffey, Kyle Yaskin, Nadia Angelini 

 

The film begins with a few panoramic shots of California, then cuts to a large car pulling up outside a shabby looking warehouse in a run down part of the city. Two men step out of the car and proceed to break into the warehouse, these crooks then start wandering around the warehouse looking/calling for a man called Jack. Eventually one of the crooks finds Jack, who is sleeping on a mattress on the warehouse floor. Jack is clearly a junkie; he is practically dressed in rags, he has a dirty bandage on the inner elbow of his left arm, along with an array of unpleasant skin conditions. The thug that found him starts asking for the money that Jack owes him, and eventually knocks Jack out. The two thugs then in an attempt kill Jack, inject a mix of; PCP, Heroine and Meth straight into his neck, and thinking that Jack is in his final moments they start walking away. But because of the kind of film this is, one of the thugs finds a really dumb reason to stay behind just a little bit too long for his own good. The next thing we see is Jack who is very much alive, using a jackhammer to perform some major reconstruction work on the thugs face. After this scene the opening credits roll. 

The film then cuts to one year earlier, and we see Jack who is not a desperate disease ridden junkie, he is in fact a well dressed highflying businessman with a Doge Viper. He is on his way to meet an old friend called Mike, who is a massive dick face to his girlfriend, and pretty much an instantly dislikeable character. The two of them drive over to a pretty dodgy looking part of town, where they both get out and start walking to a secluded house. On the way they bump into the two most irritating characters in the film, two crack heads who’s acting is so poor they might actually be on crack. Thankfully these mind numbingly awful characters don’t stick around long, which was a great relief to my ever worsening migraine. 

Eventually Jack and Mike arrive at the house which appears to be in the middle of the woods, even though they are deep in the inner city. Jack knocks on the door of the house which is opened a topless woman who just smiles vacantly and walks off into the magic inner city forest. Is this event ever in any way, sharp or form explained to us? No, of cause it isn’t. Jack and Mike walk into the house, and proceed to buy crack off a guy that looks as though he is held together my tattoos. They then use the crack they just bought, while still in the house. But things suddenly go bad when Mike overdoses after injecting some, and the dealer orders them out. Jack drags the unconscious Mike out of the house, past the dumb ass crack heads, and to his car. Or at least where his car was, yes that’s right old Jack has had his ride stolen. He drops the now foaming at the mouth Mike on the ground, and calls for an ambulance, but pretty much just gives up half way though, and pisses off to leave Mike to die. And Mike does indeed die, but he was an asshole, so who the hell cares? Certainly not the audience. 

This event was the beginning of the end for Jack, he finds himself badly addicted to injecting crack, and as the film cuts back to the present we can clearly see he has lost everything. The cocktail of narcotics that was given to him earlier has stated to have some strange effects on old junkie Jack. He becomes very paranoid, and I mean very paranoid! He has also started to have some freaky hallucinations, including a very interesting stop-motion sequence in which Jack sees Mike’s rotting body in a glass coffin full of used syringes. This very short scene is possibly the highlight of the film, it was very creative, and very nicely done. But as the film draws to its conclusion, it becomes a very predictable slasher which just leaves you with the feeling that everybody just ran out of creative ideas, and they just resorted to boring basics.  

Throughout the majority of the film I was pretty entertained, and there was some real creative originality at work in some of the scenes, and one or two genuinely creepy moments. But this film suffered very badly from very poor acting and abysmal dialog, combine that with a few very cheap looking practical effects and at times it drags. The film didn’t have as much gore as I would have liked for a film of this kind, but the jackhammer colonoscopy scene made up for that. Throughout the film I was reminded of films like Combat Shock, Bug, and once or twice of Requiem for a Dream and that’s always a good thing in my mind. So I am going to give this one 5/10, even with its many problems I still found it enjoyable, and well worth a watch.