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Identity movie

An out-of-the-way motel. An introverted manager with a skeleton in the closet. Guests who lose their heads at the first signs of trouble. Sound familiar? Although the echoes of Hitchcock are certainly intentional, Identity is not Pscyho, nor does it strive to be. A movie that successfully navigates the line between psychological thriller and slasher horror movie, Identity ultimately metamorphoses into something unexpected and startling. What starts out as a seemingly-routine excursion into genre clich�s emerges into a more complex and satisfying arena than most viewers will anticipate.

Identity contains a major surprise, but it’s not unpremeditated. It’s not an add-on designed to blind-side an audience. Instead, it is carefully woven into the movie’s fabric. It is foreshadowed, and, for the detective in the audience, possible to piece together before its revelation. Rather than spoiling the disclosure, this enhances it. Part of the fun of Identity is looking beyond the obvious and figuring out what is really going on. And, like Dead Again, the movie doesn’t wait until the final moments to shock the audience. There’s still plenty of story to be told once the truth is in the open, and at least one more twist to be navigated.

Because a flood has submerged all of the “exit routes,” a diverse group of strangers finds themselves stranded at an isolated motel. They include: Ed (John Cusack), a former cop who is now working as a limo driver; Caroline Suzanne (Rebecca De Mornay), the fading movie star Ed was driving; Rhodes (Ray Liotta), a corrections officer making a prisoner transfer; Maine (Jake Busey), a convicted killer in shackles; Paris (Amanda Peet), a Las Vegas hooker on her way to Florida to buy an orange grove; newlyweds Ginny (Clea DuVall) and Lou (William Lee Scott); motel manager Larry (John Hawkes); and George (John C. McGinley), an ineffectual man with a mute stepson and a seriously injured wife. As the rainy night wears on, the murders start. One-by-one, the motel guests are systematically picked off. Ed and Rhodes work feverishly to uncover the killer’s identity before no one is left alive. Meanwhile, elsewhere, a psychiatrist (Alfred Molina) is trying to stay the execution of his patient (Pruitt Taylor Vince), a convicted mass murderer who is due to die in less than 24 hours. While there is no doubt that the man committed the crimes for which he was sentenced, the doctor believes that the man is insane, and has devised a plan to demonstrate this to both the judge and the prosecutor.

One of the most clever aspects of Identity is the way in which director James Mangold and screenwriter Michael Cooney enable the two parallel stories to exist separately until they dovetail at the perfect moment. The relationship between these two plot aspects lies at the core of what Identity is trying to do. Early in the movie, Mangold announces that this isn’t going to be a traditional horror/thriller endeavor when he uses a series of short, loosely-connected flashbacks to introduce the characters and establish the situation. It’s an effective and economical way to get right into the action.

The two leads, John Cusack and Ray Liotta, were cast as much for their reputations as for their acting ability. Mangold uses their on-screen images � Cusack as the self-effacing everyman and Liotta as the heavy � to give viewers a shorthand regarding how we should feel about the characters. Of course, there’s no guarantee that this isn’t misdirection. The rest of the cast is filled out by character actors, with the exception of Rebecca De Mornay, who is given an opportunity to poke fun at her own image. (”Didn’t you used to be a movie star?”)

As he has shown in his previous movies, which include Heavy, Copland, and Girl, Interrupted, Mangold prefers character-centered pieces over action-oriented ones. Initially, Identity seems to be a departure � but early impressions can be deceiving. At a short 90 minutes, the film is exactly the right length. It moves briskly, is consistently involving, and offers some unexpected developments. I’m not sure how mainstream audiences will react to Identity � it does not remain true to the formula in which it has its roots, and it may be difficult to decipher for those who do not pay attention. Nevertheless, for anyone who enjoys smart, clever films and does not demand a traditional ending that neatly wraps up everything, Identity is an early-year treat. It’s a popcorn movie with flair, style, and intelligence that will have nearly everyone thinking (or talking) about it on the drive home.

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I will Always Know What You Did Last Summer movie

The hook-wielding fisherman who stalked Jennifer Love Hewitt and company in two previous films is back in the straight-to-DVD sequel I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. But instead of hunting down the Ghost Whisperer star, the killer in a slicker is after a new crop of teens living in a small Colorado town.

It’s the Fourth of July, and Amber (Brooke Nevin), Colby (David Paetkau), Roger (Seth Packard), and Zoe (Torrey DeVitto) have decided to use the now infamous urban myth of the homicidal fisherman to play a harmless prank. But it doesn’t turn out to be as innocuous as they expected, for their little jest results in the accidental death of another friend.

Almost a year passes, and the memory of the terrible tragedy  they all decided to keep a secret continues to haunt them. However, there’s someone who knows what they did, as Amber starts receiving ominous messages saying “I know what you did last summer.” Paranoia among the friends grows as the days count down to the Fourth of July, the one-year anniversary of their friend’s death — not to mention the day the killer fisherman has chosen to run wild and wreak bloody havoc on whoever stands in his way.

If I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer came across as an average, B-grade slasher flick, I would consider it simply a basic bad movie, dumb but easily forgettable. However, this little horror outing calls attention to itself by actually trying to inject some stylish filmmaking into the bloody proceedings — and falling flat on its face with every single attempt. Director Sylvain White couldn’t leave well enough alone and lead the same group of stock horror genre victims to the slaughter. Instead, Mr. White tries adding some visual flair to the movie, incorporating slow-motion, bleak cinematography, out-of-focus shots, and almost every other trick he can think of to make the movie seem edgier and grittier than it is.

White ends up blanketing the entire project in pretention, setting out to be the new Dario Argento but ending up with a movie that comes packed with goofy-looking murders (even the most inventive kill scene, involving a guy getting pulled through a window via a hook, looks ridiculous) and laughable, tension-free scenes of the characters fleeing for their lives. On top of that, the dialogue and character conflicts feel even more tired than usual, the performances seem even more second-rate, and the big twist in the climax is more likely to anger viewers than amaze them.

So, was there anything to salvage out of I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer? Aside from DeVitto looking as cute as a button, there isn’t a thing worth watching in any of this movie’s 91 hackneyed, played-out, painful-to-endure minutes.

Here’s my definition of true irony: watching a tired addition to a slasher series like this — and learning that one of the movie production companies involved is called “Original” Film. No wonder I have to laugh and then hang my head in shame at what the cinema has come down to.

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I Am Legend movie

I Am Legend, the third cinematic adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel, has been in development for a very long time. Originally slated to star Arnold Schwarzenegger and be directed by Ridley Scott, this movie has kicked around for so long that by the time it has finally reached the screen, Schwarzenegger is out of the business altogether and the director is someone whose career in music videos hadn’t even started when Michael Bay was being touted as possible replacement for Scott. Nevertheless, all these years later, we finally have this new version of I Am Legend, starring Will Smith as the Last Man on Earth and directed by Francis Lawrence (Constantine).

I suppose it’s a common fantasy - believing that you’re alone on the planet. The reality, if it ever happened, would be more the stuff of nightmares. When Matheson wrote I Am Legend; from which this movie takes its name, its main character, and certain events and themes; he was interested in exploring the hard aspects of what this kind of existence might really mean. Loneliness can drive a person slowly insane even if they guard against it. That lies at the core of I Am Legend - the psychological torment endured by the protagonist. That, and the vampires.

Matheson’s book has often been credited as the “inspiration” for many of the modern-day zombie movies; his “vampires” have a kinship with George A. Romero’s dead. Cinematically, the creatures of this film most evidently echo (perhaps because of the circumstances) those in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. In fact, there are numerous similarities between that movie and I Am Legend, not the least of which is that both feature a scenario in which an apocalypse occurs because of a disease and those who don’t die turn into slavering, raving monsters.

I Am Legend opens in 2012 New York City - the most deserted place on Earth. Kudos to the special effects wizards for using computers to so effectively depopulate the city. It’s eerie watching such emptiness. New York has a human population of one: Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith), an ex-military scientist who was to some degree culpable for what happened to his race. The disease was initially hyped as a cure for cancer (by Emma Thompson in an unbilled cameo) but it mutated and became a killer. The creatures it transforms can’t emerge in the sunlight, so they stay hidden during the day only to come out and seek fresh blood between dusk and dawn. In that period, Robert and his faithful dog, Sam, are padlocked within his apartment. They hunt by day and hide by night.

Robert is lonely and his loneliness is eroding his sanity. He talks to Sam as if she was a human. He speaks to department store mannequins he has dressed in clothing. He rents DVDs of old news shows not so much so he can revisit the past but so he can hear human voices and pretend he’s not alone. In many ways, it’s how Tom Hanks survived in Cast Away - by making a volleyball, Wilson, his best friend. Robert has set a broadcast to shout out his location on every station on the AM dial, but so far, no one has come looking. He uses a private lab in his apartment to continue research on the disease, always searching for the elusive cure. If he could save one vampire - turn it back into a human - he would no longer be alone. Ghosts of his past haunt his dreams, and it’s through those tortured flashbacks that we gain some knowledge of what the last hours were like for our kind.

The first two-thirds of I Am Legend are superior to the fast-paced, action-oriented final 35 minutes. There’s a key event that occurs just past the hour mark and, after that, the movie feels more like a typical Hollywood adventure than the introspective, thought-provoking production that graces the screens for the first 65 minutes. The ending, while not a complete cop-out, diverges from that of Matheson’s book and feels a little too convenient and facile. For most of the movie, character drives plot. The closer we get to the conclusion, the more plot drives character.

There are some top-notch action sequences, such as one in which vampires and vampire dogs attack Sam and an injured Robert. There’s also another scene in which Robert tries to take out an entire cell of vampires with nothing more than a speeding vehicle. There are some missteps - the deer chase is dumb and marred by CGI deer that look CGI. And the climactic struggle is less exciting than it should be. There’s a sense that some of the action was inserted into the movie to keep from losing the attention of younger viewers. It’s okay for the movie to deal with intelligent ideas as long as there are enough bangs to enliven the proceedings.

As Tom Hanks did in Cast Away, Will Smith pulls off this half-insane role perfectly. Of course, in addition to being alone, Robert has other crosses to bear. He is hunted by the living dead. He carries a weight of guilt. And he knows, on one level or another, that he is responsible for what happened to his wife and daughter. Smith nails the portrayal. It’s not the kind of work that will earn him an Oscar nomination but audiences usually don’t see better than this in genre films.

Science fiction fans hoping for a faithful adaptation of Matheson’s novel will be disappointed. This is no more a visitation of the source material than its predecessors, The Last Man on Earth or The Omega Man, were. The updates are timely - the movie makes the suspension of disbelief curve as easy to ascend as it was in Children of Men. For me, the most engaging aspects of the movie are connecting with Robert and understanding how he uses routine to survive each day. It’s seeing the empty New York and understanding how its desolation offers both solace and pain. For the most part, the action sequences work - and they are directed in a straightforward manner that thankfully does not rely on fast cuts and shaky camera movement - but they are not the real reason to see this movie. Cautionary tale though it might be, I Am Legend offers a window into a future that probably won’t be but that is easily believed within the context of this workmanlike motion picture.

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The Hitcher movie

The new take on “The Hitcher” isn’t all that far removed from the 1986 cult classic. Director Dave Meyers is wise to hug tightly to what made the original film work, and when the picture stays simple and nasty, it actually entertains. Just don’t scrutinize the acting too much, and this needless remake might very well surprise you.

Robert Harmon’s 1986 film “The Hitcher” wasn’t a groundbreaking suspense creation, but carved out a name for itself on the cult film circuit because it plunged head-first into nastiness. Eric Red’s screenplay didn’t budge when it came time to dish out death; coldly serving up some rather vivid horror set-pieces that are easily spotted as the genesis behind the 2007 remake.

On their way to a spring break destination, couple Grace (Sophia Bush, TV’s “One Tree Hill”) and Jim (Zachary Knighton, “The Prince & Me”) hit the road in high spirits. Things turn ugly quickly when the two meet up with John Ryder (Sean Bean, “Lord of the Rings”), a stranded motorist who is looking for a ride. While Jim welcomes Ryder into their car, Grace is more skeptical, and her fears are proven true when Ryder unleashes his murderous wrath on the couple.

“Hitcher” is the latest production from Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes remake factory, the team behind the recent takes on “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “The Amityville Horror.” Both of the aforementioned films were disgraceful in their desperation for wildly overcalculated cinematographic lunges and brain-dead direction. Unbelievably, “Hitcher 2.0” doesn’t stab to the same tune, even with many similar technical ingredients in the bubbling pot.

Director Dave Meyers is a music-video maestro without any big screen experience. While that traditionally is enough to burn down the theater in protest, Meyers appears to appreciate the basic fundamentals of genre filmmaking, and lets his “Hitcher” out to play, instead of suffocating the whole thing in hip visuals and flash-cut edit rhythms. Save for one moronic attempt at a body-mounted camera on Knighton, Meyers keeps the visual artifice at a bare minimum, even cooling the genre’s recent reliance on boo-scares to power the thrill engine. It’s an unexpectedly tame directorial effort, and I can’t believe this squeaked by under Michael “edits within the edits” Bay’s watch.

The fact that this “Hitcher” is a little more patient with itself doesn’t exactly mean the film has elevated in class. Red’s screenplay credit still stands here since Bay and his team haven’t changed much in the 21 years since the original film. The blistering pace is retained quite wonderfully for the remake. Meyers keeps the momentum whirring at just the right level of restlessness, doling out the chills swiftly, but effectively. Again, this is not an artistic piece of direction, but a confident one.

The new “Hitcher” respects what propelled the first film: that clammy feeling of hopelessness and survival as unstoppable evil is stalking you, and there’s zero explanation why. Meyers is wise to not to fiddle much with the original’s framework, instead coasting on the reason the 1986 picture is still spoken of highly today: its dread.

The biggest alteration is found in the lead character…or characters I should write. What was once a skittish C. Thomas Howell is now Bush and Knighton. The change actually pierces the tension, since the two actors spend most of their time explaining the obvious to each other (“He’s after us!”) instead of the letting the anxiety guide the scenes.

While she can’t pull off the shotgun look, Bush otherwise makes for the fine heroine, showing an effective range of fear and frustration. She’s actually more masculine than Ponyboy ever was, and carries the role well, even when she’s weighed down by the Abercrombie blankness of Knighton.

I had more problems with Sean Bean as the titular troublemaker. The actor sure looks the part with his wicked grin, an “I rape” batch of two-day-old facial hair growth, and a kitten purr for his choice lines. The trouble with Bean has always been his lack of screen presence, and this exterminates any chance for Ryder to be a figure of sadomasochistic fury. Especially coming after Rutger Hauer’s flamboyant take on the role, Bean just can’t rely on Ryder’s evil deeds (one doozy retained in all its glory from the original film) to do all the talking for him.

In the world of needless, useless, lunkheaded remake horror cinema, “The Hitcher” actually pieces together quite nicely. Those who worship at the altar of Hauer might feel the drowning sensation of déjà vu, but the less perceptive should find themselves on a decent ride of murder, youthful buffoonery, and a more polished interpretation of the golden twilight of exploitation filmmaking.

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The Hills Have Eyes 2 movie

This is a good example of what horror fans have to put up with. Horror fans all know about the good horror films that get everything firing on all cylinders, from acting, to story, to the all important scares. Horror fans all know about the bad horror films, the ones that are so inept that they wouldn’t scare a child and are plagued by a bad story and even worse acting. Then there are films such as The Hills Have Eyes II, which for my money does a lot of things right, but is tempered by the presence of some awful dialogue and acting. It has a story that we have seen before, but builds enough tension and delivers enough gore to keep us, or me at least, interested until the inevitable conclusion.

I guess the big question is whether or not The Hills Have Eyes II is bad or not. The answer isn’t all that simple, as there was much that I enjoyed about it, while there was plenty mixed in to damper my enthusiasm. Bad acting permeates the entire film, something that seems to be a staple of horror films so I can forgive some of it. Sadly, the dialogue does nothing to help matters, as there are a veritable truckload of bad lines being delivered by bad actors, most noticeably in the first third of the film, it does get a little better the further in you get. This improvement is probably due to the periodic culling, as our heroic band gets whittled down to the inevitable heroes (who you should be able to guess pretty early on, you may even be able to guess the order in which they expire).

The story, such as it is, has no connection to the first, save the fact that the mutants are still inhabiting the old atomic bomb testing facility in New Mexico. The survivor(s) (I cannot remember who survived that night of blood) of the earlier film are nowhere to be seen. Instead of a family stumbling across the cannibalistic mutant feeding grounds we are treated to a group of mismatched National Guard trainees out on their first mission. Hmmmmm…… a group of raw military kids? Sounds like fresh meat to me.

The kids are sent out to assist a scientific research team that has been charged with setting up surveillance in the long abandoned hills. Of course, assistance will be the least of their worries as they arrive to an empty camp. The scientists had run into some problems already, shown prior to the opening credits. It does not take long to get a good, up close and personal taste of blood and gore as the scientists are dispatched, setting up the real mission of the fresh faced kids.

The rest of the movie has the shrinking group of recruits shrinking as various mutants pick them off one by one. There is plenty of blood and jump scares to be had, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. The gore is plentiful supply as the kids are chopped up, bloodied, and battered, while the mutants are also dispatched in a variety of gruesome ways.

Despite the terrible dialogue and atrocious acting, the movie still got to me. It crawled under my skin and helped build up this feeling of tense dread. I can’t say that I cared one way or the other whether or not all of the good guys were killed, but I was still into each kill. It is the kind of horror movie that you watch for the blood and just what will happen next.

Martin Weisz directed this outing. He does have a good grasp of stylishly presenting the gore and building tension, but he still needs to work on his overall directing and how to create an overall stylish and freaky movie. That is something that Alexandre Aja succeeded at on last year’s The Hills Have Eyes. If only the film had lived up to the fantastic teaser trailer, you know the one, it had a couple of mutants dragging bodies across the desert. That was a brilliant piece of marketing.

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House on Haunted Hill movie

Hey, at least it’s not “The Haunting”. What life wasn’t stomped out of that remake by the script was smothered by excessive CGI and art direction. At least with this remake, the filmmakers actually remembered to have some fun.In this massive revision of the original William Castle film, Steven (Geoffrey Rush) and Evelyn Price (Famke Janssen) are not the most happily married couple. Evelyn’s birthday is coming up, though, and she’s decided to have her party in the reputedly haunted Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane in Los Angeles. During a patient revolt in the 1930’s, nearly everyone died, including Dr. Vannacutt, who had a propensity for conducting brutal experiments on the inmates.

Steven, as the proprietor of a couple of major amusement parks, has a reputation for messing with people’s heads, but the Mrs. is no slouch, either. Both see the party as an opportunity to do away with the other. The House has a few ideas (and a guest list) of its own.

Director Robert Zemeckis and producer Joel Silver have previously displayed a yen for the cheesy horror flicks of their youth by creating the EC Comics-flavored “Tales From the Crypt” for HBO. Now they’ve created the “Dark Castle” imprint under Warner Bros. to expand the palettes, a bit. Co-writer/director William Malone, mostly a TV veteran, has stated that he was going for more of a Nine Inch Nails vibe for this update than the now tired “Crypt”-schtick. If you’ve ever seen Director Peter Christopherson’s long-form NIN video “Closure”, you know he means. There’s a great deal of general creepiness, but the enterprise is undercut by a weak script, weak characters, and a too simple plot.

If you can’t figure out the survivors in the first five minutes of the party, you haven’t seen enough horror films. Still, it’s nice the see some genuine gore and shock on a rare occasion since the horror boom of the early ’80’s went belly up and the MPAA got a bug up their collective ass about on-screen carnage. “House on Haunted Hill” won’t change your life, and you probably won’t remember it after a week, but it’s a pleasant enough way to kill a couple of hours. …and hey, at least it’s not “The Haunting”.

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The House Of The Dead movie

How do films like these get made for video, let alone the wide theatrical run this load of shite got (no wonder Artisan went under). If nothing else, ‘Dead’ serves up what you’d expect from a video game adaptation - absolutely no script, a cast of various young unknowns with one or two classic veterans struggling for a paycheck thrown in, tons of self-referential and utterly flat gags (from a ‘Romero’ reference to Prochnow playing ‘Capt. Kirk’), and a ton of cheap gore.

Admittedly there’s something else too - tits, and quite a few of them. Breasts are on display every few minutes and more often than not they prove l