DVD--The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

or: The death of the sanity of young girls.

One word to sum it up: Lacklustre.

Again, if you happen to be a fan of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, then this is a good place for you not to be. I am most definitely not a fan of this atrocious romp about vamps and wolves, mainly because of it's gross love story and off the mark writing and direction. Also, teen magazines seem to overload on this shit, which has actually turned me against some of the girls (and middle aged women) who like it. What the hell is wrong with you? Eclipse isn't a film, it's just a reason to waste our time looking at some poofy vampire, a stoned girl and a guy with a body made of steroids and a face which hasn't reached puberty yet.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward (Robert Pattinson) and her friendship with Jacob (Taylor Lautner)...knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.

Let's see...people who love the series to death, own the entire book series, have walls plastered with posters of R-Pattz and Taylor Lautner, and have plenty of Twilight memorabillia, they will love this third installment. People who have never seen the series before won't understand it and therefore won't get quite a kick out of it. People like me, who are just following the series for the hell of it, will find themselves laughing at this movies helplessness and immaturity. Almost everything about it is wrong. Apart from the fact that this is a slight step up from the horribleness that was New Moon.

David Slade's direction is welcomed when it comes to handling the action sequences (and, thank God, there are more of those), but even they are reduced to being laughable. Sometimes I wonder if these guys have ever watched any real vampire films (if there are any)...because I don't think that vampires are made of cement. But again, despite the new director, we are seeing more soppy and almost creepy direction when it comes to the love scenes. Another thing that goes wrong in this film is the overstuffing of characters who do not need to be there. Yeah, they were in the books, but they just don't work as well in the movie. It's like asking the entire cast of Valentine's Day to be in one scene together and to know each other as if they were best friends. In other words, it doesn't work.

I can't review this film without going on about the three leads. Kristen Stewart may have once been talented, but it's like Twilight killed that talent. I feel kinda sorry for her, because people will forever know her as Bella Swan and won't recognize her much better work in the likes of Adventureland and The Runaways. But even then, her heavy reliance on blinking and pushing her hair back is just a tad annoying. Robert Pattinson basically has no future now. He'll forever be that creepy Edward Cullen, and while that may be good for his bank account and popularity, it won't be good for the future of his career. Enjoy it while it lasts. Taylor Lautner is just an example of a hot young actor who never had a future anyway. He's not particularly good in this (I mean, who is? Apart from Anna Kendrick), and I'm guessing people only like him because of his looks. What makes it worse is the lacklustre material that these actors feel obligated to drone out with little or no inflection, making this a boring two hours. Unless you take the piss out of it. Now that makes this movie worth watching.


THE VERDICT: What do you want me to say? It was awful. But it was better than New Moon, so it deserves extra points for that.

4/10

Daybreakers

Vampires are very 'in' at the moment. But I see the vampire genre in the same sorta light as how it was during the Great Depression when every second movie had a song and dance in it to 'cheer people up'. Now it seems that a lot of movies have to use supernatural creatures to keep the interest factor going on. Daybreakers, is of course, about vampires. But instead of taking the easy road of a human/vampire love affair, this shows us an entirely new world: a world run by vampires.

The year is 2019, and almost the entire human race has been wiped out as most of them have become vampires. But because most of the world are vampires, there is a shortage of humans which means a shortage of blood. So what do they do when there isn't a single drop left? Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a vampire, teams up with a group of humans to try and solve this issue.

The movie has a fantastic concept which has come at the right time...it's an actual vampire 'horror' as opposed to a vampire romance. However, this film is a little short on it's delivery, which is a shame, because it could have been so much. I really did enjoy it, and revelled in it's originality and thought put into how the world would be if it were run by vampires.

The biggest problem I had was the fact that the effects were very I Am Legend. I am not really a huge fan of that film and see it as one of the worst CGI failures I have ever seen. The film too often allows itself to go down the same road as I Am Legend, and wastes it's great premise on shock value and harsh truths that the world may change one day as we know it. Also, Ethan Hawke seemed a little withdrawn from his role. Hey, I know he is a vampire and he's supposed to be dead and all, but he didn't bring any life to his role at all.

This is a great film to come out of Australia filled with a fantastic veteran cast that includes Sam Neill and Willem Dafoe. It is wildly entertaining, but unfortunately let me down emotionally and effectively.

An original horror, but doesn't quite live up to it's premise.

6/10

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror

Wow. Since when did they sell DVDs at the A & P show? That's like the best thing they had their all weekend. I had to take advantage of all the classic DVDs they were selling (some I had never even heard of. Is that good or bad?), and I bought Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror (1922). Is it just me, or am I a fan of every vampire movie that is not Twilight? Surprisingly, this is the first full length silent feature I have ever watched, and I had no trouble it all following it.
Nosferatu is loosely based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) is a real estate agent who receives word that the mysterious Count Orlok (Max Schreck) wishes to buy a house in the city and leave his castle in the mountains. So, Hutter leaves behind his wife Ellen (Greta Schroder) to take a long journey to visit Count Orlok. No-one has ever attempted to find him before, and once Hutter gets to his house he knows why. Count Orlok is not only very strange, but he is a vampire out searching for human blood. And he starts to cause a lot of trouble.
Nosferatu is truly a masterpiece in cinema, it's creativity makes it so scary that it may just be one of the best horror's ever made. I hear F.W. Murnau was a master at directing, and after this I wish to see more of his work. Max Schreck makes Orlok one of the scariest characters ever to be filmed, mixing the right amount of pure evil and pure creep.
Would I watch this again? Definitely, I couldn't take my eyes off it. I am astounded by this film, and now I realize I have to watch more silent films. God, I love Nosferatu.
10/10