Netflix And Chill: Case 39 (2009)

A high point in the filmographies of both director Christian Alvart and writer Ray Wright, Case 39 is a slick and enjoyable, and quite ridiculous, mainstream horror movie that takes some familiar faces and unapologetically keeps them grounded in circumstances that keep getting more and more outrageous.

Renée Zellweger is Emily Jenkins, a social worker who finds her spidey-sense tingling when she is handed the file for her 39th "live" case, that of young Lilith Sullivan (Jodelle Ferland). It looks as if Lilith is being threatened by her parents (played by Callum Keith Rennie and Kerry O'Malley), and Emily wants to get her to a safe space, helped by her boss (Wayne, played by Adrian Lester), a psychologist friend (Doug, played by Bradley Cooper), and a detective (Ian McShane). But things star to occur that make Emily think she has misread the situation. Were people trying to harm Lilith? Or were they trying to protect themselves from something else?

I first watched Case 39 a few years ago. It was never high on my list of priorities, and I basically dismissed it as a very standard horror movie, with twists and turns easily spotted by those with even the most cursory interest in the horror genre. That was probably a little bit unfair. Although full of moments that you've seen before, Case 39 also has a few really good set-pieces and tries to plot everything out with a passing nod to some kind of reality. 

Alvart directs it well enough, making good use of some decent CGI and not shying away from some of the bloodier moments (one or two should make you wince). Wright clearly knows that he's walking a tightrope between something nasty and something quite silly, and he shows that in a number of scenes in the third act that allow for some more playful interactions between Emily and Lilith, with a more truthful picture exposed and the two characters testing one another.

Zellweger is very good in her lead role, whether she's a concerned worker or someone who ends up at the end of her rope. McShane puts in another of the many great performances he has been delivering over the past few decades, Lester and Cooper are both very good (with the latter getting what I would say are the two best scenes in the movie), Rennie and O'Malley get interesting character arcs, and Ferland has a lot of fun in her role. Everyone pitches their performance at just the right level, which helps enormously, especially as things hurtle towards an enjoyably entertaining ending.

Still not a title I would suggest people prioritise over many other viewing options, Case 39 does at least deliver a fun time for those after some undemanding horror. And it's a nice riff on the many "bad seed" movies we have seen over the years. It's also a reminder to check out the wonderful cosplays that Ferland does nowadays (check her out on Instagram at . . . @jodellecosplays).

6/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012)

AKA Home Alone 5.

For anyone interested, here are my reviews of Home Alone, Home Alone 2: Lost In New York, Home Alone 3 and Home Alone 4. You can buy them all in this handy 4-pack.

Yes, there have now been FIVE Home Alone films. Five. Let that fact sink in, bearing in mind how many fans are still clamouring for one sequel to Dredd.

Christian Martyn plays the young lad who is about to be left home alone, sort of, this time around. He plays Finn Baxter, a boy who quickly becomes convinced that the new home he has moved into is haunted. It's not. What it is, however, is home to a secret stash secreted away many years earlier by a famous bootlegger. That stash includes a painting that some robbers (Malcolm McDowell, Debi Mazar and Eddie Steeples) want to get their hands on. The robbers think that the house will be empty on the night that they plan to raid it, not knowing that the parents have gone off to a party, leaving Finn in the care of his older sister (Jodelle Ferland). And that sister has managed to get herself trapped in the very room that the robbers are most interested in gaining access to. It's up to Finn to deter them, with only household items and his own ingenuity to help.

I'm not sure if I really enjoyed this movie because it was actually a decent movie or simply because it was such a HUGE step up from the dire Home Alone 4, one of the worst viewing experiences I've had in my life (and I try never to exaggerate such things). I'm going to opt for the former option, but people should consider the latter while reading my review.

First off, this film benefits from a decent cast. McDowell, Mazar and Steeples are fairly decent names to get involved with this thing, and they all show a willingness to humiliate themselves for the sake of a few laughs. Everyone has at least one decent comedy moment, but it's Mazar who gets the worst of it, although one hairdo gag seems to make no sense (which doesn't make it any less amusing). Ferland will be recognised by horror fans who already saw her in a variety of movies, including Silent Hill, The Tall Man and The Cabin In The Woods, to name just a few of her impressive list of credits that she's already amassed. She does okay here, although everyone is orbiting around Martyn as he transforms from scared kid into defender of the home. While not overflowing with charm and charisma, and suffering slightly in a montage moment that veers into smug territory, young Martyn isn't too bad in the central role.

The booby traps are good fun, the script by Aaron Ginsburg and Wade McIntyre provides all of the information required to set up the shenanigans, and the direction from Peter Hewitt is perfectly serviceable. The biggest downside of the film is the fact that it seems to take almost an hour before we get to the fun finale. That's similar to every other film in the series, but you feel it more in the later sequels because the rest of the material just never manages to be as fresh or funny as it was the first time around, whereas watching criminals get their cartoon-inspired comeuppance is almost always good fun.

I hope that it's now time to end this franchise, although I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't watch a sixth instalment.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Home-Alone-Holiday-Malcolm-Mcdowell/dp/B00ECGIL9K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418245060&sr=8-1&keywords=home+alone+5

Silent Hill (2006)

I'm not a big gamer. I've never been that talented when it came to playing videogames so I never threw myself into them as some of my friends did. In fact, playing FIFA was just like reliving a miserable childhood at high school in which I was always picked last for the football team, because of my innate inability to actually play all that well. But there were some games that managed to get me hooked. Games like Destruction Derby and Gran Turismo on the Playstation. Games like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider. And, yes, even Silent Hill, which was a nerve-jangling blend of images culled from the nightmares of the most fevered brain. A number of videogames from that generation have been made into movies, with varying degrees of success. I never thought that Silent Hill would lend itself particularly well to the medium of film, but I was happily proven wrong when I saw the final result.

The film begins with two parents (Sean Bean and Radha Mitchell) worried about their adopted young daughter (Jodelle Ferland). She's prone to sleepwalking and has been muttering about a place called Silent Hill. At her wit's end, the mother takes off with her daughter to visit Silent Hill and find out just where their little girl came from. As she approaches the town she is a suspicious police officer (Laurie Holden) attempts to stop her, which leads to a bit of a driving malfunction. Moments later, the mother is looking for her daughter in Silent Hill, the police officer is pursuing the mother and the father is setting off to find his family, having not been informed of the plan. It's not long until the sirens wail in Silent Hill and The Darkness descends.

Written by Roger Avary, with some creative input from director Christophe Gans and Nicolas Boukhrief, Silent Hill may not be the most densely plotted horror movie ever, but that's not a problem when the visuals and atmosphere are so impressive. Everything is in line with the game, or at least my memories of the game, and there are plenty of nice touches here and there for fans to spot and enjoy (the radio crackling static when danger is nearby being one of the most obvious).

The cast is solid for a film of this type. Radha Mitchell and Sean Bean are pretty bland in their roles, as is Laurie Holden, but Jodelle Ferland outshines her adult co-stars, and support from Deborah Kara Unger, Kim Coates and Alice Krige helps a lot. Krige, especially, revels in a role that feels as if it was written with her in mind. And then there are the many physical performers who managed to bring alive the stranger inhabitants of Silent Hill, the creatures and humanoids who can raise goosebumps just in the way they move around. Fans of cenobites will love the bizarre and horrifying menagerie of monsters on display here.

With a decent backstory teased out en route to a grand finale, Silent Hill manages to be more than just a bunch of impressive visuals (unlike the sequel, THAT review is coming soon). It's respectful to the games that it sprang from, and it's also respectful to horror fans in the way that it keeps creating the chills while also never skimping on some great, gory moments.

I understand people being hesitant to check out any movie based on a videogame - we've all been burned at least one time too many - but this is one well worth checking out.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silent-Hill-Blu-ray-Radha-Mitchell/dp/B001E8V6GE/ref=sr_1_3?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1382909454&sr=1-3&keywords=silent+hill

The Tall Man (2012)

The Tall Man is almost the very definition of a wasted opportunity, but it's also a selection of decent scenes wrapped up in some downright unpleasant ideas that frame everything. Infuriating as it is, I probably won't be able to go on about the worst aspects of The Tall Man because they're tied in with one or two twists that I won't spoil for anyone who has yet to see the film. You'll just have to trust me when I say that the film is fatally flawed by the ideas it uses to take it from being a drama to, apparently, being a twisty, thrilling drama.

Writer-director Pascal Laugier pleased a lot of horror fans when he gave them Martyrs. I thought it was quite good, let down by a third act that lost all momentum and put too much faith in some ideas it was bringing to the surface. Strangely enough, while The Tall Man is a very different film it suffers from the same problem, though this time it's even more damaging.

A word of warning needs to go here. Despite what SOME people may have told you, The Tall Man is NOT a horror movie. It has one or two horror elements in the first half but as everything unfolds you will start to realise just how removed from the genre it is. This is a standard thriller with surprisingly few thrills. In fact, it's maybe better described as a dark drama.

Jessica Biel plays Julia Denning, a woman who lives in a small town that seems to be held in the clutches of fear by the titular tall man. Who is this figure? Is he even real? Well, the reality is that a large number of local children have gone missing over the years and the residents at least need someone or something to put the blame on. That would be the tall man. Stephen McHattie plays a Lieutenant who is after the kidnapper, William B. Davis is a Sheriff who also wants to bring him to justice and young Jodelle Ferland wants to meet him, but for her own reasons that are more to do with getting away from her home.

I can't knock the acting here. Stephen McHattie and William B. Davis may be underused, but they're both great when on the screen. Jodelle Ferland is proving to be a consistently good young actress and does very well while Jessica Biel makes the most of a rare role that she actually gets to dig her teeth into. Actors such as Samantha Ferris and Colleen Wheeler also do a great job.

No, the acting is all fine. The major flaw that the movie can't cover up is, I guess, Laugier. Well, as he wrote the horrible script full of such a troubling and blinkered attitude to the issues of poverty and parenting he's the first person to get the blame. The fact that he didn't even dress it up well enough to make it mildly diverting and entertaining, to put his strange message across without it being so jarring and front and centre, means that he gets doubly blamed. As it should be.

The Tall Man could have been an interesting film. It becomes an interesting film about a third of the way in and then maintains that potential for about twenty to thirty minutes. Sadly, it then goes from good to bad to worse so quickly and sharply that by the time the end credits roll you will be struggling to remember anything that you liked about it.

4/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Tall-Blu-ray-Jessica-Biel/dp/B009YTGLD8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1358826500&sr=8-3