JUNKFILM

TAKEN

And comes the French film, Taken, with a fucking vengeance. While the movie has some problems, it never hesitates to be exactly what it sets out to be, and what that is is a tour de force is every sense of the phrase. The movie paces along at the beginning in a needed slow fashion so that the audience will get close to the characters and actually care what is happening to the main character, unlike most action films that dive too much into the action too soon and we are left watching the movie saying “Why the fuck do we care what happens to these people?” Remember Hostel 1 & 2? They jumped into the story so fast we actually wanted to watch those kids get butchered, and we were pissed when they didn’t get cut up fast enough. Taken takes it’s time and allows the tension to unravel into a wicked, door-kicking, throat punching ass-kick of a film.

There isn’t much substance, but for what it lacks in plot it gains ten fold in a character I could finally like in an action movie. I don’t want a “really bad ass” main guy who wants to help save people. I get so tired in movies where the “bad ass” main guy stops to help an old lady with her groceries. Liam Neeson cuts down anyone in his way and soul fucks everyone else along the path to recovering his daughter. The movie is tight, well constructed and in short, fucking fun! Be sure to check out this little foreign film that doesn’t feel like a foreign film as soon as you can.

QUARANTINE

I was actually put off of this when the initial trailers were released during the summer. I watched them and said “Why the hell would anyone want to watch another Diary of the Dead or even another REC?” While Diary of the Dead was beyond retarded and laymanly put, FUCKING BAD, REC was amazing (If you have yet to see the Japanese wonderment of how to successfully use a digital camera, check it out when you can). While the trailers might have put me off, something still burned at me to see this remake, even though that culture-raping ass monkey Roy Lee was producing it. And lo and behold, I checked out the Junk Film in-mail box and we received a pre-street hoping to get a review out of us…

Well, I think it might have worked…

The movie successfully displays how to use a digital camera and use the first person perspective how it should be used (i.e., See also Season 7, which is a good display of this too). It works were so many other films don’t. And it’s paced….BEAUTIFULLY! It starts off slow, just the way it should be, garnering interest as the plot slowly develops. We gain interest in the characters and care about them through the elongated sequences, making it that much more creepy when the shit starts to hit the fan.

And when the shit finally does start to hit, it refuses to ever let up. While not being the best horror film, it definitely sparks hope in the new crop of scare-film makers. The cinematography is really well executed, the editing is phenomenal, and the direction is spot on for good development and good story telling. In short, I had to eat my own words and fess that the movie was far better than I thought it was going to be.

My only real complaints are trivial.
1. We see the final shot of the film not only in the trailers but also as the movie poster itself (which is why I opted to find another picture other than the poster above).
2. A tech geek will be able to point out the other thing ( I don’t want to give anything away ) but it involves two technologies that will not coexist at the same time since all airwave TV will cease to exist in two weeks and the camera night vision they use is not in use yet until further on this year. Not a big thing, but it took me out of the moment.