This Week on DVD

// August 18th, 2009 // Reviews

The Last House on The Left

Another remake of another bad horror movie. I will say that this is the best horror movie I have seen this year. Now, don’t get too excited, because it’s still bad. This film proves once again that American’s have no idea how to make a horror movie. We replace suspense and terror with violence and gore. When was somebody getting their hand eaten by a garbage disposal ever scary? This is just another case of seeing how disgusting and violent they can be. At least the acting by half of the cast was decent. The other half was pretty ridiculous. Skip this one if you are also tired of watching people act like total morons and behave in a way that makes no sense to anybody.

Surveillance

This movie was pretty much what I expected when I saw the Lynch name on it. Produced by acclaimed director David Lynch and written and directed by Jennifer Lynch, this movie is definitely original, intriguing, and disturbing. This movie is about two FBI agents who go to a small town to do interviews about a homicidal duo that is going cross country and killing people. The cops in the town just had a violent run in with the killers and the FBI is there to help save the day. The Lynch family friend Bill Pullman filled in as one of the FBI agent’s at the very last minute because the original actor had to drop out…and it shows. I am a big Bill Pullman fan but his performance seemed off and unprepared. Other than that the acting was pretty solid.
For me, this film is exactly like a roller coaster. For the first half of the film you feel like you are being taken up to some high point, and you are just waiting for the drop. Then when you get to the drop, you find yourself a bit disappointed and it wasn’t necessarily worth all the hype. I was a huge fan of the build up, but the end was predictable and left me quite unsatisfied. This film is definitely in the Lynch style, but it differs in the fact that he has a definitive and cohesive story with a clear cut ending. This was Jennifer Lynch’s first film in fifteen years, and I would say she was quite successful.

Tyson

This documentary about the life of Mike Tyson is very interesting and very entertaining. It was very interesting to hear his side of the story, and upon hearing it, a lot of his actions made a little bit more sense. The director makes some very poor choices that are very distracting and take away from the story being told, but overall the film is very successful. Upon watching this one thing became very apparent to me, Mike Tyson is just a scared little boy trapped in a man’s body.

2 Responses to “This Week on DVD”

  1. Jesse says:
    August 20, 2009 at 9:38 am

    I think I would have enjoyed “Last House on the Left” quite a bit if not for the extreme violence. I don’t mind a little violence, in fact, sometimes I enjoy seeing bad guys get what’s coming to them, but there should be a line somewhere. I’m tired of watching movies where they show the most violent, horrific things they can think of. I’m not one of those people who think that if someone watches a little violence, they will become violent themselves, but I think movies like this are giving already sick people a few new ideas. Same with the “Saw” movies. I just think, somewhere out there is a borderline serial killer who is taking notes.

  2. Jesse says:
    August 20, 2009 at 9:44 am

    Oh, and I also want to say that although there has always been violence in movies, it’s becoming increasing okay to really focus in on the violent images. They’re zooming in on the violence instead of just implying it. I think it has something to do with increasingly real special effects and everyone getting desensitized by violence in movies.

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