Atrocious

Whorticulture Reviews Atrocious

With a name like Atrocious, how did you think it was going to be?

Sigh.  The things I do for you people.

You see how that poster says "2011's ANSWER TO CULT HIT PARANORMAL ACTIVITY"...?  Well it should have said "Look, we remade the Blair Witch Project."

I mean, it's really everything you hate about Blair Witch.  The movie is only 73 minutes long, with the majority of that being two teenagers (I think?) lost in the woods behind their house.  It's supposed to be footage confiscated by the police after the entire family is murdered (that's not a spoiler, fyi, it says that in the goddamn info for the movie) but so much of it is just black screen, zero sound.

A quick plot outline:
A family of 5 goes to their vacation house.  They find a large wooded labyrinth behind the house. 

They hear an urban legend of a little girl lost in those woods years and years ago: her name was Melinda.  She wears a red dress and is supposed to show you the way if you get lost at night.  THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MOVIE. You think it's going to, but it doesn't.  It's just stupid, pointless filler.

The family, despite orders never to go in there, get lost in the labyrinth at night.

I won't spoil the ending for you.  I feel like I should, because I'd hate for you to sit through 70 minutes of movie for a 3 minute surprise at the end.  I should add, though, that just because I didn't see it going there doesn't mean it's good. 

However, there is something I need to discuss.  So we're watching the video, right?  Supposedly found footage after the bodies are found, right?  NOT AS IT'S HAPPENING, RIGHT?  But there's this scene where their dog goes missing, and they eventually find a trail of blood in the labyrinth which leads to the dog's body.  Then they go home, where they discover they HAVE. NO. FOOTAGE. OF. THE. DOG.  It makes no fucking sense!  We just saw footage of the dog!

Honestly I don't think anybody knows what the fuck we just witnessed.  I do know that they cut out 7 minutes when it came to America, maybe those 7 minutes hold the key?  It doesn't matter, it's not worth it.  The commercials for it were better than the actual movie. 

I think the next movie I'm going to review will be Assault of the Party Nerds.  It's not a horror movie, but it's got Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer in it and they are my scream queen dreams.  It's on Netflix so check it out.  You'll like it better than Atrocious.

Quarantine 2

Whorticulture Reviews Quarantine 2

Hello Freaks.  This weekend I sat through Quarantine 2, based on a request I received in my last post.  I'm late to the party AS USUAL, so I think a lot of you have seen this already.  In any case, here's what I thought.

You probably know that the original Quarantine was basically a mirror image of the Spanish film REC, and you might know that I ranked REC 2 as one of the best horror movies I've ever seen.  Sadly, whoever came up with Quarantine 2 decided to say a big FUCK YOU to the glory that is the REC series and go a totally different way with this sequel.

First off, I want to point out that this movie is NOT a found footage film.  I know I've been bagging on ff a lot lately, but when it's done well I can't hate.  But why follow an ff movie with this?  It's just a movie about a bunch of people on a plane out of Los Angeles, taking place concurrently with the original Quarantine.

In the original Quarantine it's assumed that all of this mess starts because of some super-rabies virus, and that's confirmed here.  Apparently the residents of the apartment building were unwilling test subjects for this super-virus and it got out of hand LIKE IT ALWAYS DOES.  And there you go.  That, my friends, is horrendously inferior to the plot of REC2.

If you see this, keep all thoughts of REC2 out of your mind.  I think that's what ruined this for me, because it was just so goddamn inferior I couldn't enjoy it.  On it's own I think it's decent.  Maybe a 7 out of 10 (but more like a 6 on a good day).  The acting is mediocre at times - I found the chemistry between the two flight attendants awkward and unbelievable - but the suspense is pretty tight through the whole thing.  Maybe that's just because I'm a big wuss when it comes to flying.  A super turbulent emergency landing?  Yeah I can't with that mess.  It's fairly claustrophobic, so it's got that going for it.  I thought I would care more when the characters died but I mostly just meh'd through the whole thing.  Oh, and it went heavier on the gore this round, and while I'm usually a big fan of that, it didn't seem like a good fit.

So at the end you find out that they've made it to McCarran, Las Vegas's airport.  It's totally set up for a third and PLEASE YOU GUYS DON'T DO IT.  I could not give less of a fuck about these "zombies" invading Vegas, so let's just not and say we did, ok?

In short: I expected to hate it more than I did, it was pretty mediocre, and everyone should just go watch REC2 instead.

6/10 - Tell me what you think!