Skeleton Crew (2009)

Directed by: Tommi Lepola & Tero Molin

Written by: Tero Molin &  Teemu Molin

An asylum is being used by a film crew trying to film the movie "Silent Creek" based on murders that occurred in the 70's. The institution was shut down after Doctor Andersson "The Auteur" was caught making snuff films of himself torturing patients to death. It was believed that all the films were confiscated, yet the location where they were developed and screened was never found. While doing recordings, the crew find a hidden room. It contains the Doctor's undiscovered recordings, although the crew is disgusted by the snuff films, they decide not to call the police. The director of Silent Creek, becomes obsessed with Anderssons' films. He begins to act deranged, claiming their film is "not real enough".

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I actually wanted to see this movie so bad I straight up bought it. Didn't cost much, I bought it used, but still... I haven't really bought movies without seeing them in ages, except if they have my favourite actor in them and I can't find them in the rental store - that's what happened with The Legend of Barney Thomson, and other movies featuring Robert Carlyle.

This time, did I want to see this movie because of an actor? Well, if like 4 second role counts, yes, but mostly I just have been going through the IMDbs of my teachers to find anything interesting, and Skeleton Crew seemed like the most interesting movie there is to find. One of my teachers was a gaffer and a co-producer for this movie, and the plot seemed so awful it had to be at least entertaining, so I wanted to see this. And it feels weird saying this here since in July I did give the address to this blog to said teacher but I'm sure he only checked it out once, if even that, so I think I'm safe and he doesn't have to know one of the reasons I got this movie was to see his magnificent performance as a "snuff victim 3". By the way, it's weird seeing your teacher get murdered on screen. Anyway...

Skeleton Crew is definitely a weird movie. And I guess it's because I kept telling myself (and my friend) that this is going to be so bad, that I'm almost positively surprised. It was bad, but like with so many movies like this, it's kind of the point. If a movie like this would be made completely seriously and well, it wouldn't have any kind of charm, would just make you wonder if the writers are okay. When it's done with a tongue-in-cheek attitude, it's usually more entertaining.

Skeleton Crew plays with horror movie tropes in a fun, fourth wall breaking way, while being brutally violent and just... fucked up. It's been hours since I saw the movie, and I'm still confused about... well, everything.

It's a bad movie, but I definitely had fun when watching it. So if you do watch it, make sure you watch it friends, because this is one of those movies where it's just sad when you watch it alone and can't really laugh about it at the same time.

(Lighting was on spot, by the way, if my teacher does read this.)

☆☆☆☆

4 / 10 

Nurse 3-D (2013)

Directed by: Douglas Aarniokoski

Written by: Douglas Aarniokoski & David Loughery

By day, Abby Russell is a dedicated nurse, but by night, she lures cheating men to their brutal deaths and exposes them for who they really are.

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After a night of hard drinking it's good to relax with a movie full of blood, gore, sex and deranged nurses, right? A friend promised to borrow me this movie, so since she stayed over we decided to watch it and eat some pizza.

Since I saw the trailer it was clear that this movie is kind of a B-movie. Not so much when you look at the quality of cinematography, editing, stuff like that, but mostly because of the plot, the writing and the acting, which was weirdly porn-y and just uncomfortable, especially when it comes to Paz de la Huerta, who played the nurse Abby Russell.

The plot actually made me think about American Psycho 2, and how I've often said that movie would be way better if you just took away all the American Psycho references. Nurse is incredibly similar to American Psycho 2, but it's hard to say if it's a good thing. On the other hand there's blood and gore, more than in American Psycho 2, but the story doesn't seem as rich.

The movie was surprisingly colourful and looked really nice. Only problem is we didn't see it in 3D, which I guess is somewhat the point, so sometimes some effects look really tacky. Are they less or more tacky with 3D?

Nurse is an alright horror movie. There are so many things I'd like to change about it to make it even better, though. It has potential, but doesn't reach it. Still, fun to watch at least once.

☆☆☆☆☆

5 / 10

Seven Samurai (1954)

Directed by: Akira Kurosawa 

Written by: Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto & Hideo Oguni

A poor village hears a bandit clan is planning an attack, so they hire samurais to defend them.

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Let’s be honest here: this movie is excellent, but it was a wrong movie.

And by the wrong movie I mean our teacher made a mistake thinking it’s a good idea to make a class watch a movie that takes 3,5 hours. That’s way too long for us to sit on uncomfortable chairs, no matter how great the movie is. And it took us about 23 hours to finish that movie, since we had few breaks and a long lunch break and hey, we went home for a while and then returned the next morning... And I don’t think many of us were psyched about continuing the movie in the morning.

What made some of us even less psyched was that after we had finished the movie, our teacher went through it scene by scene telling us exactly why that scene is good and what’s important about that scene. And that took us about two days.

So instead of a three day long course about dramaturgy, it was a three day long course about Seven Samurais by Akira Kurosawa.

Even though I never want to see that movie again, mostly because of the past three days, I can’t deny this movie isn’t a masterpiece.

Watching this movie in 2017 is a whole different point of view to the movie than watching it like in the 1950s, 1960s... When I first watched it, I thought that the plot wasn’t anything special, it’s pretty typical. But as we discussed this with classmates, the thing is... This movie probably made that plot pretty typical, and it must’ve been something amazing when the movie first came out.

And as we went through the movie scene by scene, no matter how annoying that was at the time, there’s not a single useless thing about that plot. Of course it’s incredibly long and there are long scenes, but that can be a time thing or a place thing. But the story and the structure of the story is close to perfect, or at least to perfect as we know it, as we are used to thinking about the three act structure in plots.

And as an action movie on its own, Seven Samurais is amazing. It’s so emotional, which was a bit hard to grasp the first time, when I just wanted it to end and I wanted to go home. But after we viewed some scenes again, I actually understood them, and they actually hit me. And yes, some plot points are weird because of the cultural differences, but that doesn’t make them any less emotional. You might wonder why something happens, but it still hits you.

The biggest problem of the movie I can actually blame on the translator. The names of the characters were barely mentioned in the subtitles, so the first time watching it was really hard keeping a track of who is who. The first time the only ones I knew by name were Kikuchiyo and Shino. And since some of the scenes are so dark, it’s even harder to keep a track of who just died and who’s doing what, and when you don’t speak Japanese, you can’t trust your ears as much.

I absolutely adore this movie but also I kind of hate it because of the past three days. I hope to one day watch it and actually enjoy it, appreciate it properly. Right now I can just say, amazing movie, horrible experience.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

10 / 10