Not much to say about this one. It worked and sort of didn’t but if you can vibe with it, which I did, then it’s a good time at the movies. It’s not for everyone, probably not for 99% of the population, but that 1% is going to enjoy it as I did because I am a big fan of well made B-Movies.
Plus there’s plenty of gore for gore hounds and Gunnar Hanson is in it. He played Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. Bonus points for that.
Also liked the noir aspect too with the detective doing voice overs like Bogie when he played Sam Spade. Highlight of the movie for me.
There’s plenty of green predator blood. Plenty of Predator and animal and android dismemberments. Plenty of melting androids. Plenty of gooey android blood too. There’s not much red to be seen but there is still plenty of blood spilled in various colors. If you like gore, it’s there, just not red, and I am sure that helped the rating stay PG-13.
Effects:
Obviously money went into this one. Everything looked great from the landscapes to the ships to the unique creatures and plants. Those weapons with the red lights – looked cool. The movie was also kind of Star Warsesque at times, which I really liked. All the Predators looked amazing. Lots of unique designs for their armor and weapons and faces.
Story, Script, and Directing:
Highlight and Star those three things because Dan Trachtenberg delivers once again behind the lens. His direction is flawless just like it was in Prey and Killer of Killers. I have enjoyed what he has brought to and added to the Predator lore and universe. It’s a great way to keep the Predator fresh and new without relying on the past and I also loved the world building in this movie. Seeing the Predator home planet and the Planet Genna – the death planet – enjoyed all the various creatures on this planet and the plants and things of that nature. Part of my enjoyment of this movie was just watching and waiting to see what they would come up with next. Story and script are also top notch. Patrick Aison and Dan did an amazing job crafting this story and script and making it believable.
Acting:
Top notch. Dimitrius who played Dek, the Predator we root for this time, was great in the lead role and Elle Fanning did an outstanding job playing both good and bad androids. Not a big cast but the movie is not about the cast it’s about the spectacle and there’s plenty of it.
Score:
Powerful. The sound design was crisp and clean and the explosions rattled my seat from time to time in the theater.
Bonus points to Bud:
Glad they didn’t overuse this creature and left it behind for part of the movie. Might have been a bit too much for a Predator movie if it had too much screen time.
Minor Gripe:
I will say it took me a minute to vibe with Elle’s character but once I did I was fully connected and the humor, at times, wore a bit thin. It’s okay to stay dark. A movie like this kind of demands it.
Spoilers, possibly, maybe, proceed with caution. You’ve been warned. Now, here is the haiku and then the review.
The Shield
Great way to lead this set of stories off. I enjoyed seeing vikings taking on this monstrous Predator. Doesn’t end well for any of them, but overall this was really solid. Great gore, action, setting, effects, and animation. The kills were brutal and bloody. Predator looked awesome – never seen one that big.
The Sword
There’s something about Japan and swords and the lore of that country’s history with Ninjas and things like that that play well in the Predator universe and this segment leans heavy into that lore. I really enjoyed this segment, it might be my favorite of the 3, just something about seeing Japan and a Predator unleashed upon this ancient world that works for me. I would love, of these three segments, to see this one fleshed out and turned into a live action film. I think it would really pop and once again, gore, violence, action, etc. is awesome. No complaints in that department. I also think this is my favorite Predator in this film.
The Bullet
I liked the story in this one a lot, probably the most fleshed out and well rounded story of the three. I really liked seeing the dog fights because we’ve never seen a Predator fighting and flying in his ship. The ship a lot of times is an after thought, a prop, so that was a nice touch. The setting was great too. 1941 and the second great war – I bet a Predator could find a lot of good fighters in this time period and place. And like the other two segments, it works, not as bloody or as violent, but there’s still plenty of action and gore and violence and all that stuff that the other two segments excelled in and if you tune in just for that you will not be disappointed.
The Battle
Somehow these warriors are in the same time line and fighting each other and trying to survive a gladiator style event on a hostile Predator planet. Great conclusion to the movie and it showcased another awesome Predator with amazing dread locks. Not sure about the time traveling aspect because there would have to be some of that for the conclusion to happen. But if you don’t think too much about that then it isn’t a problem at all. And again, like the other segments, gore, violence, action, animation, mayhem, dismemberment, etc. etc, etc. are all top notch.
Have you seen this movie? Let me know your thoughts about it. Favorite Predator. Favorite Segment. Let me know that too. Take care and have a good one.
Better than I expected it to be. Cast and direction was strong, Great effects. Cool villain and I really liked the 60s Jetson style look of the movie. Added a nice touch and a unique vibe to the film. Also, Silver Surfer was awesome.
Have you seen it? Let me know your thoughts about it.
Gore and Effects: Top Notch. The kills were nothing original, nothing most of these Slasher movies haven’t done before but they looked realistic. Plenty of blood was shed. That chainsaw kill when that clown lifted that girl in the air, brutal, right after a texas chainsaw style chase through the corn with chainsaw blaring. Good one. The work out kill, with the blade on the bar, gruesome, and there was a nasty head smash too. No let down in the gore department. If you like blood you get it.
Story, Script, Directing: I can’t complain about any of those. It kept my attention both times I watched it. Eli Craig who did Tucker and Dale vs Evil did a solid job behind the lens and he managed to balance comedy and terror without overdoing the comedy.
Acting: No one took me out of the movie with lousy acting. Katie Douglas who played Quinn was a good solid final girl. Not one of iconic stature, but she had lots of spunk and tenacity and she held her own throughout the movie.
Kevin Durand, I like what he did with his character, Arthur Hill. He added some nice flare to that role and his joker makeup at the end was a nice touch. No complaints in the acting department even the clown fodder teens did a good job in their roles.
Score: Nothing that stands out to me but it fit the movie and set the tone it needed to set when it was used. I can’t say that I was wowed by it or noticed it all that much. But everyone did a great job.
Killer: Frendo looks amazing. I like the look of this clown. You got the costume, the creepy mask, the big shoes that squeak. Nice touch. Frendo looks like a traditional fun clown with some menace added to him or her and when he or she is holding a weapon he or she really looks threatening. I wouldn’t mind more movies with Frendo. All in all, glad I watched it, twice, now, here’s the haiku.
Sharpen your weapons
Bad crop of teens needs to die
Frendo’s time to slay
One more thing: I liked the relationship between dad and daughter. Felt realistic to me. Helped me to root for them and hope they make it out alive. Have you seen Clown in a Cornfield? What are your thoughts about it? Worth the hype or not. Let me know. Take care and have a good one.
Roger Corman. That name should be well known to all horror fans. He was lurking somewhere behind the scenes on this movie. And if you don’t know who Roger Corman is, and why he’s a big deal. Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about him.
Corman was famous for handling the American distribution of many films by noted foreign directors, including Federico Fellini (Italy), Ingmar Bergman (Sweden), François Truffaut (France) and Akira Kurosawa (Japan).
He mentored and gave a start to many young film directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, John Sayles, and James Cameron, and was highly influential in the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
He also helped to launch the careers of actors including Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Diane Ladd, and William Shatner.
Needless to say, he was a very big deal.
Moving on, like Monster Island this movie only has to get one thing truly right, the creatures, and this movie shines brightest in that department. Probably the best reason to tune in to it. I love the look of these creatures. Slimy and scaly with nasty mouths and big eyes and claws and long arms and tails and fins and on and on it goes.
These creatures look like nothing you’d want to mess with and when they get to killing they separate body parts nicely and when they don’t kill you they leave a lot of scars behind. That dude in the ocean with half his face ripped off – nasty stuff. Gore is no joke. Plenty of it to go around.
Score, amazing, another one of its biggest highlights. James Horner was the man making the music shine and if you don’t know who he is. Let’s let Wikipedia inform you of that.
James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American film composer. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside traditional orchestrations, and for his use of motifs associated with Celtic music.
Horner won two Academy Awards for his musical composition to James Cameron’s Titanic (1997), which became the best-selling orchestral film soundtrack of all time. He also wrote the score for the highest-grossing film of all time, Cameron’s Avatar (2009).
Horner’s other Oscar-nominated scores were for Aliens (1986), An American Tail (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Apollo 13 (1995), Braveheart (1995), A Beautiful Mind (2001), and House of Sand and Fog (2003). Horner’s other notable scores include Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982),[6] Willow (1988), The Land Before Time (1988), Glory (1989), The Rocketeer (1991),
Legends of the Fall (1994), Jumanji (1995), Casper (1995), Balto (1995), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Deep Impact (1998), The Perfect Storm (2000), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), Troy (2004), The New World (2005), The Legend of Zorro (2005), Apocalypto (2006), The Karate Kid (2010), and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012).
Mr. Big deal for sure and his talent certainly shines in the score of this movie.
Moving on, direction was solid from Barbara Peeters and it was the last feature film directed by Peeters according to Wikipedia and also from Wikipedia, it says there was an uncredited Jimmy T. Murakami directing something behind the lense. Not sure how much he shot or what. But two directors, producer chaos. Sounds like the behind the scenes drama was a lot.
Location, perfect for a movie like this. The scenic little coastal town is a great backdrop for the horrors these creatures unleash. Acting, better than expected. Nothing good enough for Shakespeare but it gets the job done.
All in all, this was a nice revisit for me, and I do think this will get watched more often as time rolls on. I can’t believe I haven’t seen it more than twice throughout my years.
Now, the haiku.
Horny humanoids
Rising from the oceans depths
Coastal town attacked
When did you see Humanoids from the deep for the first time? How old were you? Do you enjoy movies like this? Let me know all that. Take care and have a good one.
Let’s start with this, maybe it’s biggest strength, the reason to tune in, the monster. I loved the creature design in this movie. Put name on Screen Orang Ikan Reminded me of the creature from the black lagoon mixed with the spawning creatures of Humanoids from the Deep.
This creature had big teeth. Nasty claws. Scaly body, strong and powerful, and when it digs in, if it doesn’t kill you, it will certainly wound you fiercely. If you go into this movie just for the creature feature part – you will not be disappointed.
And another big highlight, another big strength, is the gore. There isn’t major dismemberment, maximum carnage, tons of victims, but when this creature gets to killing, the few people it does, it gets bloody, quickly. Gore effects looked awesome. Plenty of blood is shed.
The movie also does a good job of setting up a solid story that keeps your attention and keeps you focused. It doesn’t lag or drag and it’s not too long of a movie either, which is nice. It knows what it is and it doesn’t waste screen time.
I liked the World War 2 backdrop, added some drama and tension to the two survivors who are supposed to be mortal enemies in this time and place. Of course, differences resolve, and they end up working together, but there is nice tension between the two leads as they try to figure out how to defeat the monster.
Setting is beautiful. Even with a monster on the loose you can still take time to notice the beautiful scenery. Name of the screen, Batam Indonesia.
Now, the haiku.
2 lone survivors
Wash ashore on an island
Sea creature lurking
Have you seen Monster Island? What are your thoughts about it? Do you enjoy creature features like this? Let me know. Take care and have a good one.
Quick disclaimer: I have not played the game, not much of a gamer, so, I had no knowledge of the game going into this movie. I was wide open, an unbiased sponge ready to soak it all up, and I think for that reason and that reason alone, it helped me to enjoy it. More than I thought I would.
And one of the reasons why was the gore. I had no idea this movie was going to be this bloody, this disgusting, this vile. That first set of kills. I couldn’t believe the amount of blood and dismemberment I was seeing. Awesome effects and then, you realize the characters are stuck in a death loop, and you get to see more creative kills again and again and again – big bonus points for that.
Best gore in the movie, for me, might have been the bathroom scene. All of these survivors, back from death, back from dismemberment, planning, scheming, quenching their thirst from the tap, and then one by one they start exploding. The amount of blood in that scene was ridiculous, in a good way.
It’s obvious that money went into this one to make the effects, gore and other things, look top notch. No complaints in the effects department,
Story, script, and directing – solid – the highlight of those three is the direction. David F. Sandberg, who gave us Lights Out and Shazam! He kept the pace moving forward and there wasn’t any lag or drag. The movie was constantly in motion and even as the gimmick of them dying over and over again worn on. It never got stale.
Acting, as good as it needed to be. This isn’t Shakespeare and we don’t tune in for the acting but it was good enough to not take you out of the movie and to help keep you interested in the characters.
Killer or killers, depending on what scene you were in, looked awesome. Liked the look of the main villain – the mask and build of him – very menacing. When he got to crushing bodies. It was very believable.
And I like the use of the sand in the hour glass to show you how long they had to survive. That led to a very intense ending to where I was on the edge of my seat as they cut between them trying to escape and the sand slowly slipping away.
A vicious cycle
Dying again and again
Survive until dawn
Have you seen Until Dawn? Have you played the game? Let me know your thoughts about the movie or game in the comments below. Take care and have a good one.
Direction from Christopher Nolan. Spot on. The guy knows how to make a movie. I can’t give him enough praise for what he did with this entire trilogy and his cinematographer and editor who helped him make this movie what it was. Nothing but praise for those guys too.
Bale once again proves that if he isn’t the best Batman/Bruce Wayne of all time, then he’s a close second or third next to Michael Keaton and Kevin Conroy. And the rest of the cast, Oldman, Eckhart, Caine, Freeman, and Murphy – Perfect casting once again and don’t forget Maggie Gyllenhaal, who was much better than Katie in her role.
But, this movie would be nothing without Heath Ledger as the joker. His version of the Joker is absolutely terrifying, killing at will, no rhyme, no reason, just like a slasher villain. Show up. Cause chaos. Kill. Move on to the next victim. I am so glad they didn’t give the Joker a backstory. Made him much more terrifying.
Score, on point once again. Script and story were great. Effects top notch. Batman’s suit was just as great as it was in the first movie. Joker looked terrifying and Scarecrow looked great too. He should have worn the mask more in all three movies. Loved the look of the Scarecrow.
Nice to see the Tumbler again and I enjoyed the way they debuted the bat cycle. And like the Tumbler, it fit the tone and style of this movie to perfection.
All in all. This movie deserves its praise and its place among the upper level of comic book based movies. If it isn’t number one it’s certainly close to it.
Dark threat emerges
Ghoulishly haunting Gotham
Joker must be stopped
That’s it. Thoughts about The Dark Knight. Love it. Hate it. Best or worst in the trilogy. Take care and have a good one.
A Poetry Journey 
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