My deleted review for Hit and Run

Hit and Run (2009) (V)

Bad enough to make your telephone bleed (that doesn't make any sense, but then neither does the film)., 5 October 2011

(This review was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user)

Based on an urban legend, and told with irritating scene transitions, stupid camera angles, and unnecessary fancy editing, Hit and Run tells of Mary Murdock (Laura Breckenridge), a sexy college student who, after a drunken night out, runs down a virtually psychotic bipolar kindergarten teacher who doesn't take kindly to being turned into a hood ornament for her SUV.

Hit and Run is either a failed tongue-in-cheek attempt at tackling a formulaic premise by taking matters to the extreme, or it's a complete and utter mess made by a director who should be given a restraining order preventing him from ever going near a movie set again. Your guess is as good as mine.

If director Enda McCallion was aiming to be as outrageously daft as possible, logic be damned, then his film just doesn't go far enough to make his intentions clear. The majority of the action is so dumb that one can only presume that McCallion is having a laugh, but then there's the bits seemingly played straight that leave a nagging doubt at the back of the mind... perhaps this is actually meant to be scary as opposed to hilarious.

Thank heavens then for gorgeous star Breckenridge, who makes the whole sorry thing bearable, no matter how awful it gets: she may be asked to perform some pretty stupid stuff, her character clearly in short supply of brain cells, but she does so in a really tight vest, gets rained on a lot, and is frequently splashed with blood and mud. I don't know about you, but a hot girl in tight wet clothes and with her cleavage constantly on display goes a long way to making any film easier to stomach.

My deleted review for Eden Lake

Eden Lake (2008)

Hoodie horror!, 27 November 2008

(This review was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user)

I watched Eden Lake last night and now I'm angry.

Not because the film was bad (on the contrary, it was very good); not because the nastiest character was called Brett (when surely it's common knowledge that all blokes named Brett are extremely nice); not because I had to watch the film on my portable DVD player while the wife watched 'I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Outta Here!' on the telly; and not because a rather silly ending spoils what might have been an otherwise perfect piece of entertainment.

No.... I'm angry because, with Eden Lake, I've been shown the terrifying truth about one of the biggest evils currently plaguing the UK (I'll give you a clue: it likes to wear Burberry and has lousy taste in music!).

That's right: I'm talking about Chavs!

If, like me, you find that yob culture makes your blood boil, then you too will be absolutely seething by the end of this excellent film, which cleverly taps into the viewer's fury, fear and frustration with loutish teenagers who are free to terrorise the innocent because the law lacks the power to punish them.

In Eden Lake, Director James Watkins presents a harrowing fictional account of one such incident in which a couple are subjected to unbelievable pain and humiliation by a gang of nasty young thugs. The sickening atrocities perpetrated by Watkins' lawless delinquents are terrifyingly real (reports on similar real-life events can all-too-often be found in today's tabloids) and serve only too well to highlight just how far our society has sunk in recent years.

A taut, well constructed script packed with believable characters and credible dialogue is brilliantly brought to gut-churning life by its novice director, and a superb cast make this film completely compelling, despite the harrowing subject matter. The film's victims, Jenny and Steve, are well played by the gorgeous Kelly Reilly (wow, where has she been hiding?) and Michael Fassbender, but it is the younger cast members who play the Chavs who really impress: they all give thoroughly chilling performances, with Jack O'Connell, as Brett, delivering one of the most memorable and vicious villains ever! If this guy doesn't go on to greater things, then I'll eat his Burberry cap!

As I've already mentioned, the film isn't perfect, with a few contrived plot developments and an unfortunate finalé that takes a little too much swallowing, but on the whole, this is one of the most exhilarating, frightening and infuriating (in a good way) horror films to come out of the UK in years.

In fact, I enjoyed this one so much, I'll turn a blind eye to the last five minutes when rating it: 8.5 out of 10, rounded up to 9 for IMDb.

What if God gave a Rapture and nobody came?

There's going to be some red faces tomorrow when all those holier than thou types have to admit that perhaps the Rapture isn't quite what they made it out to be. And the rest of us will be packing away our zombie apocalypse survival kit until next time. oh well....

I hate BMW Drivers

I don't know what BMW stands for, but I think that the 'W' must stand for wanker: the drivers of these cars sit on other people's bumpers before choosing the most inopportune moment to overtake, park where the hell they like, and generally behave as though they own the road.

Feeling malicious.

I wish Mary Whitehouse could return to life so that she could see how her lifelong campaign for censorship was a total waste of time and effort. Then I'd show her a contemporary mainstream horror film, chock full of sex and violence, and she'd keel over dead again.

We're everywhere.

It's amazing quite how many horror fans there are out there, masquerading as normal people. I grew up sharing my obsession with the genre with a few select friends, mostly oddballs or social outcasts like myself (I think they would agree), but never realising that fans of the depraved and immoral are everywhere, simply pretending to be respectable members of the community.

At my current place of work—which consists of less than ten employees—two are hardcore horror freaks, no strangers to the most extreme of Japanese gorefests, and three others are more than occasional horror fans. Two of my children's friend's fathers are also into the genre, enough to be able to hold a decent conversation on the subject.

So the next time you are stuck in a room full of seemingly dull individuals, don't be too surprised if you wind up having an in-depth discussion on Fulci's splatter classics, underground German gore flicks, or the top ten exploding heads in cinema.

So much horror!

I just hate it when people claim that they've seen virtually every horror film in existence: with film-makers spitting out scary flicks faster than any other genre, it's an impossibility to keep up with the new ones, let alone be able to check out the classics of yesteryear.

Being such a devoted fan of the genre, at times it's hard for me to accept that I won't live long enough to see many of the great (or even not-so-great) films that are out there, but I have decided that my best approach is to set myself some achievable targets.

I intend to watch all of the important films from the genre: the Universal films of the 30s and 40s, Hammer's influential titles, the best of Italian horror, the grindhouse classics of the 70s, the entire official DPP Video Nasties list, the goriest films of the 80s, and if time permits, the more original contemporary titles. I also plan on reviewing at least 1000 horror films for IMDb.

So far, it's going OK: I've seen the more famous of Universal's monster films, checked out quite a few Hammers, seen loads of giallos and Italian gore flicks, ticked off the big hitters of the 70s and 80s, done a fair amount of splatter pics, and at least two thirds of the nasties. But still, the list of horror films I want to see looms large in front of me.

Which begs the question, 'When will I be able to fit in the tons of exploitation, martial arts, fantasy, action, and sci-fi DVDs that I have waiting?'.