Monday, August 19, 2013

Saturday Night Film Review (Two Days Late): A Haunting At Silver Falls

As happens when one is a shut-in, one watches a lot of bad TV, bad movies, and spends as much time with his wife as possible. Saturday I spent the day hating life and watching dreadful sasquatch mockbusters on SyFy:

As the evening progressed, my wife returned after a long day on her own errands, and she settled back with me, plopping down peppers to be chopped for homemade salsa, and we just shot the shit for a while, very, very nice, had a supper of leftovers, and as 10 o'clock wound around, we fed kittehs and decided to do a movie and popcorn. Searching through On Demand, we settled on:

A Haunting At Silver Falls        

It is a recent film, so I won't drop too many spoilers.

Pros:
  • Some pretty genuinely tense scenes, without gore or indeed much blood at all
  • Quite good cinematography, shadow and color, setting and framing. They took some time with their shots
  • While the 'creatures', to use a non-spoiling term, are obviously on a budget, they still beat the hell out of low-budget, poorly conceived CGI (see all the above Bigfoot films. Except maybe Sweet Pru Baby.)
  • The young actors did good jobs playing teenagers, does not appear to be Dawson Casting
  • The villains give pretty good evil
Cons:
  • Plot holes. Holy fuggit plot holes. Character motivation ran away from this script like a running, ummm, thing. No other way to put it. Not that you need to be spoonfed, but some of these things stand out in your mind like WTF? 

Verdict:
  • I really liked it! Not a worldbeater, but a genuinely fun film for a night in for a few bucks. If the opportunity comes up, take it - worry about the plot holes later. A solid E thumbs.
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8 comments:

  1. All the victims deserved horrible death. Ideally by cannibalism but no such luck.

    And thus set up the Wendigo sequel.
    ~

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    Replies
    1. Been done.
      With the creepy lil bastard from Malcolm in the Middle.

      Actually wasn't totally horrible. Well, maybe.

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  2. it is also on Netflix streaming, if one partakes and prefers not to spend the few bucks.

    I quite liked it also, even if it has a tragic lack of zombies. Zombies always punch a movie up.

    I have been on a ghost story kick lately.

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    Replies
    1. Never seen a punching zombie, don't most tend towards bitey?

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  3. Character motivation ran away from this script like a running, ummm, thing.


    I would suggest "like Bigfoot running from cameras or any evidence trail at all, really".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arggh, I is wounded, deeply in my cardiacal region.

      Also, well-played, v. damn funny!

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    2. that was for the "Breaking Bad is boring" crack.

      Watched "Branded" on netflix, a pretty good sci-fi/ satirical thriller.

      Also, "John Dies At The End" is a humorous horror movie that I quite liked. Superb cameo from Paul Giamatti.

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