Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

26 May 2008

April Fool's Day, dir. The Butcher Brothers (2008)

NIKKI says:
What can I say? I thought it would be fun. I thought there was no way it could be worse than the Prom Night remake. I thought we could have a few laughs at its expense.

Turns out, it was the one doing the laughing that we had wasted our limited time giving it the time of day. Oh well. I can not stop thinking that this is our job -- to watch any and all horror that crosses out paths. We are, I've decided, the International Horror Police. You think you've made a horror film? Not until we deem it so! I can no longer chide us for watching shit movies. We have to finally realise, accept and enjoy that it's JUST WHAT WE DO.

(Steve, stop shaking your head -- you know it's true and MUST ACCEPT IT!!)

I'll keep watching them, because one day -- one day -- I will be impressed. In fact, we've been impressed too much by potentially shit horror movies to stop giving them a go. We had the opportunity to turn this off at 27 minutes and we kept going. So, either we know our place in this world, or we're just gluttons for punishment.

I hate you April Fool's Day remake, and everything you stand for.

.5/5

STEVE says:
You see what happens? After watching one-too-many shitty horror flicks, we decide to swear them off, only to get sucked back in again. And again. And again.

This is another one of those modern remakes that bares only the slightest resemblance to the original, in that they share a plot element or two, and manages to suck in new and less exciting ways, a la Prom Night. The thing about April Fool's Day is, you already know the plot twist - it's all going to be a big trick in the end - so why are we bothering to sit through it? Can't we just fast-forward to that bit?

There was no excuse for watching this. (Or for making it, but that's not my watch.) No excuse. I refuse to allow my time to be wasted in this manner yet again. See, my argument isn't against watching shitty horror movies; it's against watching movies that we know are going to be shitty horror movies before we even bring them home. There's a subtle difference.

We've been surprised by a few of these low-rent horror flicks. The Dead Hate the Living, for example, was one we thought we'd just take home and make fun of for an hour and a half. Turned out to be a very funny movie that knew it wasn't high art and let the viewer know that it knew. April Fool's Day was never going to be that.

Nikki's argument that we had the opportunity to turn this off at 27 minutes holds no water with me. We had the opportunity not to watch it all.

.5/5

Awake, dir. Joby Harold (2007)

NIKKI says:
Man, how I love big-budget trash. A movie about a guy who remains awake during a heart transplant and hears chatter in the operating room about a plot to have him killed? How is that not going to rule? But why does it star such big names as Hayden Christensen, Terrence Howard, and Jessica Alba? This is the kind of movie that would have starred Jeff Fahey, Leo Rossi, and Sherilyn Fenn back in the day. And how I would have loved that version, too.

This was schlocky, but it worked. It kept the twists coming thick and fast and, though I have to admit, I guess practically every freaking one of them (I was having a good night), I still liked them. They kept me interested.

The scares were good, too, whether or not they were meant, in fact, to be scares. I don't think I've seen much lately that rivals the "oh my god!" factor of doctors drilling into Hayden's sternum WHILE HE'S AWAKE AND CAN TELL NO-ONE!! Oh, that was horrible.

But, yeah, I liked the concept. It was well-directed. It was reasonably well-written in that the idiot references were far from all over the place as you might expect in this kind of movie. It was cerebral trash, let's say -- the best kind.

3/5