J*A*S*M

Considering the very low expectations (the unthinkable happened, I didn’t have a clue about this new horror movie), I am more than satisfied. Nailbiter is a pleasant, small and unambitious genre movie. It doesn’t want to be anything else, just easygoing, which is nice every now and again. The plot is not very original, but some of the motifs aren’t that trodden and the movie doesn’t go easy at all on its characters, it’s gripping and at times also scary… So, even though I’m giving it three stars, i.e. an average rating (the insufficient budget can be seen and the actors aren’t good), Nailbiter left me with a largely good impression… and for its overall likeability I’m almost willing to give it a fourth star. I wouldn’t mind a sequel. In my opinion, in the weight category as the recent The Pact.

Well, after watching it once I wanted to say that it’s not what it used to be… But after watching it several more times, I take it back. It’s still it. Positive, lovely, beautiful. I’m smiling like a moron and I’m jumping together with Matt :-D

Still a better love story than Twilight.

Right between two and three stars, with bits getting close to four and others to one... I have mixed feelings about this film. One the one hand, I can’t say that Cell Count is very well made; on the other, it’s weird in a very interesting way (for instance, the “drooling head” on the poster, that’s a really good idea) and shows promise in the future of its director. In its themes (medical experiments, disease, things inside the human body, alterations to the human body) it’s very similar to early David Cronenberg (as I’ve read in several foreign reviews), though not nearly at that level. In any case, Todd Freeman makes an interesting entrance and Cell Count is worthy of attention among small, low-budget indie horror films. If things didn’t fall apart so thoroughly in the last 15 minutes, I would have given it a higher rating (3*).

If I was a Titan, I would also be wrathful with this movie…

At the beginning, messy madness, but the moment the plot centres on the lift, my opinion went right up. In fact, I was almost surprised at how much I ended up liking this Japanese multi-genre prank…

Adam Wingard shows that he has talent and knows how to craft effective scenes. He can make do without a supporting story, but it’s clear that I can not make do without it, because Pop Skull almost put me to sleep, even though I wasn’t particularly tired. But as an experiment, it’s good, and I’m curious about what this director will come up with next (see the excellent festival responses to You’re Next).

An interesting perverted premise, otherwise the film was meh.

A military unit going somewhere runs into some kind of – better yet if it is supernatural – evil. This is a bloody good premise. I remember other pretty similar films from recent years (we’ve actually had two in the last six months), but none of them managed to fully exploit its potential. And yet, a film with a premise like this could be great – an abandoned place, an underground bunker, magic, the supernatural, cabin fever… But no, after a promising beginning all of them fall into either mindless shootouts or psychoanalytical dramatic boredom, and you don’t have any character to relate to. It’s a shame. The Squad is well made, it takes place in a nice atmospheric setting for horror, but in the end it’s nothing more than average. Oh well!

- Juan of the Dead. We kill your loved ones. How can I help you? The zombie sub-genre has always been ripe for filmmakers to stuff it with various socio-political topics, criticism and satire, so it’s no surprise that in this Cuban horror-comedy (almost parody), the zombies are, according to the Cuban media, dissidents supported by the American government :-)). Although the lack of budget can be seen (a zombie apocalypse is not something you can make for a couple of bucks), it doesn’t matter, because it’s clear that behind the camera there aren’t any morons with nothing to say. The zombies look alright, the characters are alright, the humour is alright, everything is actually very much alright, and at the end you will see a beautiful declaration of love :-D. Thumbs up, recommended. - I want to leave this place and travel around the world. If anyone asks me where I'm from, I'll say I'm from Cuba. If they ask me what Cuba is, I'll say it's a small socialist island in the Caribbean. If they ask me what socialism is, I'll say it's a social system established by Fidel Castro 50 years ago. If they ask me who Fidel Castro is, I'll stay there forever.