 So, this is an interesting title that floated completely under the radar between 2021's 'Mortal Kombat' and 'Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City'. You've probably heard of both of those, but this? Even the game it's based on is pretty obscure - a virtual game meant for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR. And when we say the movie is based on the game, it would appear that the basis is extremely loose.
In the game (from research), a medieval town is under attack by a werewolf. Players have to guess which of the townsfolk is the werewolf in disguise, and the format is "Mafia-style" - in other words, those party games where one person is the bad guy, and everyone has to guess who it is. The film seems to be pretty much the same idea (a lot like 'The Thing') for the most part, but plays on the comedy elements of each character as opposed to making things a straight up horror mystery. And honestly - it's good! Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson) has been assigned to the small, fictional town of Beaversfield, where he meets a friendly mail carrier named Cecily Moore (Milana Vayntrub), and they become friends. Many of the rest of the townsfolk are divided about a pipeline that has been proposed by a businessman named Sam Parker (Wayne Duvall), and we meet some of these characters in the forms of Trisha Anderson (Michaela Watkins) and her husband Pete (Michael Chernus), wealthy gay couple Devon (Cheyenne Jackson) and Joaquim Wolfson (Harvey Guillén), general rednecks Gwen (Sarah Burns) and Marcus (George Basil), and Emerson Flint (Glenn Fleshler), who pretty much keeps to himself. A blizzard takes out the power of Beaversfield, which makes the residents seek shelter in a lodge owned by the kindly Jeanine Sherman (Catherine Curtin). That night, the oddball group of residents that have been huddled together, start to experience a few strange occurrences, that ultimately puts them up against some sort of unknown creature. Eventually, as the title would suggest, evidence points to the attacker being a werewolf (spoiler alert?), based on the findings of local environmentalist, and pipeline protestor, Dr. Jane Ellis (Rebecca Henderson). So, much of the film is a bit of a "bottle" situation that makes me think 'Night of the Living Dead' mixed with 'The Thing', but comedy is the inherent genre as opposed to suspense, horror, or anything else. This is another good example of a film that basically knows what it is. This was done for fun more than anything, and I'm actually very happy that I caught it, as it exists between two much bigger titles. Perhaps most surprising of all was that I didn't have to dig to deep, as it currently resides on Netflix (Canada). So, putting the video game aspect of things aside, I might just suggest this as a solid comedy flick that you don't have to think too much about. I feel like we need more video game movies that don't take themselves too seriously. The idea that this was a comedy/horror of sorts lets the viewer know that it's not there for any big reason (awards, money, etc.), and it just wants to have fun with its would-be fans. This one comes to us from director Josh Ruben - a name synonymous with "College Humour", and first-project writer Mishna Wolff, who I'm definitely keeping an eye on. Wolff's writing here got me laughing pretty genuinely a few times, and I feel like when it comes to direction, the "College Humour" aspect of Ruben is all I really need to point out. I'd like to see these two collaborate on more in the future; especially with titles like these video games that float under the radar. They took the basic concept of the game, put it into the movie, and despite whatever changed, it still works! So, if you have Netflix, I definitely recommend giving it a watch. There's a little giggle in here for just about everyone (even if I am a bit comedy/horror biased). 4/5
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 So far, on this list of video game flicks, the one that stands out as best overall (at least for yours truly) has been 'Silent Hill'. There's a certain dark, horrific beauty to it that I couldn't help but admire. And while it may or may not be reminiscent of the game for fans, it totally works on its own as a simple, mind-bending horror movie. In other words, you really didn't need the game to enjoy it - all the stuff that needed to be there was there; not the least of which was a brilliantly eerie soundtrack (perfect for Halloween).
But now we take a look at the film's sequel; a somewhat convoluted mess that I almost feel like I should watch again before reviewing it, because it was kind of confusing, but I don't want to, so here we are with a somewhat half-assed attempt. So, some years after the events of the first film, Christopher Da Silva (Sean Bean) and his adopted daughter, Sharon (Adelaide Clemens) find themselves on the run, assuming different identities; prominently, in this film, Harry and Heather Mason (I will keep calling them Chris and Sharon for purposes of recognition). Now for those catching up, we know Chris and Sharon from the first film, and as far as we know before going into this, they remain somewhere in Silent Hill - so IS this the real Sharon? While Sharon is convinced that their running has to do with Chris being in trouble with the cops, Chris knows better that it's actually a cult from Silent Hill known simply as "The Order". Now, the standard 'Silent Hill' story tends to involve someone venturing, or being taken into the dark world of Silent Hill, and another venturing in after them. In this case, the Order kidnaps Chris, and Sharon heads in to find him with the help of one, Vincent Cooper (Kit Harington). Maybe it's just my ADD at work, but pretty much around the time the Silent Hill stuff starts to go down, that's where things started to confuse me. This was a film that I found to be a jigsaw puzzle pieced together wrong. It consisted of all the right pieces, but it get to be too much for a plot that should be about as basic as the first. If you're in the mood for a lot of disturbing imagery that borders on torture porn, however, this could be pretty ripe for the picking for you. That's one thing I'd say the movie did really well - the atmosphere of the first film is still ever present, and that includes the soundtrack that I so praise. So as far as the mood goes, in my humble opinion, the film nails it. There's also some pretty great usage of practical effects to add some of that real "meat" to things. All in all, the film is successfully creepy, and uses various stars to its advantage like Carrie-Anne Moss and Malcolm McDowell. Who do they play? No spoilers, but if you need to know, here's this. The film unfolds with some mystery and intrigue, but I personally had a tough time with it. While certain aspects of the film are done really quite well, other things are either confusing or even sort of redundant. I mean, we have a character going into Silent Hill looking for another character while the story tells some kind of horrific history in the town, for some reason always involving a little girl. And I think that's where the film really drops the ball; it's sort of more of the same, and the cool, gruesome, horrific imagery just isn't enough to save it. In my mind, I'd say stick to the first one, as it just plain works as its own horror movie complete with a twist ending. This, while I wouldn't consider it trash, is a bit more or a spectacle than a good story. Who knows, it could make for a guilty pleasure for the Halloween season. 2/5  Here's another fine example of a video game movie that managed to go pretty under the radar while its namesake is actually a pretty well-known one-on-one fighting game series. This was the one that got famous for having a whole lot of bouncy but bold female characters. In other words, they kicked ass, and looked good doing it. So it was no surprise to me that the movie primarily focused on four lead female characters participating in a tournament.
First, these ladies need special invites to the fight, which they get one by one as they are introduced. We meet a shinobi ninja princess named Kasumi (Devon Aoki), whose brother, Hayate, went missing at last year's DOA tournament - a secret faceoff against some of the world's best fighters in their respective styles, where the prize money is $10 million. Next we meet professional wrestler, Tina (Jaime Pressly), fending off a group of pirates lead by 'Mortal Kombat's Robin Shou, looking like a literally washed up Liu Kang. Then there's master thief and assassin, Christie (Holly Valance) and Kasumi's friend, a guy named Hayabusa (Kane Kosugi), who follows her to keep her safe. The fourth female character is Helena (Sarah Carter), the tournament founder's daughter, who we don't see until things get going. We see the characters get injected with nano-sensors, and soon learn that this leads to a lab where they are being monitored and researched by island supervisor, Dr. Victor Donovan (Eric Roberts) and his assistant, the painfully nerdy and awkward Weatherby (Steve Howey) for some kind of mysterious project, which is unveiled in the end, and is actually pretty predictable. Meanwhile, each of our female leads goes through the tournament with their own motivations for winning - our main focus being Kasumi, looking for her brother (so definitely the Liu Kang of the film), and dealing with an assassin named Ayane (Natassia Malthe). As far as the others go, Tina is, in her way, the comedy relief who deals with a lot of the butt-kicking of men who are "being men" - like the sexual advances of Zack (Brian White). Christie develops a plot with her partner, Maximillian ‘Max’ Marsh (Matthew Marsden) to attempt to steal the prize money. Finally, Helena ends up being the "key" to the vault Christie needs access to, and ends up being the impossible love interest for Weatherby - a character so awkward that Jim Levenstein (of 'American Pie' pie-humping fame) would tell him he needs to calm the hell down. As one might predict, it all boils down to these four femme fatales and Donovan with his final result of his experiment. This one is tricky to say the least. Looking at it from a critical standpoint, it's pretty bad. It's full of tropes, tries to scream "girl power" but sort of just embarrasses itself, and things end on such a simple and predictable note. It's also a movie where they cram everyone they can into it. Thing of a DOA character, and I'm fairly certain they show up in one way or another here. The most fun is probably Bass (Kevin Nash), Tina's father, who brings in his own brand of comedy. But I do have a tendency to enjoy Nash whenever he's featured in something anyway, despite quality. So on the whole, this is definitely something I'd consider on the bad side. But much like with 'Street Fighter', it's something I can have fun with. I think that if you can look at this in the same scope as something like 'Charlies Angels', and keep that 'Street Fighter' mindset (where you can tell the film doesn't take itself seriously), I daresay this is something you can actually have fun with. It's just about what I expected it to be, and it does do a good job with fight sequences, but it may also take the video game similarities too far. For example, if you watch a fight on a monitor, there's a health bar, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But for me, that's right up there with M. Bison's arcade controller. This film is, indeed, ridiculous. It's corny, full of bad dialogue and bad acting, and almost overrun with T&A. But there's a certain "bad movie" charm to it. 2/5  Back in my PS1 days, there were two survival horror games that stuck out to me as potentially very good... if only I could get the handle of them. 'Resident Evil' was one of them, of course, owing largely to being the first game to give me a genuine jump scare. The other was the mind-bending and surreal nightmare that was 'Silent Hill'. It had an atmosphere with its gruesome imagery, lighting and dream-like, subtle soundtrack that I couldn't help but admire as what "horror" should be.
It's a bit mind-blowing to think that at the time, a game could capture some truly horrific material while a movie couldn't. The first game was '99, so horror was in a heavy phase of teen slashers. They were all basically some kind of 'Friday the 13th' ripoff taking place in a more real-world setting. 'Silent Hill', among other games, however, offered something more unique - perhaps being able to get away with it a little easier both graphically and, well, graphically. Whether or not I ever got the handle of 'Resident Evil' and its tank controls, 'Silent Hill' was one I wished I didn't suck at because I wanted to experience it as some sort of next level horror. I might add that it was also around this time I started getting interested in all the classic 80s slashers I missed. The film's basic premise is seemingly pretty similar to the first game, but borrows elements as opposed to characters, all of whom are original for the film. I offer the movie credit for that, as it can be a self-contained story and doesn't really have to follow much of the game's original plot. In the argument of introducing us to Cole in the new 'Mortal Kombat', or Alice in 'Resident Evil', they interact with a whole bunch of characters we already know from the games, so you wonder where they enter into things. This, much like the games, is its own story, so even as a video game adaptation it sort of works either way. All they needed to do was add the right elements. Story-wise, this one opens with couple Christopher and Rose Da Silva (Sean Bean and Radha Mitchell, respectively) chasing after their daughter, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) who just about sleepwalks her way off a cliff (filmed at my somewhat local Devil's Punch Bowl - in fact, much of this was filmed close to where I live, which is always pretty cool). She screams out the words "Silent Hill", and the parents wish they could figure out the connection between her and this mysterious location. Rose takes Sharon to find the town, which had since been abandoned due to a coal fire that continues to burn - based on the real-life location of Centralia, PA. Upon experiencing a car crash during a police chase from the seemingly shady officer Cybill Bennett (Laurie Holden), Rose awakens in the mysterious and abandoned ghost town with her daughter now missing. When Rose heads out to search for her, she soon finds herself in a hell on Earth where any time a loud siren goes off, trouble in its most terrifying forms are on their way. Along her journey to rescue her daughter, Rose further uncovers a mystery that may explain her daughter's connection with this Hellish town full of monster babies, twisty, bendy people, and a "Pyramid Head", who by the way offers up one of the most brutal deaths I've seen on screen - even if the effects are a bit dated now. Although I remain somewhat unsure of how this works as an adaptation, I think it's a title that can stand on its own very well as long as it's treated like its own thing, and not a direct adaptation of any of the games. Putting that aside, I would suggest that as a horror movie, this is something that does a good job of bringing that same horror magic I experienced with the first game to the big screen. When it comes to horror, I definitely have a thing for the twisted and unusual. A good horror movie has to mess with my mind, and this does manage that in several ways. It may not have done well critically, but this has its cult following of fans who suggest it's one of the best video game movies we have. I have to say, I couldn't agree more! While I still say that goes to 'Mortal Kombat', this was still at least objectively enjoyable as a horror movie. 4/5 |
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