(2000)
Dir - James Wong
Overall: MEH
No better and no worse than any of the umpteenth teenager-popcorn-crowd-targeted horror films that regularly drop every year is The X Files alumni James Wong's directorial debut Final Destination. Initially penned by screenwriter Jeffrey Riddick as a spec script for potential X Files use, one could argue if it would have suited a more condensed television format better than launching a five-deep franchise. With a cast comprised of almost exclusively clean, attractive, made-up young Caucasian actors, everyone gets a chance to deliver laughable dialog in an idiotic attempt to make the proceedings seem more profound. It is this straight-faced tone that works profoundly to the movie's disadvantage. As the real hook is in seeing characters succumb to their ridiculously elaborate demise, how serious the moronic plot and "logic" is taken cannot help but to become unintentionally embarrassing. If the entire film played up the schlock instead of trying to balance it with a multitude of sincere monologues about Death's plan set to sorrowful music, then it would have been more fun than annoying.
(2006)
Dir - Larry Fessenden
Overall: MEH
Regular B-movie horror mainstay Larry Fessenden offers up another directorial effort with The Last Winter, a sort of psychological version of John Carpenter's The Thing if it had an environmental angle woven into it as well. Written by Fessenden and Robert Leaver, it plays far less on conventional horror tropes than it does on character dynamics, only unveiling its genre-centric makings in sparing doses and well into the film. While this and some solid performances effectively make the plight of the people in the story properly engaging, things unfortunately come to a muddled, ill-focused conclusion. It is unclear what questions are being asked or even what issues are on the table. On top of that, the supernatural components are perplexing and vague, giving it a very rushed feel in the final act. Forgiving some minor CGI blunders, the production is professionally up to par though, marking an improvement over Fessenden's previous two excursions behind the lens in Wendigo and Habit which at least looked a bit on the amateurish side.
(2008)
Dir - Ryuhei Kitamura
Overall: WOOF
Clive Barker's second production credit through he and Jorge Saralegui's Midnight Picture Show company, The Midnight Meat Train is a wildly poor-scripted mess. An adaptation of Barker's own story of the same name by Japanese filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura and written by Jeff Buhler, it is not altogether terrible throughout the first two acts outside of some downright laughable CGI effects which remain glaringly distracting throughout the entire film. Not as glaringly distracting as the astronomical plot holes and moronic character behavior that take center stage once the movie is revving up to its nonsensical finish line. Dracula Dead and Loving It amounts of blood spew out of bodies, levels of bodily harm are inflicted that could not possibly be survived yet are, characters get from point A to B as if scenes are missing or they completely forgot what just happened to them, and Bradley Cooper and Leslie Bibb make the poorest, most illogical choices that could possibly be made for people in their situation. All would be a hoot if not for the fact that everyone involved seems absolutely oblivious to the level of schlock going off the rails and by playing it straight, the end result could not be more embarrassing.
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