(2002)
Dir - Gore Verbinski
Overall: GOOD
An influential American remake of a contemporary J-horror film which spawned many others in its wake, The Ring is comparatively less effective than its predecessor though still conventionally appealing. Plot wise, it is practically a scene for scene copy of Hiroshi Takahashi's original version, though Ehren Kruger's script changes almost all of the details surrounding the backstory of that creepy kid with the long black hair who crawls out of a well. While said details are interchangeable with the Takahashi's movie and serve the same dramatic purpose, Gore Verbinski's direction adheres to several silly tropes that would only continue to get overplayed, especially on the Western side of the Atlantic. The blue, muted color pallet, a moody kid who speaks cryptically for no reason, several other characters who speak cryptically for no reason, characters talking out loud to themselves so the audience does not get confused, etc. The source material is already borderline silly as it is, so this becomes more noticeable with the somewhat dumbed-down approach here. Even with its minor flaws in place, the production is slick and the mystery is both engaging as well as creepy enough to suffice.
(2007)
Dir - Robert Rodriguez
Overall: GOOD
The superior entry out of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's shamelessly throwback Grindhouse collaboration, Planet Terror is a gleefully ridiculous and disgusting walking corpse action movie that plays its highly illogical details for endless chuckles. Rodriguez came up with the idea for a zombie film almost a decade prior and meant to finish it before the boom for such movies started to make them redundant. A high-octane exploitation film that takes quite a lot of advantage out of digital effects and rapid-fire editing, it still serves the purpose of he and Tarantino's old school, double-feature project due to deliberate stylistic choices such as zoom cuts, schlocky dialog, a missing reel, and the almost distractingly scratchy faux-film print. B-movie regulars as well as A-listers co-mingle on screen and they all treat the material accordingly, meaning just serious enough to be quite hilarious. Mostly though, this is an irresistibly entertaining series of over the top, splattery set pieces, culminating in Rose McGowan's go-go dancer with a machine gun that miraculously fires endless rounds of ammunition while attached to her amputated leg.
(2009)
Dir - Ti West
Overall: MEH
While independent filmmaker Ti West's second venture into unabashed horror The House of the Devil is a noticeably more accomplished effort than his debut The Roost, it is nevertheless a crystal clear case of enormously poor plotting sinking a work that otherwise is brooding with potential. Set in the early 1980s, it is a stylistic throwback to the genre movies of that era, with retro fonts and freeze-frames, camera zooms, and the musical score all delivering nods and winks to a bygone era. The film opens with a tongue-in-cheek, "based on true events" proclamation as well, setting the stage for the Satanic panic references. West takes a comically long time to get to the good stuff as it were, though he throws in a few jolts to keep the viewer on edge before things finally get underway in the last twenty minutes. The completely illogical steps to get there are rather unforgivable though considering that there would be no movie at all if the villainous characters did not concoct such an absolutely unnecessary, cockamamie scheme. When eighty percent of your movie is a menace-inducing build up that proves one-hundred percent pointless, the entire fabric of the production collapses. This is a shame since there is a fun, diabolical idea at a core level here and West has enough directorial skill to take notice of, but his screenwriting gets a solid F.
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