LEAK!!!!

UH OH! Someones getting fired. A few weeks prior to it's highly anticipated release, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has been leaked! Now, its probably not what you're thinking so don't get TOO excited. The leaked version is completely unfinished. When I read that the version was unfinished and that all of the effects weren't completed, I was just like "oh please, they just don't want you to download it." I was afraid to download it anyway because apparently there's some serious shtuff (yes, shtuff) going down to find people who downloaded it, who is supplying it, etc.

Anyway, I watched bits and pieces of it at a friend's house because his dad had already downloaded it. Let me tell you, when they said unfinished, they weren't kidding. People were shooting guns that weren't even in their hands yet (yea, cgi guns), you could see the wires people were hanging from for the action scenes, obvious green screen scenes were nowhere near finished, etc. So, after seeing that, I decided to wait for the actual version that comes out in like 3 weeks or so. However, this won't stop die hard fans from watching it which brings up the question, will this hurt the box office?

The answer is yes, very much so. A large chunk of people who are dying to see this movie probably already got their hands on a copy of it by now. They can either say the movie sucked, causing people to not even bother going to the theater, or they can say the movie was great which would make more people wanna watch it immediately regardless of it being unfinished. Granted, there are probably a bunch of people who are like me and would much rather watch the final product than see Ryan Reynolds hanging from wires, but that doesnt change the fact that by the time May 1st rolls around, many people will have already seen it.

If you think about it, this is practically one of the first times something like this has ever happened. Sure, my dad has come home with bootleg movies that haven't come out yet and my first response would be "what the hell is that?" But a huge summer blockbuster leaked weeks before its release? That deserves an "Oh S***!" Not to mention that I may have spoiled a major plot point of the movie by fast forwarding toward the end.

If you manage to get your hands on a copy and REALLY wanna get a taste of the movie, then go right ahead. I on the other hand will be a good boy and wait.....or at least try to wait anyway.

Traileritis...DON'T BE FOOLED!

This week, the final trailer for 20th Century Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine was released. Now, granted it does look pretty good, I can't help but wonder "what if this movie totally sucks?" I'll admit that after seeing a movie, I would probably be the last one to say that it "sucked". I don't know why, thats just me. Anyway, my reason for saying this is that in the past, there have been plenty of movies with mind-blowing trailers that attract tons of people but in the end, the trailer ended up being better than the movie itself. For the sake of this blog, lets call it TRAILERITIS. Lets journey back to several movies with kick-ass trailers that led to not so kick-ass movies.

Exhibit A) Spiderman 3

The first movie on our list of traileritis victims is none other than Spiderman 3. This movie marked the highly anticipated debut of the ani-hero, Venom. Most of the advertising for this movie centered around the black suit. Everything was like "black suit, venom, black suit, venom." This drew in more people throughout its theatrical run than either of the previous movies. Upon its opening, it was WIDELY criticized for bad acting (which included fake tears, and a sudden "emo-esque" persona taken on by Toby McGuire), horrible dialogue (including the scene in the park or whatever where Peter Parker and Mary Jane break up), and most of all, LACK OF VENOM!! the one major thing they used to advertise this movie in trailers and TV spots! Venom's total screen time was like ,what, 20 minutes out of the whole movie? Lameee. Even though it went on to be the highest grossing of the 3 (because of traileritis of course), it was almost unanimously panned for those 3 reasons.

Exhibit B) The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Being a fan of the first 2 Mummy movies, I had high hopes for this movie. However, as more and more details about it were released, my hopes dwindled. First strike against it, new mummy. Not having the mummy come back from the other 2 movies pretty much sets up some kind of failure in my opinion. Second strike against it, new mummy isn't even Egyptian, he was Chinese and played by Jet Li...seriously, wtf. Final strike against it was that it took place years in the future when the son from the previous movie is all grown up and going on his own little adventures (apparently Brendan Frasier's character doesn't age if his son can now be an adult while he looks exactly the same...). Oh, and not to mention the fact that Rachael Weiz's character was played by someone else. Anyway, all doubts were put aside after seeing the trailer. Lots of action, interesting story, etc. Unfortunately, it fell victim to Traileritis. I said earlier that I don't say movies suck, but I will say that this movie is at the bottom of my list. Chinese clay mummy with abominable snowmen? No thanks.

Exhibit C) Cloverfield

I don't even know where to begin with Cloverfield. This was one of the most talked about movies in a looooong time, well before it even had a proper title (which many believed to be "1-18-08"...its a release date, not a title, come one people). Trailers showed NYC being destroyed by some mysterious creature that was never properly seen until the end of the movie. Ridiculous internet hype surrounded this movie too. There were countless viral marketing sites for it as well as tons of people trying to slow down and freeze the trailer in order to get the tiniest glimpse of the monster. Many believed it to be Godzilla, Voltron, or even Jurassic Park 4 (seriously, I read it somewhere). Once the movie was released, everyone and their mothers flocked to see it, only to be disappointed by Traileritis. The trailers made the movie look crazy with so much chaos and destruction when really all that went on was this guy and his friends trying to find his ex-girlfriend...boringggg. The ending was pretty abrupt too. I was recently told that the city was blown up, but I honestly don't recall that happening. Either way, Cloverfield fell victim to Traileritis...crazy trailer that attracted almost everyone to a lame movie about a guy looking for a girl.

Anyone noticing a pattern here? 2 out of these 3 movies were the 3rd entry in their respective franchises. We'll talk more about that later. Anyway, there you have it. Traileritis, the unfortunate plague that haunts many movies these days. Well maybe not so much a plague on the movie as it is on the viewer. The movies still do well.

Take a look at the Wolverine trailer I spoke about earlier and see what you think is gonna happen.

The Dark Knight continues to shatter records!

According to Comingsoon.net, Warner Bros. has announced that The Dark Knight has finally grossed over $1 Billion at the box office. It's about time. I was wondering how a movie with so much commercial success couldn't cross that line and, well, it finally has. The movie has grossed about $1,001,082,160 to date making roughly $533 million domestically and $567 million overseas. After it's 8 Oscar nominations and its re-release into IMAX theaters on January 23rd, The Dark Knight gained its last few million it needed before crossing the line that only three other movies have crossed before (Titanic with $1.842 billion, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with $1.119 billion, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest with $1.o66 billion.)

With all of this crazy success, the pressure is on for Christopher Nolan to make a sequel that can even compare to The Dark Knight. Considering Heath Ledger obviously won't be in it, that might make maters difficult. Since the films release, a lot of crazy rumors have been flying around as to who has been cast as what villain in the follow-up. I recall Christina Ricci and Angelina Jolie were rumored to play Catwoman and Johnny Depp was rumored to be the Riddler. These rumors were quickly denied (as they should be, a script hasen't even been written...geez, calm down people). Let's just hope Batman Begins 3, The Dark Knight 2, or "The Caped Crusader" as many people have been calling it, will be up to Christian Bale's standards so he won't go crazy again...

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Trailer

Finally taking a break from writing about horror movies, I have a brand spankin' new post that has nothing to do with Jason, Freddy, Michael or any other slasher you could think of. Unless you consider the Decepticons and Autobots to be slashers, then not only is this another slasher post but you also need to have your head checked.

That being said, it was reported that the new trailer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen debuted in theaters last week with Friday the 13th (yes, I mentioned that movie again...sue me). I don't know where people are getting their information from because I sure as hell didn't see the trailer when I went. Either way, I was able to see it online just days later and let me just say, they definitely didn't skip out on the action. The entire trailer is pretty much just robots landing on Earth, robots breaking stuff, and robots making stuff explode (with the exception of Shia LaBeouf telling his movie dad to run and Meghan Fox yelling "SAMMM!"). Oh, and Egyptian pyramids... By the time all of the ruckus ended, REVENGE appears on the screen and I don't know about you but when I saw that I was like "Oh, damn". Anyway, with all of that said, I know I will still love this movie no amount of trailer ruckus is gonna change that. Here, check it out for yourselves. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters on June 24, 2009.



By the way, I would just like to inform everyone reading that the word "Fallen" in the title does not refer to the autobots and decepticons that, well, died in the first movie. "The Fallen" is actually one individual robot named...The Fallen.

Friday the 13th: Review

First off, let me just say that I realize that my last few posts are about horror movies. It's just a coincidence. This is not a purely horror movie blog now. With that being said, lets begin.

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS...

This weekend, I saw the new Friday the 13th movie with my sister. I'll just say that you either love this movie or you hate it. I am one of the people who liked it. Two posts ago, I said that this movie was a remake of the first three movies in the original franchise. All that means is it goes from Jason's mother being the killer (Friday the 13th) to Jason being the killer and wearing a sack over his head (Friday the 13th 2) to Jason being the killer wearing a hockey mask (Friday the 13th 3). We go from killer mother to hockey mask within the first 35-40 minutes or so of this movie.

The first 20 minutes of the movie were actually pretty good. A group of young people went on a hike to find a marijuana crop (which I thought was ridiculous, but whatever, I can deal with it). They get a little lost and decide to stop and set up camp. Two of the people then split away and stumble upon Jason's old cabin while the remaining three stayed at camp. Two of the remaining three decide they want to have sex so the one guy remaining goes for a walk. Not more than 5 minutes later, Jason begins to kill each one of them and let me just say, Jason is CRAZY. Here is a quick list of how things went down:

1- Machete through the cabin floor over and over so there is no safe place to stand
2- Wrapped in a blanket hanging over the camp fire
3- Bear Trap
4- Head cut off
5- Machete swung right into the skull

Just after the last death, FRIDAY THE 13TH appeared on the screen and people were actually cheering and clapping. I guess the beginning was just THAT good. However, as the movie went on, the killings became a bit more ridiculous, as did the never-ending sex scene in which one of the characters exclaims "Your tits are stupendous!" Anyway, the main plot of the story is of a guy named Clay (Jared Padalecki) trying to find his sister Whitney, one of the hikers from the beginning of the movie. Turns out she actually survived because she looked so much like Jason's mother that he couldn't kill her. The rest of the people in the movie served one purpose and one purpose only...to die. As the movie goes on, Jason kills them all simply because they are there (as a slasher movie should be). Another list:

1- Arrow through the head
2- Hit by a boat and then Machete right into the top of the head
3- Screwdriver into the chin
4- Axe thrown into the back
5- Thrown onto antlers on the cabin wall
6- Pole through the stomach then pinned to the back of a truck
7- Plain old machete stab then dragged away

Blah Blah movie went on and the two survivors, Clay and Whitney, manage to "kill" Jason and dump him into the lake along with his mask. Just then, Jason breaks through the boardwalk/dock or whatever you wanna call it, grabs Whitney...cue credits. Sequel anyone?

As people were leaving, I heard several of them say it sucked. Well, I actually enjoyed it (even though I had to nudge my sister several times during the movie to wake her up) and i give it a 7.5/10. Go see for yourself. If you've already seen it, voice your opinions in the comments section.

H2 Official Poster

On the heels of my last post on recent horror movie remakes comes the official poster for H2, the anticipated sequel to Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. Rob Zombie has gone on record saying that this movie will not be a remake of Halloween II and will be an original story. I had mixed feelings about his remake to begin with. I liked how it served as a prequel to the original because it took you back to when Michael Meyers was a child but something about the overall tone of the movie seemed a little off to me. I'm most likely gonna see this movie sooner or later but this poster doesn't really have that "YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!" factor.

(DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE ZOMBIE REMAKE AND STILL PLAN ON SEEING IT)
I also don't see how this sequel is gonna work anyway considering the fact that Michael was pretty much shot right in the head at the end of the movie. Oh well. If they can somehow make another sequel after having Michael's head chopped off at the end of Halloween H20, I'm sure they can figure this out too.

H2 hits theaters August 28, 2009.

New Jason? Cool. New Freddy? NO WAY!

Graphic created by Angelo Landriscina

Remakes. Some people love them, others cringe at the idea of them. In the past few years, there have been countless remakes of classic horror movies such as The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Believe it or not, all of these movies were made under Michael Bay's production company, Platinum Dunes. Maybe Michael has some kind of fetish with old horror movies, who knows? Anyway, he seems to be at it again but this time, hes taking on 2 franchises with a CRAZY large following, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street and it has me a little worried.

Ever since the success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, a string of horror remakes featuring iconic characters (such as Rob Zombie's Halloween, and it's upcoming sequel H2) have been making their way to theaters. The newest of these movies is Friday the 13th, starring Jared Padalecki (of The CW's Supernatural), which hits theaters in less than 2 weeks. According to the film's writers, this movie will incorporate ideas from the first three Friday movies. In the original, Jason's mother was the killer. As seen is almost all of the advertising for this remake, that's obviously not the case with this one. There's also one detail that people might not like about the new version of Jason....he runs. Personally, I think that could make him so much scarier considering there were running zombies in almost all of the recent zombie movies and that made them way scarier. Come on, would you be more afraid of a killer or a zombie moving at a snails pace or by a killer or a zombie running towards you? Exactly. This remake could give this series the revival it really needs after Jason's last stand-alone movie Jason X in which he was upgraded to some type of cyborg, future killer (lets pretend that movie doesn't exist from now on because it was so bad). I can totally see this being the start of something new for Jason. Friday the 13th hits theaters next Friday...the 13th.

Now on to A Nightmare on Elm Street. I don't even know where to begin with this one. I love love LOVE these movies and when I heard that a remake was in the works, I was really excited. After seeing what could be done for the dream sequences with today's technology in Freddy vs. Jason, I couldn't wait to see what they were gonna do next. That is, until I heard that Robert Englund wouldn't be playing Freddy Krueger. Michael Meyers, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface can all be easily replaced because they all wear masks and have absolutely no personality. Freddy is the complete opposite. He is almost nothing but personality and wit. Thanks to Robert Englund, Freddy became one of the most well-known movie killers of all time. I can't help but worry that having a new guy play Freddy after Englund played him 8 times will ruin the character. Englund made Freddy who he is. The reason behind not have him come back is because he is too old and they want someone to bring new energy to the character but still, changing him now would really piss off hardcore fans of the franchise. I just hope they don't change him too much even if only for the sake of box office numbers. Only time will tell. A script hasn't even been finalized yet so who's to say that it'll definitely be horrible?