April 18, 2009

...The Dead Girl (2006)

The Dead Girl is the multi-layered story of circumstances surrounding the discovery of the titular corpse. An excellent cast (including Toni Collette, Piper Laurie, Mary Steenburgen, Nick Searcy, Mary Beth Hurt, Giovanni Ribisi, Josh Brolin, Kerry Washington, Robin Byrne, and many more) act the hell out of writer/director Karen Moncrieff's script of five vignettes that unfold the crime. It's not an easy watch (and I also mean that literally as the film is not lit brightly) but it is fascinating.

April 6, 2009

...Doomsday (2008)

Take the virus from 28 Days Later, add costumes from the Mad Max trilogy, hire Rhona Mitra to emulate the feminism of Silent Hill, stir in music that would not have been out of place in Urgh! A Music War, pay writer/director Neil Marshall (the auteur of The Descent and Dog Soldiers) and you get Doomsday, a seemingly plagiarized tale of Great Britain's struggle to overcome a doomsday virus. The movie is violently exciting with enough thrills to hold interest but it is difficult to classify it as original. It's a Neil Marshall film but without the smarts of his others.