There are officially 93 days until Halloween is here and 63 days until we begin the latest edition of Eddie’s 31 Days of Halloween. So, I basically couldn’t wait to review another horror film so I chose to watch The Uninvited for today. Anna Ivers (Emily Browning) has been in a mental institute for quite some time after the tragic death of her mother. She is finally ready to return home to her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) and her father (David Strathairn), but when she gets home, things are a little off. Her father is now in a relationship with her mother’s former nurse Rachel (Elizabeth Banks) and she is being visited by her mother who seems to be warning her about something. So, Anna begins to suspect that there is something that Rachel isn’t telling her dad so she starts to investigate. The film also stars Maya Massar (The Cabin In The Woods) as Mom, Kevin McNulty (Fantastic 4: Rise Of The Silver Surfer) as Sheriff Emery, Jesse Moss (Tucker and Dale Vs Evil) as Matt, Dean Paul Gibson (Hector and the Search For Happiness) as Dr. Silberling, Heather Doerksen (The Cabin In The Woods) as Mildred, and the film was directed by The Guard Brothers.
Spoiler Alert: I am just taking the time to warn you that this paragraph may contain some spoilers so continue if you dare. At first the film is like any other typical teen horror film with some ghosts in it who haunt our main star, but for me it’s the end of the film that has my talking. There is a very cool twist at the end that I honestly did not see coming and I lied how they did that to me because I probably should have seen it coming. The whole film they are suspecting that Rachel isn’t who she says she is so they dig deeper thinking that she is some black widow type person, but the end of the film just says screw you, it’s not what you think. Elizabeth Banks does such an amazing job in the film making you believe that she is some psycho that wants complete and utter control until you find out the truth. The only thing I’ll say about the end of the film is that it has a fight club kind of ending if you catch my drift. If not, just watch it for yourself and you’ll see. David Strathairn seems ti be in a lot of films that I have reviewed lately, but that’s because he is amazing and versatile. The scenes with the visions and the ghosts can be kind of spooky at times, but not really. It’s not the best horror film I have ever seen, but it’s a decent one to check out at leas once. So, I am going to give the film an B for a final grade.
For today’s challenge film, I wanted to watch a certain film from Emily Browning that I have been waiting to see for five years now. The name of the film is Sucker Punch which was directed by Zack Snyder (300, Man Of Steel) and it stars Emily Browning as the distraught and recently institutionalized Babydoll. Due to the fact that she bi-accidentally killed her little sister, her step father has her locked away in a mental institution where she is to get a lobotomy in five days. In order to cope with the fact that she is institutionalized, she creates a fantasy world that she can completely roam free in and do as she pleases, but she wants to escape. So, she enlists the help of four other girls at the institution in Sweat Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung) as they try to collect some key items to help them escape. The film also stars Oscar Issac (X-Men: Apocalypse) as Blue, Carla Gugino (Watchmen) as Dr. Gorski, Jon Hamm (The Town) as High Roller/Doctor, Scott Glenn (Urban Cowboy) as wise man, Richard Cetrone (Iron Man) as CJ, Malcolm Scott (Man Of Steel) as the Cook, and A.C. Peterson (Narc) as The Mayor.
Even if you didn’t know that this was a Zack Snyder film, you would instantly recognize that it was his just by the style and look of the film. It has the look and feel of 300 as far as bad ass looking landscapes, imagery, and characters. One of my favorite segments of the film when Babydoll goes into dancing mode is her battle with the Samurai in the beginning of the film. While I don’t agree with some of their weapon choices, you can’t deny how amazing it looked on screen. It also helps that you ave five incredibly sexy women as your heroins in the film and that Snyder makes them just as bad ass as any character in any film he has ever made. I truly loved the story and how they bounced right from reality to fantasy to even more of a fantasy world and then back to the start. It was clever and very well done by the writers and everyone involved. One of the other things about this film that I enjoyed was the soundtrack to the film. The film features an incredible cover of Sweet Dreams by actress Emily Browning as well as some other cool tracks. When it came to the imagery and the fantasy scenes, Snyder talked about them saying, “On the other hand, though it’s fetishistic and personal, I like to think that my fetishes aren’t that obscure. Who doesn’t want to see girls running down the trenches of World War One wreaking havoc? I’d always had an interest in those worlds – comic books, fantasy art, animated films. I’d like to see this, that’s how I approach everything, and then keep pushing it from there.” I completely agree with him and thought it was awesome as well. A film any Snyder fan should check out if they haven’t yet. I am going to give the film an A- for a final grade.
365moviesin365dayschallenge 