There are 46 days until Halloween which means there is only 15 days left until we embark on another year of Eddie’s 31 Days Of Halloween. So with that being said, I was in the mood for a horror movie and I stumbled upon this horror anthology entitled Southbound at my local Redbox. The film features five tales that follow travelers who will be haunted by their deepest and darkest secrets while they are being terrorized while traveling on a desolate desert highway. Int he film, you get two guys running away from some floating demons, a girl whose bandmates have been brainwashed by an evil cult, a man who is desperately trying to help a girl he’s hit, a man trying to save his sister that he hasn’t seen in years, and a girl who wants to spend her last weekend together with her folks before college, but realizes her dad has a dark secret. The film stars Chad Villella (Prison Break) as Mitch, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (V/H/S) as Jack, Fabianne Therese (Starry Eyes) as Sadie, Nathalie Love (Somewhere) as Kim, Mather Zickel (The Ten) as Lucas, Tipper Newton (LOL) as Jesse, Hassie Harrison (Dementia) as Jem, Dana Gould (The Simpsons) as Raymond Kensington, Kate Beahan (The Wicker Man) as Cait, and the film was directed by Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath, and Radio Silence.
I was very surprised to see that most of the V/H/S crew (one of my favorite found footage horror flicks) worked on this movie because it doesn’t seem as smooth of film as that one was. A lot of the stories when you are watching them, do not make a lot of sense at first while others are easier to follow. The only thing that really connects all of the stories is the fact that one character from the story will cross paths with a character from the next story until you get right to the end and it all ends up connecting. One of my favorite stories from the film was the one that made the least sense to the others when you see our character from story two in story three. A man has hit her with his car and he is trying to save her at a hospital that has clearly been abandoned. He is trying to do this all with dispatch on the phone with him. The visuals you get with that story make me cringe more than the others. The film wasn’t a bad film, it had some stories that were enjoyable to watch, but it wasn’t scary in my opinion. It’s definitely a film that is trying to be different in a genre that has seen it all done before and I commend them for that. I am going to give the film an B for a final grade because some of the CGI was cool and the special effects and make up were on point.
I don’t know how to follow up the amazing Deadpool since that was the best film viewed yet, but we’ll have to try. I continued down the comedy road and chose a film by the world famous Coen Brothers (Fargo). The film is called The Ladykillers and it stars the amazing Tom Hanks (Philadelphia) as Professor G.H. Dorr PHd, a smooth talking eccentric southern man who is looking to take advantage of an old woman named Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall) because her property lies within his master plan. You see, Dorr wants to rob a Casino boat, but in order to do that, he has to build a tunnel underground that leads to the casino with a rather unlikely team and pose as a classical duo in the meantime to fool the old lady. The film also stars Marlon Wayans (Scary Movie) as Gawain, J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) as Garth Pancake, Tzi Ma (Rush Hour) as The General, Ryan Hurst (Remember The Titans) as Lump Hudson, Diane Delano (The Wicker Man) as Mountain Girl, George Wallace (Funny People) as Sheriff Wyner, Stephen Root (Office Space) as Fernand Gudge, Jason Weaver (Drumline) as Weemack, and Walter K. Jordan (Life) as Elron.
I didn’t know going into the film that it was a remake and with that being said I’d actually like to see the original version. The film isn’t super amazing, but it’s actually pretty decent and at times it’s funny. The part that is funny to me is the fact that these are five guys who have really no business being a team and it shows throughout the film. You want to talk about a motley crew, these are definitely them. You have a punk wannabe street thug, a demolitions expert with a bad case of IBS, a Vietnamese general with a smoking habit, and a jock whose dumber than a box of rocks. That is where the real comedy in this film lies and it once it gets towards the last 20 minutes of the film is when it gets really good as it all falls apart. The soundtrack to the film is actually pretty good as it mixes some gospel music with music like The Nappy Roots, and so much more. It was also supervised by T Bone Burnett who you may remember for O Brother, Where Art Thou?. I definitely think it’s a film that is worth checking out if you are a fan of Tom Hanks, The Coen Brothers, and T Bone Burnett. Marlon Wayans was definitely the comedic relief of the film, but Hanks provides some himself. I am going to give The Ladykillers an B for a final grade.
365moviesin365dayschallenge 