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The perfect crime goes horribly wrong

SHOOT THE DEAD - the tagline is probably the main reason why NOT to go see this, everything else is fine

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Almost a decade after the Blair Witch Project first mixed conventional horror movie shock tactics and plot twists with "realistic" amateur-style footage to bring fright fans a unique and involving take on an already well tried and tested formula, it seems that movie studios have managed to tear themselves away from constantly remaking ("ruining") classic movies long enough to use this "faux documentary" style as their new way to teach old dogs new tricks. Mere months after the giant monster movie Cloverfield stomped its way into cinemas worldwide - obliterating the box office rather than breeding in pound shop DVD baskets in large part thanks to the hype over its "unique perspective" - the godfather of zombie movies George A. Romero has hopped on the bandwagon in an attempt to revitalise the long-running franchise that began with 1968's groundbreaking, independent Night of the Living Dead, travelled through genre classics Dawn of the Dead and...

Some Thing Has Found Us.

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Cloverfield follows five New Yorkers from the perspective of hand held video camera. The movie is exactly the length of a DV Tape and a sub-plot is established by showing bits and pieces of video previously recorded on the tape that is being recorded over.

Un-Dead at 30,000 Feet.

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On a flight from Los Angeles to Paris, a mad scientist on the run from the CIA is transporting a coffin containing the body of a colleague infected with a genetically modified virus. While the 747 crosses a violent thunderstorm, the instability of the aircraft allows the corpse to get out of its container. The flesh-eating zombie quickly starts to spread the virus, infecting many of the passengers which now will have to fight for their lives stranded in the air with no way out

Things to do before you die

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Ah, bit morbid, no? Well, not really. Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) is an aging playboy with loads of cash (easy to believe) but no family, whereas Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) has dedicated his life to his family. Seemingly polar opposites, these characters are united when they discover (separately) that they both have cancer, and the pair find themselves in the same room of a hospital that Cole owns. After a period of virtually no communication, they begin to bond, and eventually decide to embark upon an adventure, where they do all the things they wanted to do before they die - The Bucket List. The cast also includes Sean Hayes (who you might recognise as Jack from American sitcom, Will and Grace) as Edwards' ,thankfully very straight, assistant. The only thing is, take away the big names, and you're left with a Sunday 'made for TV' movie. Its not really anything new, and the camerawork makes it feel cheap. For example, when the pair race each other in their dream cars at...

The Demon Barber of Fleet Streets gruesome tale.

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From the outset, you know this film is from the imagination of Tim Burton. The streets of London are midnight blue, and his characters faces are pale and dirty. I suppose the fact that it has both Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter is a dead giveaway too. Even the opening credits are fun, complete with tomato ketchup blood. And boy, is there a lot of it. And its great fun to watch. The story is from the musical of the same name, and follows Todd, who was banished from his happy life with his wife and child because Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) took a fancy to his spouse. the bad Judge decide to get rid of Todd so that he could have her for himself. The film begins with Todd being found on a boat after he has been rescued by a young sailor who is taking him home to London. When he arrives back at his old barber shop, he finds Mrs Lovett (Bonham-Carter), his neighbour in the shop below, who makes 'the worst pies in London'. Times are hard, and meat is scarce. She discovers who...

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This film is fantastic. Odd, and a bit confused about what it wants to be at times, but it's still great. Steve Carell plays Dan, an awkward widower struggling to bring up his 3 daughters. One of whom is 13 and has a boyfriend (which he strongly disapproves of), one who is 17 and desperate to drive but he wont allow her because 'its not her, its the other people on the road', and his youngest who is about 7 or 8 who is by far the easiest to look after because she's still in the stage of being a daddy's girl. Having torn his middle child away from her boyfriend to go on the annual trip to his parents where the whole family have congregated, and not allowing his eldest to drive, he leaves his daughters to cool down. After his mum has sent Dan away, he wanders into a bookshop where he meets Marie (Juliette Binoche), and, after pretending to be a store clerk so that he can talk to her he takes her for coffee and it's love at first sight. The meeting is short lived as she has to run...

A teenagers life in the aftermath of an accidental murder

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Directed by Gus Van Sant, and told through a letter, Paranoid Park is the story of a young (at a guess, 16 or 17) skater who accidentally kills a security guard, and what has happened in his life after it as he struggles to come to terms with what he has done. There's nothing complicated about the story itself, the lead, Alex, sometimes stumbles over his words as he reads aloud, but it jumps a lot through different timeframes, repeating scenes as he struggles to piece together what has happened - 'I was never very good at creative writing'. It has one of the most horrifying scenes I've ever seen. Forget monsters and full on gore, this was just plain disturbing. I actually choked on my popcorn. It is a bit gory, but its the sheer horror of what is actually happening itself at the scene of the security guard's death. What’s great about it is that we don’t see the archetypal skater boy - we meet a shy, nervous boy who's messed up, but tries to keep it to himself. His girlfriend...

Pride is a curse

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Robert Zemeckis's animated versioun of the story of Beowulf

Get Ready to get wasted

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Take a bunch of daft American teenagers, send them over to Ireland to meet their hippy pals and go taking mushrooms in the middle of the woods, add in some inbred peasant goatherders living in middle of said woods, supposedly true campfire story of a children's home nearby run by sadistic monks that tortured the children before going on a rampage killing them all that supposedly haunt the area, have one of the teenagers flip out and having premonitions of something hunting them, then people start to go mising.. yeah, you get the idea. Formulaic b-movie horror it is, nicking bits from blair witch, texas chainsaw massacre, the JUDDERMAN and whatever else it can find along the way but strangely not the complete utter gashfest I was expecting. Really, really nicely shot, some well excecuted 'tripping' camera effects, and half decent attempt at 'is this real or are they just hallucinating?', plus an amusing talking cow. Other than that, expect plenty slow tension building with a...