Lifer Movies

Title: A Lure: Teen Fight Club Rating: 2.5/5 Genre: Crime, Drama Starring: Jessica Sonneborn, Michael McLafferty, Paulie Rojas Director: Bill McAdams Jr. You'd think with a title like that it'd be pretty hard to go too far wrong; a film about a fight club with teenage girls beating the crap out of each other. What part of this sounds bad? Malicious bad guys dressing them and giving them fun persona's; it's not too far removed from what made “Sucker Punch” so fun to watch, except here they're fighting one another! Or at least, that's what I expected. When young teenagers are mysteriously disappearing from a local high school, it's down to Maggie, a local cop, to go undercover and infiltrate the school to uncover the dark truth. Donning her hockey uniform, she impressively manages to convince the school effortlessly that she's new in town and not a woman of her early thirties, finding herself the target of the local popular clique of teens because s...

Title: Hanger Rating: 3.5/5 Genre: Horror, Exploitation Starring: Dan Ellis, Nathan Dashwood, Wade Gibb Director: Ryan Nicholson Sometimes you get a craving that nothing short of full blown gore-laden depravity will be able to fill. It's times like these that you need to look to the trash of the film world; the low-budget films that may not have the cash to splash around on detailed effects, but the idea's for a story that would never make it past the studio's desk. Another straight from Nicholson's chest of Troma worship, the man who previously gave us a film (Gutterballs) about a bowling pin slasher massacre returns with a tale even more depraved than ever. Starting out with a backroom abortion with a coat hanger, things only progress as he throws in casual racism, Santa's fun with GHB and tampon tea bags in as an aside to the main story. You see, the abortion of a baby manages to survive; her whore mother's main customer taking it upon himself to make ...

Title: Doug Stanhope – Deadbeat Hero Rating: 4/5 Genre: Comedy (Stand-Up) Starring: Doug Stanhope Through the black and white video we're slowly taken from the city lights to the back alleys of whatever US City this really is; a brief dictionary definition of the meaning of the word “Liberty,” a major point to be addressed in correlation to how little of it anyone really has, is briefly flashed up before descending us into the darkness. Past the dumpster we follow our hero as he grabs himself another beer, finishes his cigarette and emerges on the stage of a small, underground, smoke filled venue. Between the dishevelled look on his face and the dirtied overcoat you might have mistaken him for a homeless guy looking for warmth, and anyone would have thought from the appearance of the place that the prohibition had never ended, and maybe in Doug's eyes it never really had. Sometimes disclaimers appear in reviews, “not for the easily offended,” when dealing with such crass ...

Title: Andromeda Strain (remake) Rating: 3.5/5 Genre: Sci-fi, Drama, Thriller Starring: Benjamin Bratt, Daniel Dae-Kim, Eric McCormack Director: Ridley Scott, Tony Scott A review I wasn't gonna write until I realised just how slow work was going to be; whether you want to call this a film or a mini-series is up to you. Certainly there are budgetary concerns with many of those involved more used to TV work over feature films, and the expected midpoint cliffhanger, but at just under 3 hours long, happily works as a long film. And it's not slow and drawn out like you may expect from a long film, rather it takes inspiration from the original, as well as the Michael Crichton book and tries to do them both justice in terms of tone and atmosphere, also taking liberties with the original story (a sure fire way to disgruntle many a fan of the original), asking questions around the subject and this mysterious disease and then consequently answering them (for better or for worse), ...

Title: Nightmare on Elm Street (remake) Rating: 1.5/5 Genre: Horror Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner Director: Samuel Bayer Ah glorious is the day I discover we get all the movie channels at work, and still this is the best I can come up with; a remake of a film that, if I'm honest, I was never too enamoured with though I wont deny its position as a quintessential slasher flick that went a long way to defining the genre. Just one of a number of horror films that have been revisited by Hollywood in recent years, it's not an idea i've ever enjoyed much, just proving the lack of cinematic ideas and the drive for a cash in, making a film they know at worst will make its money back due to sheer morbid curiousity as to how badly they'll screw up this time. The premise for those who don't remember it is simple; the mass murderer Freddy Kroeger already met his grizzly fate, but even in death manages to find his revenge on all those who wronged ...

Title: The Descent Part Two Rating: 2/5 Genre: Horror Starring: Shauna McDonald, Michael Reynolds, Jessika Williams Director: Jon Harris Despite my usual apparent dislike for many mainstream efforts, the first part of this saga proved itself to be well thought out, and whilst being a shade predictable, never quite pandered to cliché. Quite impressive considering it was a film about women - none of who get their tits out - trying to escape a cave with what can only be called 'rock monsters' on their tail. Perhaps it was that they seem to have made something good out of what looked like a worrying premise that kept me away from this film. Perhaps it was the dreaded sequel syndrome. I honestly can't remember, but picking up where the last one left off, it certainly does feel like... well a sequel, with all the usual problems. When our sole survivor emerges, she quickly finds herself in a hospital bed being treated for her relatively minor wounds; traumatised by her or...

Title: 2012 Rating: 1.5/5 Genre: Apocalyptic Action Adventure Starring: John Cusack, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Eijerfor Director: Roland Emmerich Lets for the sake of argument ignore that the entire initial premise of this is pretty much a load of bollocks; that the Mayans predicted the end of anything except their calender (though that was only one throwaway line admittedly) or that the sun will ever randomly decide to start firing mutated neutrino's - whatever the hell they meant by that - that act like microwaves but only to the earths core, and not the surface. Lets gloss over this plot that a remedial high schooler could pick apart and move right on to all the other problems with this film that ought to be mentioned. It follows the story of a number of people; a limo driver for a Russian Billionnaire - his daughter sporting an accent so bad it borders on the offensive - and their families, one of which who discovers the secret thanks to a...