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This feature film length documentary is a collage of scenes that where filmed during creation of the movie "The Boondock Saints", which is a pretty interesting but also pretty depressing story, about the rise and downfall of Troy Duffy, the director and writer of the cult classic.

Starting out as a bar tender he meets Harvey Weinstein and that guy is so convinced by Duffy first apperences that he not only buys the script, but also offers Duffy 15 million dollars to create it, and signs Duffys band and even buys the bar Duffy worked in, and made Duffy a co-owner. If he'd only known better. As it turns out, Duffy is so sure of himself, that he has no problems dissing everybody, his actors, his co-workers, his producers and even his friends and family. This paired with his alcohoism - (quote) "I get drunk at night, wake up the next morning hung over, go into those meetings in my overalls, and they're all wearing suits." - leads to his downfall: His funds are taken away, Harvey Weinstein does everything to make sure his movie doesn't sell and in the end, he signs a shitty deal for having his movie shown in five cinemas in whole USA for one week! The end of it: The deal did not include any shares for the home video release, so practically at the end he got nothing and since then has a hard time even finding a job in the movie industry.

While showing this, one of course gets a totally different perspective of what went on behind the scenes of this movie. Wow. However, for me it also showed how pitty some people (Harvey Weinstein, the owner of Miramax) can be, fighting a guy he had some disagreements with - which even leads up to the question if he was in any way responsible for an assult on Duffys life (if it wasn't anybody of the entire crew who all had plenty of reasons for it themselves).

All in all it is a pretty interesting documentary, although I wouldn't call it a documentary in the traditional sense, but rather a collage of behind-the-movie scenes, as there is no narration and hardly any context given; rather the opposite - from the beginning you get thrown in into raw footage that someway inbetween the first days of producing the videos Duffy thought would be a good idea, because from his perspective movie history was written (because in the end we would have gotten the classic dish-washer -> millionair story if he hadn't screwed it up). Now and then there is a textcard or subtitle telling us something like "beginning of shooting", etc. but that is it. No narrator from the off, most of the times even no talking to the camera but rather something like blairwitch-project - a found footage film, so to speak, without the cameraman ever turning the camera arround. Which is somewhat crazy, because we get to see some really fucked-up scenes that no one in his right mind would want himself to be seen in.

To me the found footage style is a bit displeasing which is why I the rating is not as high as it could be. Other than that, it was really interesting, eye-opening, and also disturbing if you like the movie...

I was a bit shocked after watching this movie, to find out that actually (here in Germany at least) no one is talking about this movie! I don't know why, I have started some discussions about it, but the general interest is really at a lowpoint, despite the partly famous cast (I mean Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, David Wenham, Nicole Kidman - all names one knows). There are so many bad movies that everyone talks about and that are not worth the attention. This one is actually a masterpiece.

We see the story of a young boy, 5 years old, who living in India makes a mistake, which separates him for 20 years from his family. This alone is so absurd and unbelievable for us living in the western world, as we have functioning civil services that will be able to bring you back to your parents if you are found lost. Not in India though. This movie is devided into three parts - the first part being the general part showing him how he grows up as a child, what he does for "leisure" and where he is rooted. The second part is his faith and how he deals with it in India, and this is probably the most horrible part in the entire movie. I realized when watching this in cinema that some people actually didn't get what happened and why it happend, because the movie does not care to actually explain, that India has a number of (somewhere I've hear 36?) main languages that totally differ from each other. Most people grow up learning only their language, only the educated ones from the big cities also know how to talk in Hindi and/or English (both accepted main languages besindes the one of your county); the boy being miles away from home basically can't communicate with anybody, because he doesn't know Hindi/English and nobody in that county speaks his home tongue).

The last part than focusses on his turn of luck and his search, with the search being the final 20 Minutes, so not a major part.

Not only is this movie totally touching because of the general story; it is also an ingenious acting piece, with the star being the 6 yesrs old Snny Pawar. Wow, is this guy good. Absolutely crazy, absolutely believable and therefore also absolutely frightening and touching, when it comes to the sad parts of the movie. This is really one of the best child actors I've seen since dakota fanning, and he beats her by lengths. You are actually sad when it comes to the agining and suddenly Dav Patel jumpes in, even though, also Dave Patel is great (you know him from Slumdog Millionair or Chappie). Rooney Mara is a great support and also Nicole Kidman is really great in this movie.

And if that is not enough, we also get great pictures and sets, a really thrilling contrast in comparing India to Australia, and wonderful camera work. So, yeah - it is a great picture, it is really worth seeing, it will invite you for an emotional jorney and give you a lot of food for thought.

Absolutely worth watching!

"Devil in the House of Exorcism" is an alternative title to "The House of Exorcism" which is a really weird poster to have with this version of the movie, because this one - as title and year clearly state is the original version as Mario Bava intended it (for the other look up "The House of Exorcism" there - I have written a review for that one as well explaining the differences to this version).

This one is "Lisa and the Devil" - Lisa e il diavolo, and it is by some considered to be Bavas masterpiece. You can really recognize the totally different style that Bava uses in this movie, it's poetic, full of symbolism and metaphors. A lot of scenes show his genious for those times, take for example the opening scene that is extremely depressing, or the love triangle during the car ride, where the viewer understands what is going on without anybody saying a word - just because of the way Bava shot the scenes.

Still especially in the first half the movie has a number of weary lengths, and there is hardly any suspence or excitement, except for all the symbolism and metaphores that Bava installs. Only when leaning towards the end does this movie turn into a horror movie.

Thoug having yet another movie with genious camera work I still do also miss all the technical finess, that I used to see in his first movies (think about Black Sunday, that is full of craftmanship, when it coms to inventing new and extrodinary effects for the movies. Stuff that today we ask the PC to do without even thinking about it - but that where - during that time impossible to get shot - and yet he somehow did it and invented innovative ways to film those. I miss that in this movie.

Still it is an interesting piece of art, and something you should spend some time with, when you see it. In the beginning I was like "This is a 5/10", but looking at all the extras, understanding what he did and why he did it - and what makes it ingenious - those where the things that made the movie even more interesting. I guess it's hard - at least to me - to fairly critizise movies from so many decades that we cannot even begin to understand what amount of work simple scenes consumpted. And taking all those factors into consideration I end up with 7/10 Points.

Opera was my first Dario Argento movie and I am really happy that this was the case. Probably wouldn't have been that interested in Argento if it was another movie of his, because I don't like all of his work; this one however, is in my opinion up to now the best movie I know by him.

Just consider the film making taking the first scene: It starts with a raven eye, and we see the entire scenery as the reflection inside the raven eye: an opera stage and the audience sitting in front of it. This is a special metaphor: Eyes and observing things, be it as a voluntary observer, or as a forced observer. But it's also about seeing things and not seeing other things - with a lot of POV shots. This movie is also about unhealthy relationships, psychopaths and music. A large portion is also critizising the opera due to the fact that Dario Argento wanted to create an Opera but was riddiculed. All this is put into a relatively easy but yet really captivating and thrilling story - we have a masked serial killer that stalks an opera singer and forces her to witness his or her kills.

The movie offers a lot of original ideas that one hasent seen as such before - one for example being the needels being sellotaped to the eyelids, to make shure they cannot be closed. Another interesting thing are the elaborate dolly shots that where hard to film because everything had to be done by hand. This makes this movie great even for todays standards and there is no wondering, why this is considered to be one of the most outstanding movies of the italian horror movies.

It's really worth seeing!

I am working myself through the legendary Hammer movies, one at a time (as they are released by Anolis - a German movie label that produces high-quality restaurations as blu-ray releases in digipacks). Some of them are really great - but of course not all can be. "The Vampire Lovers" - one of the three movies of the "Karnstein Trillogy" - is one of the later movies, one that is strongly leaning towards the trashy side of things. On the one sind we have again Peter Cushing who is again exceptionally good; however in this movie he just gets an supporting role with little screen time. The lion share of the screen is invested in Ingrid Pitt, who - differently to Christopher Lees Vampire roles - is not the really the villain, but rather a sad character that acts badly due to her loneliness. Because of this loneliness she looks out for female lovers, but whomever she finds gets sick and finally gets turned into a vampire herself. In the background however, there is a misterious vampire lord who seems to be pulling the strings. However this is never really further elaborated - not sure if this is exposed in the other movies of the Karnstein Trillogy? Haven't seen them yet, so not sure abotu that.

I don't want to get further into the movie - however there is not much more happening. The typical final fight of the other movies is in this one really bad and unspectacular. Most of the movie shows the flirtations between Ingrid Pitt and the daughters of the village, which she picks - one after another. Her longest love interest is portrait by the beautiful Madeline Smith, who until then was unknown (she had another role in a Hammer movies - in Tast the Blood of Dracula she has a minor role), but managed to finally become a bond girl.

Besides from that the movie has nothing really to offer; theintroductory scene with the ball is really nice, and Peter Cushings acting is once more great. Ingrid Pitt however I did not like - her performance is average at most; Madeline Smith is better than Pitt - however, you realize that at that time she did not have much acting experience and probably got this role only because of her looks.

All in all it's still acceptable, and taking the time into considertaion I would still award it 5 out of 10 points. However, not a movie that I'd recommend or consider rewatching ever again.

A group of Irish men want to buy weapons for their resistance and meet in an abandoned warehouse. Their team is a rather spontaneous group of not entirely trustworthy persons - but so is the team of the weapons dealer, and because of this everything goes wrong and turns into a movie filling shootout.

This movie consists of a number of situational comedy shaped by the fire exchange of all participants and the way that these fundamentally different react in such an hopeless situation. The shootout that takes up 80 percent of the movie is kept interesting by different objectives that both sides try to reach as well as their constant trying of maybe somehow defusing the situation and get out of it somehow (which again fails as someone else screws it up again).

While the story is simple and can basically be summed up in a paragraph, the movie manages to stay entertaining the entire time using comedy, action and great shooting and storytelling, as well as using parallel storylines. If I had to compare the movie to another, I guess the closest match would be Tarantinos Reservoir Dogs; however the movie is still quite distinct, has it's own comedy style and is powerd rather by comedy than by excessive brutality (although it is brutal as well, of course). So in the end even people that don't like Reservoire Dogs end up liking this movie (my girlfriend for example).

I was grealty entertained and enjoyed this movie quite a lot.

A guy whos life consists of a mediocre job and getting into bar fights after work gets the information that his brother has died and travels back to his hometown, only to learn that he inherited custody of his brothers son. Back in his hometown, Manchester, he also faces his past wich is as we find out pice by pice an incredible tragedy.

As I am from Germany, we often don't have the luxury to being able to watch all movies wich earned an Oscar before the Oscars. For Manchester by the Sea this was true, and so I was eager to see this movie which I did not have heared about before the Oscars as there was no advertisement or trailers for this movie where I live.

In my opinion, this movie does not stand out in any category - I wouldn't say that I've seen great acting, I did not realize any incredible camera work, I did not realize the Score as something remarkable. But it is not a bad movie and all in all it was solid. Where it actually wins, is the story, which I find incredible - it is rather a character study than movie that is based on a lot of dialogues or action and acting. It therefore has a slow pace, a lot of still moments and a lot of flashbacks that help us understand this guy. It is the story telling that makes the audience change it's viewpoint of the main character - while in the beginning we get the feeling that this guy is an unsympathetic asshole, a guy that nobody would want to hang out with we will start to gain more and more understanding and sympathy for this man as the story progresses and the tragedy unfolds.

However, there is no epiphany, no character change, no lessons learned. At the end we are right where we started, with a slight hope of some minimal changes, and then we're let out to go home. Somewhat frustrating.

As I said, the story is great, and also the acting is totally fine - I believe Afflecks acting and I believe everyone elses. However, it is not exceptional - it is not hard to play, it wasn't challenging or daring. And thus being said I don't get how Affleck could have been chosen over Viggo Mortensen (I haven't seen the other nominees movies in that category) who in Captain Fantastic played a much more dynamic, much more changing character with a variety of emotions and changing views and character over the progression of the movie.

That being said, I guess the Oscar for best original script is more than justified! This is an epic tragedy that the writers came up with and it is perfectly told in a way that keeps you interested throughout the movie which is a great job for such a slow-paced movie!

For me, Silence is a tough movie. Tough to watch, tough to digest, tough to judge.

As with Manchester by the Sea, with Silence we get more or less a character studies, but this time from a person who makes a shocking change in his live, having a 180 degree change of belives, which are enforced of course by outer conditions, but it still happens.

The title Silence is quite literal; you'll experience whole passages that are without any noise and only show images, sometimes still images, sometimes beautiful scenary. We get some great sets and beautiful shots, the camera work is phenomenal, absolutely great. In many parts the movie tires and manages to convey feelings and emotions only by the use of excellent camera work and succeeds (e.g. the feeling of both lonelyness, cold and hunger, as well as being lost and hopeless, by showing how Garfield sleeps leaning against a stone first in closeup then in a wide angle shot).

Besides these great things, the movie is mainly driven by Garfields thoughts and his prayers and letters and diaries which are conveyed by narrating them offscreen. And here starts my critics, because as for an great director as Scorsese it would have been easy to tell us a lot of what is told us only by narration by using moving pictures. By narrating it, it starts getting extremely slow, and boring, because it us extremly long and a lot that is narrated. All in all the action is at a minimal, interaction with other people is reduced to mainly dialogues (which are of course much more interesting than the monotonous narrator), and I got the feeling that a lot could have been told much faster. Therefore watching the movie becomes cumbersome and that is really sad, because the movie actually has so much to offer.

We get the afore mentioned great camera work. We also have Andrew Garfield, who is at the peak of his acting skills - this guy is extremly good - I enjoyed him in a number of other movies and was aware of his greatness long before but this is probably his best acting piece yet. We also have an interesting story about percecution of Christians in Japan which I had known nothing about before; and this movie has absolutely great food for thought - raises a lot of hard questions without giving any answers to them and the best of all: It doesn't even judge. You can feel for both sides - of course you have the classical villain and the classical hero at first glance - but the movie does not make it as simple. It gets more and more complex, and in the end, you can understand both sides but don't want to have to be on either. It shows a great conflict between religious convincement (and borderline personal egocentric delusion) and moral and ethic on the other side. This is actually ingenious work and definately a move one SHOULD see!

However, all the negative aspects hindred my enjoyment of the movie. A lot. It was too long, had too much narration, to many lengths, a much to slow pace, and all this made it a non-enjoyable experience, and especially a moive that you watch once and never again. Which is sad, for such an important message.

Therefore - even thoug it made me think a lot and occupied me days and weeks after watching it, I cannot make up more than 7/10, which somehow saddens me.

In the 1970 an unchartered island gets discorverd by new satelite technology in the mids of the cold war, and a scientist manages to finance an expedition to this island. With the help of the military under a leader played by Samuel L. Jacskon who is to be retired but loves war, they reach the island only to find it inhabited by a number of giant creatures like spiders, squids, water buffalos - and of course the king of all creatures: Kong; and as Ahab, Samuel L. Jackson sets out to kill this enemy of mankind at any cost.

This movie is mainly all about showing off giant creatures fighting. The framing story is sound, the sets are beautiful and show a number of beautiful and impressive scenery. After setting the story up, the pace is extremely fast - we approach the island via helicopter and the movie makes a hommage to Apocalypse Now, and then already King Kong appears and rips the helicopters from the sky.

Stranded on the island, the team tries to reach the pick-up point to get of the island and while doing so we witness what this movie is all about: CGI creatures fighting each other in epic battles. These are more interesting than the survivial fights and especially more interesting than the acting of the crew. Even though the cast consists of highly appreciated actors, such as Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, Toby Kebbell - all actors from wich we expect great. However in this movie their talent isn't even yielded but rather vasted. The only two actors that are somewhat remarkable are Smauel L Jackson and Jason Mitchell - all the other roles could have been played by amateurs and wouldn't have changed the quality.

The tone of the movie that is set with the jungle, the action and the giant biests is rather frightening - however it is often disturbed by jokes. While some things where really good, such as some funny scene changing cuts and some situational comedy, most of the time I was annoyed by the funny remarks that where constantly made and that had an aclimatic touch.

So at the end we have an rather insignificant movie, that has great CGI, great images and great beast fights, but nothing more than that. However, it was fun watching it, it isn't a movie that one has to see, but it's an entertainment movie that does it's job well. To compare it with a similar movie: I gave Godzilla 8/10. This movie was slightly worse.

If you watch this in cinemas: Stay seated! There is an after credit scene!

In "The Evil of Frankenstein", Peter Cushing, as doctor Frankenstein tries to reanimate corpses but is hindered by the people of the village he lives in. Frustrated he decides to move back to his hometown Karlstadt, which he had to leave after successfully creating his famous monster, which was killed by the town folk. While returning, he finds out that all his possessions where stolen - and there is another suprise...

This movie is somewhat interesting. While telling a known story, it twistest the roles of good and evil; while normally Frankenstein is precieved as crazy man that creates evil, in this movie he is rather portrayed as victim of the evil leadership consisting of church, police and the mayors - who not only persecute him but also steal all his belongings. And even the town folks are portrayed evil (when of course a somewhat lesser evil) - they are not only the lynch mob but also bully the poor deaf-mute town girl.

Frankenstein on the opposite together with his helping hand Hans are the misjudged heroes who achiev the unbelievable. Who manage to cheat death and lead mankind to scientific wonders. The main evil is a human hypnotist Zoltán, who instrumentalizes Frankensteins monster for his own revenge and enrichment - and degrades the deaf-mute town girl by trying to rape her and then not going through with it, because she's not worth the trouble. The monster on the other hand is the victim.

I think this is - especially for its time - a really progressive story. Normally there is a typical black-and-white idea of good and evil which seem to be static in movies from that era. The story is interestingly told, and never forseeable, the acting varies.

Peter Cushing is of course the star, and this movie is one of his greatest, because he has a lot of screen time (compared to, i.e. his portrayals of van Helsing). Katy Wild has also great potential even though she plays a deaf-mute girl. The acting of Kiwi Kingston as the monster is however extremely poor, and with exception of Peter Woodthorpe (Zoltán) the acting is pretty bad. However, all in all the movie is enjoyable and can be seen numerous times; I liked it!

The sequel that was released five years after 28 days later is a good second movie - it picks up the story 28 weeks later. All of England was eradicated and all the people infected did finally die, so a special task force of NATO tries to repopulate the Island again. Under the new arrivers, two children are brought in, something the medical officer does not agree with, as England is still considered a danger zone outside the save fortifications that NATO built. The two kids are refugees that fly back in to meet their father. However things get sour, and soon there is another outbreak of the virus. After containment fails, NATO protocol dictates to kill all humans, no matter if infected or not. And thus a small group including our two kids must again fight against both: humans and zombies.

While the first movie was clearly a low-budget movie, this one is clearly not - the images are more crisp, the special effects are larger, we get a lot of different wide-area CGI effects, like whole streets lighting up in fire from NATO helicopter bombings, blown up buildings, we get gas attacks that produce fog walls that are many stories high, we have a number of helicopters, a plane, a car chase that ends in an underground tunnel. Yes - compared to 28 days later, the game has been stepped up big time. Also when it comes to the list of actors (see below).

Again we get everything we loved from the first movie, however, some of it here and there lost it’s novelty so it is not as fascinating as it was in the first movie. Also the first movie, due to its low-budget nature had a lot of character, and parts of it (not all!) get lost. However, it gains in more graphical violence, so it’s more of a horror movie with much more gore, which might be one reason for loosing some of its charms as it becomes more conventional. But as the first movie, this one isn’t conventional either, it is quite atmospheric and emotional, again it has enormously great acting, it takes its time (though less than in the first movie) it has a rather interesting story, and again you will find philosophical questions that can be asked and answered with this movie. The story is not straight but has some twists in it.

For the cast we have Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Cathrine McCormack, Iris Elba, … all move veterans, some of which did movies in the 80s, most of them in the 90s and those who where younger did also already do a number of good movies before 28 weeks later. And again, this somewhat was the charm of 28 days later - to have a cast of actors that no one has seen before and that where so good that their career sky-rocketed. It is of course nice to see familiar faces - but well… I don’t know, I liked that about 28 days, and I miss It in 28 weeks. However, not entirely though: Imogen Poots is a first-timer. She had a minor role in V for Vendetta and directly after that here she gets one of the leads. And boy is she good. I especially loved here in Long way down, which I consider her best preformances from all the movies I know her in; this is however also absolutely great and again - after this performance she has gotten a number of offers and stared in a number of films.

You may have noticed the slight dissapointment when comparing it to the first movie - that is just my opinion of course - I know a number of people who like the second one better than the first. Me however not. But that does not mean that this movie is bad in general. Besides my critics, nearly everything I’ve written in my review to the first movie also applies to this movie (with the exceptions of course being pointed out in this review). So in the end we get a great, innovative, emotional, perfectly acted, perfectly filmed, and perfectly soundtracked movie that is worth watching and that can be watched a number of times without getting boring. I will award it 8/10 points.

And so, I am looking forward to 28 months later, which - to my latest knowledge - is still work in progress. So keep your fingers crossed!

A teenage love drama. This at the beginning might sound bad (especially if you don't love that kind of movies), and in the beginning I was thinking that it will be really bad, but over the time I realized it wasn't that bad. I think this is due to the perfect acting of the two main characters - they play totally believable, you just need to look into their faces and can read what they feel. Also there are no clichés, no sob stuff, no over- or underacting: just perfect.

Other than that, there is not much happening in this movie. Still especially at the end, the movie is getting interesting - and I was totally suprised by the ending - I figured out three ways this could end, and I was really expecting a classical ending, but this was somewhat suprising and not that expected - not the typical happy ending, but also not a sad ending.

So, I think 7/10 is a good rating, for a movie that actually isn't that deep, and that you probably don't want to watch more than once. A movie I wouldn't have watched voluntarily; but I was happy that is was shown at the sneak preview.

Wow. This was so not what I was expecting, and really something to chew on. The story was really moving, even though you could say that actually there is not much happening. But even so, it keeps you captivated throughout the movie - you wouldn't feel any drags. On the other hand it is really depressing and no feelgood movie, and I am not sure if you do your kids a treat (you'd rather make them cry :D ). The movie is made really good, however I was so captivated, that I did not have any time to analyse the movie in more detail (which normally I do, when watching movies) - all I can say that in the first 20 minutes I was not really immerged, so it took a shot while. In this time I had the feeling that it would be a lot like Pan's Labyrinth. However this movie stands on it's own and any resemblence to del Torrors movie that you might get in the beginning, will soon be whiped away: while Torrors movie are more on the dreamy-fantasy side, this movie is more direct and more depressing on the reality side of things.

Additional information: My girlfriend read the book and she thinks, this movie is a perfect adaption that stays true to the novel. So whoever liked the book will also like the movie ;)

"The Bye Bye Man" is a relatively classical horror movie which tries to send you the chills by scary images and a scary way of story telling and not so much by using gore or jump scares. There actually are two to three jump sacres, one of which even got me. However, the rest of the time it is slow paced atmospheric horror flick, which I did not find scary most of the time (yet there where approx. 10 of the 40 people that visited the sneak preview that left early). Still it was greatly enacted with some innovative ideas (yes, they did not invent anything new, most of the ideas we have already seen in different versions, but the way the ideas where shown in this movie was somewhat innovative), and it was an interesting and thrilling story.

What I did not like at all (and what cost this movie at least one point) are the CGI figures. Oh my God was this horrible. I hated the figure, it did not even contribute a lot to the story, so leaving it out would have actually been much better; if you'd had to have it, then take a real creature, or some real animal or practical effects. But that was rather cheap and spoiled the mood alot.

Other than that, I was entertained and enjoyed the movie; I believe it's more of a movie for people who enjoyed atmospheric horror movies such as "It". One last thing: I loved how the trailer does hardly use any scenes from the movie - so no spoilers there!

Laika Entertainment - after doing a number of contract works beforehand, with the best probably being "A Corpse Bride" for Tim Burton - is a studio that has specialized on the old artform of stop motion animation movies. Given our current times, this seems to be an incredible amount of work that could have easily been done using a few computers. However, these guys go through the crazy amount of work of first doing animated shots to scetch up the movie, then empoly a number of designers to scetch out the chracters, giving these to sculptures who acutally build DVD-Keepcase-sized puppets that are movable in everywhich way needed, with replacable faces so up to 250000 faces with different facial expressions can be created; carpenters, electricians etc. then build miniature sets for the puppets, and when finally being able to shot, they actually have to create each frame of a 25 frames per second movie by hand. A while ago I've read in an article about Laika that each minute of a movie, takes a week's work of just shooting, errors therefore are extremely expensive and hard to fix and at the end, Laika runs out with approximately +/- $0 USD.

So what other reasons are there to create such a movie, other than being a total movie buff and loving what you do? And that is what you realize when watching the movies and making ofs. This insane amount of detail, as well as lovely stories worth telling make great movies.

I've already seen "Boxtrolls" (7/10) and "Kubo" (8/10), which I both really loved, and sames goes for ParaNorman. However comparing all three movies with oneanother I have to say that ParaNorman is slightly worse than the other two.

When it comes to "Boxtrolls" we had a nice idea for a story that was overall well told - but not as great compared to "Kubo". Therefore it had lovelyer figures that where really cute. "Kubo" did not point that much in the cuteness department but storywise it was great and it really had you emotionally invested.

Taking both into account, "ParaNorman" unfortunately is behinde them in all departments. That does not mean the movie is bad - it isn't. It again has a great and lovely story, nice animated figures and good overall story telling; but in comparison it's simply just not at the level of the other two, so this is why from me it only gets (6/10).

That being said, we get not only a nice movie, but also in parts funny parody on horror movies, so all in all I really enjoyed this movie!

Wow! Probably one of the best Hammer movies, and at least the best that I have seen by Hammer thusfar. I really enjoyed it. It is not the typical monster movie you expect from Hammer (no Vampires, no Dracula, no monster of Frankenstein, no Werewolfs, etc.), still it has a supernatural component with a girl being possessed by a ghost.

She is the perpetrator of the movie, yet you feel pitty for her - not having had an easy life she still seems totally innocent and lovable and you start blaming all the other people around her, that take advantage of her or by using her, by raising her badly or by raping her.

The other lead is the doctor, who is also interesting; in the beginning you suspect him to be the morally steady person, but while the movie progresses you start wondering, and learn that actually he isn't. This is so good, that in the end I wondered if he would stop her, or let it happen, allowing him to get rid of something he is not fond of.

We have - for that time - great actors who manage to protrait deep and interesting characters and that is just the first component. In addition we have a great story, that does not have a black-and-white look on things, and that is interesting from the beginning to the end. Also we have a philosophical-scientific component that is also fun to think about.

At no minute did I feel bored, or was I reminded by the age of the movie, due to modern camera, gerat acting, and a fast-pace movie.

I am really blown away - I did not expect anything this great by Hammer. Up to now I would say, the movies from the studios, that I have seen, all average at around 7/10; this one is clearly far better!

On the German blu-ray release it reads "A hybrid of Mad Max and Death Proof!", which will of course set high expectations that this movie will not hold at all - if you expect anything near those master pieces than you are really in for a disappointment.

I try to watch movies as uninfluenced as possible to not have any kind of expectations, because a high expectation can lead to disappointment which will even lower your rating (due to the negative experience, that you might not have experienced when going into a movie without any expectations). However, I had some expectations, therefore I wasn't as happy as I expected. But, if you are in for a B-Movie with some action and some gore, than you'll get what you've asked for. You will however realize that this movie had an extremely low budget. However, they try to make the best out of this situations and in some departments this really works out great. This movie has a lot of the charme of a typical B-Movie or Grindhouse movie, there are some trashy scenes and a few number of times I had a laugh. However budget cuts where made especially when it comes to story, dialogues and mask, which I consider somewhat bad. Especially the mask - take for example the car explosion and then you see the victim survive with some ragged clothes and some makeup on the face - and you just realize how this is just makeup, not the ashes of an explosion. Also: why is the hair totally okey, if the entire face is black and the clothes are ripped? Also because of the bad writing, we get a number of scenes that are dragging, which is especially bad if you count in the short running time of the movie. And all in all you somehow have the feeling that the scenes are just parts that where somehow mixed together into a movie, but that seem disconnected to each other: We have an action scene, then some driving, then again an action scenen with totally different people, again some driving, and so on.

These are not the qualities that comapre with Mad Max or Death Proof. However, the story is nice, the splatter effects are great, and the practical effects are immensly good. CGI is near to terrible, but given it is a movie on a budget, it's okey - there've been hollywood blockbusters that have been worse. Also, the cast is execpetionally good, I love all three of the main actors that bring different aspects to the story, and that know their acting and know how to get the audiences attention. However, to improve the movie, it should have had more trashy gore (I loved the stop sign axe scene) a little bit less draggy scenes (take the Marry Death Badlands scene - I mean how did that add anythint to the plot? how was this in any ways funny or interesting, etc?), and a more natural look (more dirt, more sweat - it just doesn't fit if the actors look neat and clean after a number of battles - and use real dirt instead of bad makeup), and a little bit more and especially better dialoges (yes, it's a B-Movie but still, why not let the audience feel the attaction between our two main characters?). If those points would have been just a bit better, this movie would have had potential for at least 7/10 points.

But in the end, we have a number of positve as well as negative aspects that cancel each other out, so in the end, I end up with 5/10 points.