ORBzine - Halloween 2006 Movie Reviews
Saw 3
Jigsaw is still in business, kidnapping people and putting them into his deadly machines.
Detective
Dina Meyer
is still on his trail.
Shawnee Smith
co-stars.
Angus MacFadyen [ Braveheart ] is the newest victim. He is given the opportunity to save other victims from some terrible fates, but first he must forgive them for things he believes they did to him.
There are references to, and spoilers for, the first 2 films. However, the torture scenes are if anything more extreme. People have been known to walk out about fifteen minutes into the film! Like Hannibal , it's gory and gross rather than good old-fashioned scary.
Gothika
Halle Berry
is a psychiatrist in a mental institution, treating
Penelope Cruz
. Unfortunately, the madness seems to be contagious ...
Berry's husband, Charles S. Dutton [ Alien 3 ] is brutally murdered. Berry is arrested for the crime. Is she insane, or possessed by a ghost or a demon?
This is a mediocre film. It's well-shot and has a decent cast, both products of a reasonable budget, but the script itself is the real let-down.
Halloween Resurrection
Michael Myers is back ... again!
He starts by stalking
Jamie Lee Curtis
through a mental institution.
Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks stage a Dangertainment webcast inside Myers' old house. A handful of annoying college students [including Kaytee Sackhoff doing a Cordelia impersonation] are locked inside the house at night. Their game is to uncover Myers' motivation. Of course, he's stalking them and picks them off one at a time.
All in all, this is a predictable slasher piece with little to put it above others in the genre. The only original idea, the webcast, was done much better in My Little Eye , which came out around the same time.
From Dusk Til Dawn
Seth [George Cloony -
Solaris
] and Richie [
Quentin Tarantino
] Gecko are gun-toting bank robbers in Texas. They kidnap Preacher Harvey Keitel [
Saturn 3
and his daughter
Juliette Lewis
so they can get over the border to Mexico.
In Mexico they hide out at a strip-club called the Titty Twister. Unfortunately, top dancer Santamonica Pandemonium [ Salma Hayek ] and her employees [including Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin] are all vampires! The Geckos, their hostages and a few survivors [Fred Williamson and Tom Savini], must survive through the night while besieged by blood-sucking monsters.
This is probably the best thing either director Robert Rodriguez or screenwriter Quentin Tarantino has ever done. Compare it to their more recent solo efforts, Kill Bill and Once Upon A Time In Mexico . They make a great team, and each should stick to their speciality.
Alien 3
Ripley [
Sigourney Weaver
] crash-lands on a desolate planet.
It's a remote prison colony, run by Governor Brian Glover [
American Werewolf in London
] and Doctor Charles Dance [
For Your Eyes Only
]. Newt, Hicks and Bishop are all written out -
unlike in the far superior Graphic Novel series.
Unfortunately, there was an Alien egg in Ripley's lifepod. The facehugger infects a dog, and a quadrupedal alien is unleashed upon the convicts. It picks them off, one by one, while they try to kill it. This ends in a race against time, to kill the monster before the Corporation team arrives to retrieve it.
David Fincher delivers a tense, nail-biting thriller with stylish cinematography. However, it does have its flaws. The shaven heads and noirish nighting make it very difficult to identify the actual characters! Yes, Pete Postlethwaite [ ] later made it big, but the truth is that they seem more or less interchangeable. That said, Charles S. Dutton [ Gothika ] gives an excellent performance as the convicts' religious leader.