I Saw the Devil (2011) ★★★★ out of 5.

I don’t even know where to being to describe this film. It’s 2 and 1/2 hours of pure insanity, from start to finish. And never once in it’s entire run time does it let up. What really makes this movie so thrilling isn’t the excessive and never ending violence and blood shed on display (and there is alot of that here), but the characters who you actually care about. You either love or hate them, and there are some very interesting character arcs. The protagonist in this film is completely and utterly despicable. Through the course of the film, after watching his actions, you’ll hate him and wish for his defeat at the hands of our hero. He is the embodiment of the devil himself, and is pure evil, and nothing can seem to stop his reign of terror. He’s the most believable villain I’ve seen all year. I Saw the Devil is the most thrilling, disturbing, unsettling genre film of the year, and I only recommend it to the people who can stomach it. 

I’ve dedicated my entire morning to watching both the original and modern interpretations of The Wolf Man. I love the original, and I have since I was a little kid. Lon Chaney Jr. Was always the definitive wolfman, and seeing his hairy doggy mug is what got me interested in werewolves in the first place. Of course, the film doesn’t have the same frightening impact that it may have upon its release seventy years ago, it’s seen today as a fun and atmospheric little horror/fantasy flick. As for the remake that came out in 2010, the directors tried a lot harder to make it fit in with today’s standards. That’s both a blessing and a curse because, while all the gratuitous gore and blood is welcoming (and you’d be surprised, there’s a lot of it here), all this violence just feels out of place and makes the film even more unrealistic than it already is. I love gory monster films, but when dealing with the Wolf Man, or any other classic Universal Monster, I’d prefer the sympathetic and misunderstood monster rather than the violent killing machine seen here. I suppose werewolves are just that, ruthless monsters hellbent for death and destruction, but leave that for the splatter films. Rick Baker did a phenomenal job on the look of the werewolf though, and I applaud him for sticking to the original concept instead of switching to the more common looking wolf seen in pretty much every other werewolf film besides the Universal ones. Ironically, it’s the best werewolf design since the wolf in American Werewolf in London, Baker’s masterpiece.
The Wolf Man (1941) ★★★★ out of 5.
The Wolfman (2010) ★★★ out of 5.

The Director’s Challenge is a little something avid cinema fans like to partake in where they either pick a director they are fond of, or a completely new director to whom’s work they are unfamiliar with, and watch all their films (or the key majority of films that define them). I’ve tried things similar to this, but I’d like to actually pick two directors and complete their filmography. I’m considering one of my favorite directors, David Fincher, and a director I am interested in but never seen a single film from, Jee-wood Kim. The following lists are the films I’m including in my challenge:

David Fincher:
Se7en (1995)
The Game (1997)
Fight Club (1999)
Panic Room (2002)
Zodiac (2007)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
The Social Network (2010)
And I just saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo twice in the past week, so that will be excluded.

Jee-soon Kim:
A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
The Good, the Bad, The Weird (2008)
I Saw the Devil (2011)

This should be fun.

T.I. West is a great filmmaker. His last feature, The House of the Devil was nothing short of amazing, among the best horror films of the last decade. I’ve watched it on more than one occasion, and the more I see it, the better it gets. His most recent film, The Innkeepers is currently running on Video on Demand sites, before it hits theaters in February, and I’m seriously considering paying the $10 to rent it. I don’t know if that’s too much for just a rental, if you figure the average movie rental is less then half of that (unless you count the $1 RedBox rentals), but the ticket admission would have been $8 (twice that considering I’d bring my girlfriend). I look forward to watching Mr. Weston’s latest contribution to the genre.

Joe Dante’s The Howling (1981) was one of the first werewolf movie’s I ever saw. I remember my Grandfather trying to explain the werewolves to me, he would stretch his arms as wide as he could to show me “their heads were this wide” and describe their features as “their teeth were five inches long, had a mouth full of them, and claws just as long on each hand..”. It was common for him to describe the monsters in movies to me in overly exaggerated ways, but I got the picture. The werewolves in The Howling were very exaggerated and fantastical. They were wolves who stood like men, the first movie to showcase werewolves of this kind. When I was younger, watching it late at night on AMC, they were pretty terrifying. Especially knowing their was a whole colony of them somewhere deep in the woods. Coincidently, right outside my grandfather’s house was a trail heading into the woods. He and I would always sit in his shed and gaze into the trees and bushes, and I would always imagine monsters emerging from these bushes and attacking us. I guess you can say my grandfather corrupted me at a young age.

I’ve watched The Howling countless times over the years. It’s not my favorite werewolf movie, that proudly goes to John Landis’ American Werewolf in London, the Godfather of all werewolf movies, but it certainly ranks among them. I’ve always had a fascination with werewolves, having seen the classic Universal Pictures’ Wolfman several times as a kid. The Lon Chaney Jr. version of the monster used to be my favorite movie monster growing up, so it was quite a shock seeing the hulking monstrosities as seen in this film as opposed to that classic ‘more-man-than-wolf’ version. It also moves from the all too familiar gothic landscape and into a more modern one. Instead of being set in a spooky old town, or a fog riddled more, Howling is set in the wooded outskirts of Las Angelus. I’ve always compared this film to the cabin in the woods films that were ever so popular in the early 80’s. When seeing this, movies such as Friday the 13th and The Burning certainly come to mind. While it’s not the perfect werewolf movie, and it doesn’t tread on much new territory, The Howling is a fun and unique take on the lycanthrope mythology. 

★★★★ out of 5.

pfffttt nooo…. I’m not physically attractive in the least, and we both know that. You, on the other hand, are incredibly attractive in more ways than just your pretty appearance. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ★★★★ out of 5.
One of the best movies of the year, I’ve seen it twice in the past week. A dark, violent, and compelling thriller from one of my favorite directors, David Fincher. Rooney Mara is great as the tormented and unfortunate Lisibeth Salander, as is Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist. The film is two and a half hours long, which in my opinion is a tad too long, for it seemed some of the scenes are drug out a bit, but never once did I feel bored. The plot is simple yet riveting. Contrary to belief, the violence is scarce, yet what is shown is very effective. Deffinetly worth your time and money.

Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception is one of the greatest games I’ve even played, and I’m not even half way through it. The graphics are so cinematic and breathtaking. The best the PS3 has to offer.