Vegas and Vampires - Fright Night 3D

Vegas, vampires and viola you have another teen vamp film however this time expect tension, blood and humour. Twilight this is not, Mr Farrell would kick Edwards brooding ass to Hell and back. The first scene introduces his character terrorizing suburbanites in Vegas, a perfect place for Vampires to live normal lives at night, and get some shut eye during the day. Blacked out windows are common, not just for the average serial killer.

Forward to an ‘average’ American High School, a self confessed ‘dweeb’ Charley (Anton Yelchin, Like Crazy, New York I Love You) has escaped the social boundaries that soulless teens enforce on others to become part of ‘the cool crowd’ His bagged himself a high school hottie and along with her, her attractive friends. His previous BBF’s are a long and distant memory despite one, Ed (Christopher Mintz-Passe, Superbad, Kick Ass). He not only blackmails him in to tracking his missing friend, but also proposes the ludicrous idea that a vampire has come to town, more importantly his neighbour Jerry (Colin Farrell, Horrible Bosses, In Bruges), and preparation is key, Blade style. Its time to man up and protect his new love and mother (Toni Collette, Muriels Wedding, Her Shoes).

The acting skills of some of the cast were lacking in excellence, Charley was sarcastic yet a little lame, and definitely lacking the cheeky teen bravado. David Tennant plays vampire expert and magician extraordinaire Peter Vincent. He lives up to the rude, brash English stereo type, controversial compared to the American general public. His character pranced around in fake tattoos, hair, makeup and leather pants that even Kate Moss would have a hard time slipping in to, reminiscent of Russell Brand, just not as entertaining or eloquent. Colin Farrell makes the film attractive to watch, with his tight fitting tee's, irritable vampy looks and violent behaviour has most women fawning, yet I still feel he could have brought more to the role.

Fright Night 3D worked well as a 3D film, unlike some previous ventures, despite the chunky glasses and misty lenses. With blood splattering, bodies combusting and explosions the creators chose the right special effects to include to make the audience duck for cover and jump. One highlight was finally seeing Vampires turn into the vile creatures they are meant to be, and Jerry the vampire's (Farrell) face is a shocker! Opinions on falling in love with vampires, Twilight style, will definitely change after seeing his ugly mug.

The film strays from the horror genre but keeps the gore, with many one liners the audience chuckled along. Yet I left feeling slightly disappointed it wasn't gorier or frightening. When will a truly horribly enjoyable vampire film be made is the question?

Death is obviously for the light hearted as well.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Everybody had a childhood superhero or comic book character that they idolised and wanted to be, either stemming from moguls of the Superhero brand, Marvel or DC. The last few years has seen Marvel releasing films as fast as a production line produces the costumes, in order to build up to the much anticipated The Avengers. I won’t lie I am dying to see it.  Captain America is one of the hero’s included in the upcoming film, therefore earning the a movie, Captain America: The First Avenger.

Now never having read Captain America comics I went into the film knowing fairly little about it. The lead, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans ,Fantastic 4, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) appears at first to be a scrawny young lad who has yet to hit puberty unlike his fellow friend and soldier, Bucky. Due to this lack of height or manliness he is rejected as a volunteer by the Army a impressive 5 times . Then Hollywood works it magic and suddenly Steve is presented with a opportunity to become the ‘Ultimate’ war hero. He enters a high tech lab for an experiment and enters a capsule, with bright lights flashing in around 3 minutes the capsule doors open and out steps Steve, with a impressive array of muscles that any body builder would die for. Cue women swooning, including myself.

Captain America it turns out has a sole purpose - to convince people to donate money to the war, he was created purely for propaganda. The hero status dramatically diminishes and herein lies the problem. His not really a super hero, not like Iron Man (who despite being a regular human, becomes special when wearing his suit) or Superman. Captain America as a whole, despite being a “nice guy film” is boring, which makes the it unwatchable. The plot lacked a specialness, it failed to keep me on the edge of my seat in anticipation and at some points seemed disjointed. Chris Evans failed to impress with his unexceptional take on the character, who had no sense of humour and was about as interesting to watch as paint drying. He could have taken it so much further, been a little more risqué and intense.  

Action films are meant to make the audience want to be that protagonist, yet I would most definitely take any other hero or superhero if given the chance. Captain America/Steve fumbled around trying to do good, admittedly he achieves this sometimes, but I just simply did not care. Defending America's ideals was the aim, 

The only enjoyable scene was seeing Tony Stark’s (Iron Man) father played by Dominic Cooper, and Samual L Jackson make appearances. Again linking the production to Marvel and the highly anticipated The Avengers. I plead with the film god’s and hope that it proves to be the best yet. 

Crash and burning like Captain America is not an option.

Keep on Screaming

The horror genre and its film-makers like to recycle plots and formulas, adjusting to make their own chilling rendition but ultimately finding influence from movies past. Some hit the bulls eye, others go sailing past. Scream 4, born from the Scream trilogy follows on from the previous three, it features the main characters from all the prior films, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers-Riley (Courtney Cox), and Deputy Dewey Riley (David Arquette). Now the 'teens' from the 1st scream-a-thon are responsible, hard working, adults. Do NOT mess with them.

Sidney, a published author, finds herself on the last leg of her book tour with the annoyingly happy PR representative, in, who would have guessed, Woodsboro. Let the fight till the death commence. Cue Ghostface and his legs of jelly, now fully out of retirement and ready for one last stab-a-thon. The teens of Woodsboro should be running scared as Craven pays homage to the first film. This time Sidney, her cousin (Emma Roberts) who plays a very unconvincing petrified teenager, along with friends including Hayden Panettiere the too cool for school film chick with an attitude, find themselves as targets. Expect to see scenes of tension waiting for that smiling face to appear as well as laughs a-plenty, intended or not as he or she begins to pick off the victims, easily some may say.

When remaking another Scream it’s a no no to stray from the techniques that made the film famous in the first place, including the iconic phrase “what’s your favourite scary movie?”. Sticking to the formula that worked so well, Wes Craven features the phone calls from the 80 a day smoker in the beginning scenes and throughout the film, the trio of characters that have stuck together through thick and thin, attractive young women running around wearing little to nothing, and handsome young men trying to save the day, not forgetting the infamous blood and gore from Ghostface's knife.

Horror fans, especially Scream fans will find little parts of previous films included in the fourth instalment, including the ‘Rules to Survive a Horror Film’, re-occurring ‘Stab’ film jokes, and gags about the slasher horror genre as a whole. The Scream series has never claimed to be serious, as every time a new sequel is released it tends to become sillier, outrageous, and hilarious yet great to watch.

Sometimes you just need to laugh at the ridiculousness that is film, sit back and enjoy!