The Extra Den

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

I saw a few movies over the past week… first up was “The Den” which is a SUPER low budget horror movie shot… I believe entirely on security cameras, cell phones& laptops pretty much. Basically, the movie is about a college student that gets a grant to basically document her interacting on a webchat site called DenChat for an entire year to… I guess study people’s behavior online? Which institution would finance this study? Doesn’t matter… disbelief. Anyway, a few days into her “study” she starts chatting with this Pyagrl*16 who does some creepy things… and then creepy things start to happen… like her computer gets hacked into… emails are released… sex videos are sent through her login… and then her friends & family start disappearing… while she’s watching it online across town… and yeah, it gets super creepy at some point (no matter how loosely believable it might be at some points). Being essentially yet another “found footage” movie, there are certain things that pop up to circumvent how “found” this footage is… and like most independent movies it falls into the “great premise, horrible ending/execution” area… but yeah, if you’re into horror flicks with a tech savvy twist, check it out. It’s a scant 75 minutes or something like that. If not, feel free to pass.

  

Next up was another fairly low budget horror flick called “Extraterrestrial” starring Michael Ironsides briefly and… really the only other actor I recognized with Jesse Moss from “Tucker & Dale Versus Evil” who plays essentially the same role of Douche McDouchington… and comes from director Colin Minihan who did the “Grave Encounters” movies. This is the typical story about a group of five friends who go to a cabin in the woods… and then weird sh*t happens with alien visitors show up to… you know, probe them & stuff. That’s… pretty much the whole movie. There are some interesting effects… and some ridiculous ones… the acting is campy at best. The thing about the movie is… I don’t think what it knew it was trying to be. There were some genuinely creepy moments (like the mind control scene, some of the disorientating scenes in the basement, etc) but then there are some super cheesy scenes (like Ironsides two scenes, which is disappointing). The music was REALLY bad and didn’t fit the film at all (and no, not just the last song as the credits roll… the whole f**king thing) and frankly… the ending & especially the shoehorned love story… is absolute horsesh*t. It’s an okay movie… but not good at all. I elaborate on my least favorite part in the next paragraph. See it if you want… pretty well shot… but just not really interesting or provoking.

 

Spioler alert: The love story specifically was absolutely unnecessary & poorly executedl. “But $teve, you have to have it in there so that you’re invested in the characters.” NO! No you don’t! They can just be friends or acquaintances in these twisted circumstances. There are other ways to get invested in the characters. Also, if that was your goal, to get me invested, you failed miserably. Here’s the love story in its entirety: Around the end of the first act, the main girl & some guy (that I don’t even think it mentions that they’re going out… and if so, they surely didn’t act like there was any chemistry) asks to talk to her in another room alone… and continues to spout some stuff that friends might be awkward saying to one another like “we know each other pretty well” and blah blah blah, so he gets down on a knee and proposes… and she’s basically MORTIFIED!!! She seems shocked at the action… shocked that it was even brought up… and of course gives some excuses like she doesn’t “believe in the institution of marriage” and they barely know each other and she just doesn’t know and all that stuff. Now… I understand being in your early 20’s and not knowing all that… but if you’re been dating and/or dating for more than a week… you tend to know your partner’s feeling on stuff like… you know… the institution of marriage & if she’d be cool with the idea of… you know anything to do with you. Spending time, moving in, wearing a ring that you bought her that suggests it’d be really cool if you weren’t out banging others… you know, little things like that. Therefore, I’m already confused at what kind of relationship they’re supposed to have. It’s barely even plutonic. Okay, fast forward to the aliens start attacking… and there’s a scene where the guy basically locks the girl in a room and moves an empty drawer in the way of the door… to protect her from the aliens… and he makes sure to let her know that’s what he’s doing, sacrificing himself to… basically lock her in a bathroom or something. Yay! Spoiler alert: He gets taken onto the ship (they all do) blah blah blah… twist ending is… I’m not going to completely ruin the twist… but let’s just say that they die together… basically spooning while full of holes. BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! No chemistry, no real building of the relationship, just pure BS… and the ending is SUUUUUUPPPPPPER sappy and basically entirely in slow motion… I think to specifically make me want to stop the movie with ten minutes left and/or throw stuff at the screen. So yeah, if you can get past that… maybe not a bad movie to watch. I don’t plan on watching it again though. I wonder if “Grave Encounters” are any good though.

 

So… that’s kind of quick… I know… but it’s a busy week… and when I come back from vacation, you’ll have tales of my Utah Adventure… and the Annual $tevies Award Show will be shortly after. WOOHOO!!! Anyway, have a great holiday season everybody!!! And if I don’t say it beforehand, a happy new 2016 as well!!!