Curse of the deserted Movie Review

Hi World! Today I have decided to do another review of a movie I have recently watched (regretfully). This movie is Curse of the Deserted, and as you have probably guessed from the cheesy disturbing poster, it is supposed to be a horror/thriller movie, which also makes the worse horror movie I've ever watched, or just the worse movie I've ever watched, period.

I think I should explain why I even ended up watching such a crappy movie anyway. So I was with a couple of friends celebrating a friend's birthday, and one event on the agenda was to watch a movie. Because we were at Cathay Cineplex, we had a much narrower choice of movies, and ended up buying tickets for PCK The Movie. HOWEVER, there was some miscommunication between the ppl buying the tickets and the counter staff, and we ended up with 8 tickets to Curse of the Deserted. Thinking that it was something decently scary at least, we decided to go for it anyway. BIG MISTAKE as it turned out to be.

Right, plot summary.Young writer Guo wrote about a titular curse in his book, "The Deserted Village". It began 500 years ago in the Ming Dynasty, when one of the villagers died of terminal illness. The widow Yanzi vowed to stay with her husband forever but when the man suddenly returned to life, the horrified neighbours believed that he was a monster. They burned him to death and torched his mansion. The devastated Yanzi upheld her vow and threw herself into the fire. Since then, the village was cursed and the mansion subsequent inhabitant dies mysteriously. Some say only couples who share true love can survive in that village. Those who are unfaithful will come to their demise. To the world, the book was pure fiction. Only Guo and his ex-girlfriend Zhi had lived through the horror to know its existence. When four college students decided to explore the village themselves, the trip led them to an ancient well in Yanzi's mansion, where the curse was unleashed once again.

The summary is a heck a lot more exciting than the actual movie. To me, the movie was just about the 4 college students going to the village, and slowly dying one by one, with romance and some witty dialogue randomly inserted in between.

I don't even know how to begin assessing this movie. Maybe the reasons why I don't think it is good would be good. Right, so for me ,movies should stick strictly to their genres. Meaning, if the movie is a horror movie, no matter how crappy the plot is or how crappy the acting is, as long as its scary enough, its a good movie. I personally felt this movie was way too adventurous, trying to dabble into too many areas at the same time. The movie attempted to blend romance with horror, which left the movie hanging in limbo, fitting neither requirements for both genres, leading to well, a crappy movie.

The movie wasn't particularly scary, and the visual effects were completely sloppy. There were only brief moments where the director used suspense music to compensate for the atmosphere. Romance was also not particularly evident, only in the random flashbacks that constantly appeared near the end of the movie. Speaking of the ending, ARGH, the ending was really the thing that completely killed the movie. In the end, the entire episode just turned out to be a plot of a book the main character, and that in real life her boyfriend had been involved in a car accident, which inspired her to write. What the heck, that really destroyed any scrape of liking I had had to the movie until that point.

In conclusion, Curse of the Deserted is really a substandard movie which I don't recommend, but if you've been watching too many good movies like Inception and Avatar lately, then maybe you can watch it to be reminded how sucky a movie can get, and maybe get a good laugh out of it.

Rating : 1.5/5 stars - at least there was a decent amount of blood. Watch it if you're seriously bored.

~Kevan

Inception Movie Review!

Hello World! Today I have decided to try something new, which would be a movie review of Inception which I have very recently watched. This is also my first time doing a movie review, so please forgive me if I epically screw-up. Right, fingers-crossed let the reviewing begin!

First, I would like to say that Inception is one of the greatest films I have ever seen in a while, and would have been definitely been the best movie I've seen if not for Avatar, but hey, Avatar's in a league of its own. With breathtaking special effects to rival the Matrix, unthinkable plot twists, extremely awesome acting , a smattering of comedy and a bold ambiguous ending boldly thrown in Inception is definitely a movie people will remember for a long, long time.

In Inception, Leonardo DiCapario plays Cobb, an extractor who steals ideas from other people's minds through their dreams. Cobb is hired to extract an idea from a wealthy businessman, Saito, who turns the tables back and instead offers Cobb the supposedly never-before-done job of performing inception - the act of implanting an idea into a subject's mind. Cobb accepts the job on Saito's promise that he would use his influence to make a murder charge against Cobb disappear, allowing Cobb to return to the United States to be reunited with his family.

Cobb then goes on to recruit a group of specialised individuals, and together the team sets off to deep into Robert Fischer Jr.'s mind, heir to Saito's greatest rival energy company, to implant an idea that will cause Fischer to ultimately want to dissolve the company. After many plot twists the team manages to successfully finish the job, Saito honours his promise and Cobb is reunited with his family.

What I really like about the plot is that the film does not make the common mistake of revealing the mechanisms of the dream world and Cobb's plight in long monologues, but uses a careful injection of flashbacks and the interaction between the characters to reveal the plot. This not only keeps the audience glued onto the screen for the full 148 minutes of the movie, but also makes the audience pay close attention to every small little detail in the movie, which would be essential to fully understand the plot.

The special effects are also jaw-droppingly good, using the dream world as a cover to create impossible worlds beyond the wildest dreams. One classic scene I would remember for a long time would be the anti-gravity fight in Fischer's dream. While many movies have fight scenes where the characters manipulate gravity, in this scene there is NO gravity at all, and the entire hotel lobby also moves occasionally due to external factors, tossing the characters around and making that fight scene just so much more epic.

In conclusion , with scenes that make your heart miss a beat, scenes that leave your jaw hanging , scenes that make you secretly tear up and scenes that make you laugh out loud, Inception is definitely a movie worthy of watching and re-watching again and again.

Rating: 5/5 stars - Must Watch!

~Kevan