Horror > Balaguero, Jaume Horror

Unoriginal Mish Mash

Advantages: Giancarlo Giannini
Disadvantages: Completely unoriginal

...gets. In between slices of darkness and cast and crew names we have flashes of young orphans being hounded down in this old orphanage. One boy escapes and can?t remember what happened but evidently what was going on in the house wasn't nicey nicey and the rest of the orphans are dead. Then the films starts proper and an American family are moving into a big country house in Spain. They?re all so sickeningly pleasant to each other and such an overly ...
...they start to settle into the house things start to get difficult. The young boy doesn?t seem to be happy in the house. He?s constantly afraid of the dark and sees things. He also draws some really crap drawings for a child his age and keeps getting mysterious injuries. For some weird reason the mother doesn?t seem to worried by these bruises whilst Regina the older daughter (and only other child) gets worried especially seeing as her father seems ...

Phelthew 21.02.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Darkness (DVD)

The first time a movie has ever actually made me squeal.

Advantages: Incredibly tense, riveting, realistic and innovative.
Disadvantages: NONE!

REC is a Spanish survival "rage-zombie" horror movie that follows the raw footage captured by a local cameraman covering a nightshift in a firestation as part of a documentary series covering the work people do whilst much of the public sleep. A small crew of firefighters are dispatched after receiving a call informing them that there is an elderly woman trapped in her apartment. Naturally the cameraman and the documentary's producer, Angela Vidal, ...
...only to find the apartment's residents standing panic-stricken in the lobby. After the cast arrives, the entire apartment building is locked down by what appears to be Special-branch police. Despite the horrifying events that follow, the movie remains essentially a documentary, most scenes involving Angela talking to the camera, and to Pablo, the cameraman who continues filming almost constantly throughout the horror and carnage, with exceptional ...

Mutalisk 23.10.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Rec (DVD)

[Rec] review

Advantages: Scary, engaging
Disadvantages: May be too scary for some

Rec is a Spanish horror film directed and written by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. Television reporter Ángela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) is, along with her cameraman Pablo, filming the night shift at a local fire station, hoping to get something exciting on film. They receive a call to help a woman trapped in her apartment, so they all rush off to help. When they get there, everyone is holed up in the lobby and soon follows a piercing scream. This ...
...This is a really simple, solid horror film. It's right down to basics, and is very well done. You see through the lens of the cameraman, so it is filmed very much like "The Blair Witch Project" in that it's very shaky, there are times where the angle of the shot isn't that good and sometimes the dialogue is a obscured, but this gives the film a very claustrophobic and realistic feel. It's also genuinely scary as you know you can't turn away from ...

Walter_Kovacs 30.12.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Rec (DVD)

Fragile

Advantages: Good Story, Well Acted
Disadvantages: None

...they will spoil a film. Fragile does well here, a couple of the kids receive broken bones and the effects used to shown that certainly make you cringe although on one occasion I did think that the recipient of the broken limb would be screaming in much more agony then they were. Other effects such as the "ghost" of Charlotte is sufficiently gross as elicited a few "yucks" in my house from the people that were watching it, which being a horror/ghost ...
...watching the film. Overall: Fragile is Spanish director Jaume Balagueró's third feature film (the others being The Nameless (1999) and Darkness (2002) and he has come up with a nice, interesting story, filled with characters that you care about. It will not be the best movie of the genre that you are likely to see but has enough within it for me to recommend as a purchase. Please note: I wrote this review for a site that I moderate on, I wanted ...

sjp1966 04.09.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Fragile (DVD)

Slightly fragile

Advantages: Good example of supernatural thriller
Disadvantages: Not very scary

Set on the Isle of Wight, this was better than I expected. Calista Flockhart pays a slightly neurotic nurse, starting work in a hospital with even more neurotic patients. These patients are all children and are in fear of a "mechanical girl", roaming the wards and causing havoc. Some suffer spontaneous bone breakages, hence the title, Fragile. This is stock low budget psychological horror that, in all honesty, neither surprises nor shocks. However, ...
...and a half passed by without dragging too much. If you like supernatural horror, this is still worth a view and it is good to see Flockhart continuing her rehabilitation from her post Ally McBeal doldrums. She is a decent actress and needs to spread her wings a little more. Overall, not bad. ...

stain3565 20.07.2007 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Fragile (DVD)