GONE (2012)

Awhile back Amanda Seyfried was abducted out of her bed by some unidentified kidnapper dude and held in the middle of the woods in a hole with the bodies of previous victims.  She managed to escape, but for whatever reason the police were unable to find any evidence to back up her story.  People start to think she might be a little bit unhinged so she's placed in a mental facility.  Fast-forward to the opening of the film and now Amanda lives with her older sister.  Somehow (and this is the most mysterious part of the movie) Amanda is able to hike around the forest all day looking for the murder hole and then work the overnight shift waitressing at a diner.  When does she sleep?!

So now one night after work she gets home to find her sister gone...GONE!  You would think that after the first kidnapping she would have invested in a home security system or a dog, but no that makes too much sense.  She goes to the police, but they don't give a fuck, so she takes the law into her own hands and turns this mother upside down looking for her sister.

As far as illogical thrillers go GONE is pretty average, but still an enjoyable watch mainly thinks to Amanda Seyfried.  The pace is fairly quick, so even if the story is completely unbelievable you really never get a chance to get bored.  With zero nudity, zero blood, zero gore and very little cussing GONE is pretty much just a fancy looking TV movie, but still worth a watch on a rainy afternoon.  Oh, yeah the film also co-stars Wes Bentley and Dexter's sister, but neither one have more than just a bit role.

RED RIDING HOOD (2011)

For what it is RED RIDING HOOD is an entertaining enough movie. It's kinda a dreamy, light-weight re-telling of the "Little Red Riding Hood" story, but instead of a girl walking to Grandmother's house there's a small village that's being terrorized by a werewolf. Unfortunately the "werewolf" doesn't look like a half-man/half-wolf creature, but instead like a large CGI wolf that walks around on all fours.

After the first few killings, not shown onscreen, just implied, a holy man (Gary Oldman) and his soldiers comes to the village to kill the wolf. Through all of this the beautiful Amanda Seyfried is caught in a love triangle between the man she's loved since childhood and the guy her family has arranged for her to marry.

I attentively watched the entire movie, but I would have been much happier if the filmmakers had went ahead and bumped it up some with the violence. With a PG-13 rating I assume they were going for a young teenage girl audience which is sad because this story had some real potential to be something unique, but instead they took the safe and easy path and ended up with a watchable but wholly forgettable film. The main thing RED RIDING HOOD accomplished was making me want to watch LEGEND again.

Worth a rent, but that's it.

JENNIFER'S BODY (2009)

[Update 11/23/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely.]

As somebody with a weakness for high school horror movies I kinda enjoyed this film. The vibe was fresh and likable, but I was really disappointed that the violence is non-existent. Outside of a few cuss words, there's nothing that hasn't already been done better on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". No guts getting ripped out, no pregnant woman getting stabbed through the stomach with a forklift, no orgies ending in a massive axe massacre, no sex demons with dicks for fingers swallowing peoples souls then pissing the souls out through their dickfingers. Heck. I would figure the whole point in making a movie would to be to go balls out and be as violent as possible. But I guess filmmakers were more interested in making a quick buck instead of going out on a limb and maybe creating something unique and great. But at least give us some tits goddamn it!!!

That said I still enjoyed it, mainly because I really liked the idea of a small mountain town with a hot high school girl as a demon. There's so many cool ways the story could go. I just love thinking about it. It could be like a mixture of "Twin Peaks" with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". How badass would that be?! What if the human chick remained friends with the demon chick? That would be cool and you could take that in all kinds of directions.

Anyway, it's worth a rent, but don't expect anything imaginative or amazing just a mildly entertaining, non-threatening, time killer.