THE RAVEN (2012)

Mildly (very mildly) entertaining story about Edgar Allan Poe's last days.  Although Edgar's true cause of death is unknown, the common consensus among scholars is he died of a sickness (cholera, tuberculosis, heart disease, terminal butt cancer) complicated by decades of hard drinking and hard living.  But no, those scholars are dumb poopiepants because Edgar Allan Poe's true cause of death was: fighting a serial killer!  And not just any boring serial killer, but one who based his crimes on the writings of one Edgar Allan Poe. 

Baltimore 1849.  The police are summoned to the apartment of a screaming woman.  The door locks from the inside as they arrive, but once they bust the door down they find the room unoccupied save for two dead bodies.  After some investigation they find the window only appears to be nailed shut, but it's actually spring loaded...just like in one of the stories of the local drunk, Edgar Allan Poe.  Stuff happens and the coppers enlist the help of Poe.  Even more stuff happens and Poe's hot fiance is kidnapped by the killer.  Shit just got real...or so you would hope, but in reality there's just a bunch of running around and shouting.  It looks good (I guess), but it's not very entertaining.

Okay acting, not very thrilling action scenes, boring mystery solving, no emotional attachment to the characters, lots of darkly lit scenes, lame ending.  Not really worth watching, unless you're extremely bored.  If you need me, I'll be in my room reading Robert McMammon's "Matthew Corbett" series.

THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975)

Katharine Ross and her lawyer husband move from NYC to quiet Stepford, CT.  Low crime, lower divorce rates, tight real estate market.  From the outside, it appears to be Heaven on Earth (if you're into that sort of quiet life).  From the very beginning Katharine gets a bad vibe about the joint, but she can't quite put her finger on it.  It's like it's almost too perfect.  Over time, she begins to unravel the mystery (is there even a mystery or is it all in her head?) and what she finds...well, you'll just have to watch it for yourself.

I liked this film quite a bit and it has me very interested in reading Ira Levin's original novel.  And while we're on the subject of Ira Levin...ROSEMARY'S BABY.  Can you imagine how awesome and creepy THE STEPFORD WIVES would have been if Roman Polanski had directed it?!  Oh well, just a thought. 

I don't know how well it holds up after repeat viewings, but for a single viewing, it's definitely worthwhile and and very thought provoking.  I wasn't an adult back in 1975, but I bet this movie freaked some people out when it first came out and probably stimulated a lot of interesting thoughts and conversations.  I bet a lot of first dates were either turned awesome or awful by the opinions discussed after leaving the movie theater.

Very little violence, but the implied creepiness makes up for it.  Check it out!

Part 2 - Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980)
Part 3 - The Stepford Children (1987)
Part 4 - The Stepford Husbands (1996)
Remake - The Stepford Wives (2004)

PARASITIC (2012)

A group of annoying douchers get trapped in a Florida nightclub after it closes (way too much time is wasted on explaining how this happens and it makes no sense at all).  Anyway, this one chick eats some bad fish then next thing you know she's barfing in the restroom and a tentacle pops out of her neck.  While this is happening, the remaining cast members are just sitting around in the dark club talking and talking and talking.  It's Hell.  The bad acting in this film makes me appreciate the bad acting in other films.  I mean this shit is painful!  Horrible delivery, stammering, bad timing, but it doesn't even matter because the shit they're saying is so badly written it wouldn't matter if you had Jack Lemmon delivering these lines it would still be garbage.

Some of the worst lighting of all time, lame kill scenes, torturous pacing, stupid explanations, acting that doesn't even qualify as acting.  The only thing PARASITIC delivers is suffering.  Skip it and never look back