BATTLE ROYALE (2000)

[Note: This review is for the 122-minute Director's Cut.]

In the near future, the economy is all fucked up and unemployment over 15%, so instead of doing something like taxing religious institutions, legalizing minor drugs, making community colleges / trade schools free and introducing Universal Income...the government picks a random 9th grade class, drop the students off on an abandoned island and order them to all kill each other.  Not sure how that is going to solve high unemployment, but whatever.

I love the idea of a bunch of crazy teenagers running around slaughtering the fook out of each other, but unfortunately BATTLE ROYALE is weak.  The story doesn't even make sense, but even worse is the unforgivable amount of boring flashbacks.  It feels like 20% of the movie is sad ass flashbacks.  When we do get to the action, it's weak as well.  There are a few short bursts of violence that grab your attention, but for the vast majority of the film I was bored.

Uneven pace, zero nudity, distracting CGI blood, lots of falling and tumbling all over the joint, neat looking island, disappointing ending, okay acting, a lot of screaming and crying, one guy with a machine gun that has to have the worst hit / miss percentage in all of movie history...I think he hit somebody for like every 50 bullets he shot.  It's not going to hurt you to watch it, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Part 2 - Battle Royale II (2003)

THE LAST EXORCISM (2010)

Full-time preacher and part-time Mike Rowe impersonator Rev. Cotton Marcus wants to prove that exorcisms are nothing but succubusshit, so he takes a small film crew with him on his latest exorcism call. Trouble is...this victim might actually be possessed!

Despite the slower pace I liked this movie...until the very end where it just went all to Hell, but at least it was funny. If you're looking for an actual horror movie with actual scares then you need to stay far away, because nothing even remotely scary happens here. Pretty much the entire movie is people talking in front of a handheld camera. There's maybe 4 minutes of action in the entire movie. Still, I found the movie compelling and I enjoyed Ashley Bell's performance.

Very little blood, zero gore, double jointed possession action, zero nudity, lots of shaky camera movement, pentagrams, inverted crosses. Worth a watch, but only as a demon-themed drama, not a horror movie.

Part 2 - The Last Exorcism Part II (2013)