Broken
Year: 2006
 Dimension Extreme

Written by: Simon Boyes, Adam Mason
Directed by: Simon Boyes, Adam Mason

Starring:

Nadja Brand as Hope
Eric Colvin as The Man
Abbey Stirling as Holly

As I glanced upon the DVD shelves today I wondered what film I would decide to watch, I stumbled across "Broken" a film from reading the synopsis seemed to be like 2010's "Buried" a film I personally loved. Fuck no. I was yet again LET DOWN!

Broken begins with a woman waking up in a coffin, has she been buried alive? Who knows? Who cares? I know I don't. She soon breaks free with little effort and finds herself alone in the woods. She starts to run. Not long after, she is beaten down by a man in a fedora hat (Colvin) and wakes up to find herself tied to a tree trunk by the neck. She has a stomach wound that has been sewn up. She is also balanced on top of a pile of chopped wood that is very unstable and about to give way. The man now approaches and hands the young woman a sharpened stick in which she must use to tear open her stitches and fish around for a blade secured inside of her. She eventually finds the blade and begins to cut away at the rope around her neck, once free she decides she is in too much agony to continue with the man's sick games and uses his gun to kill herself. This scene is now repeated with a woman in search of her daughter, but she doesn't kill herself and decides to continue.

At roughly the forty minute mark I decided I'd had enough of the film. I just was completely bored with it and wanted to spend my time doing something more constructive....write a review for it. Go figure. The problem with the film is, once again, it is relentlessly dire. The setting is very bland, but for the budget they had, they made some pretty impressive gore scenes. The two leads, The Man and Hope, cannot act for shit and it just makes it unwatchable. I especially found Hopes reaction to the realisation of her daughters kidnap hilarious. I have seen more convincing acting from a cabbage. Will I try to watch the rest of this film again?....Probably not. I'm glad I'm just borrowing this film from somebody, the sooner this film leaves the shelf, the better! "Torture-Porn films" (as the sub-genre is becoming known as) just aren't for me.

Obscure Video gives this: 1/10, the "1" is for the gore effects only. Avoid at all costs.

Stay Alive
Year: 2006
Buena Vista

Written by: William Brent Bell
                  Matthew Peterman
Directed by: William Brent Bell
Starring:

• Jon Foster as Hutch MacNeil
• Frankie Muniz as Swink Sylvania
• Sophia Bush as October Bantum
• Samaire Armstrong as Abigail
• Jimmi Simpson as Phineus Bantum
• Adam Goldberg as Miller Banks
• Alice Krige as the Author
• Maria Kalinina as Elizabeth Bathory
• Milo Ventimiglia as Loomis Crowley

I had originally decided that I would watch and review "Puppet Master" today, a film I had previously watched before. Sadly, the DVD was refusing to work in the player so I gave up with that idea. Instead I decided to check out "Stay Alive", a film that I have had for years but just never had any motivation to watch. Plus, people bash the film quite a bit. But nonetheless I watched it anyway.

The film starts with a college student (I'm guessing) playing a beta for a new video game called "Stay Alive". The game seems heavily influenced by Resident Evil/House of the Dead type games. After being killed he decides to call it a night. He hears a noise downstairs and goes to investigate. It seems somebody or something has broken into the house. He is soon killed off, as well as the two other people sharing the house, all in the same manner they were killed in the game.  His friend, Hutch (Foster), after hearing the news of his friends passing goes to the funeral and is handed a rucksack full of video games by the deceased younger sister. Hutch begins to investigate the video game with a group of friends (one being Frankie Muniz from Malcolm in the Middle fame) after seeing similarities between the way his friends in game character died and how his friend was killed in real life.

The film itself was pretty good, but my only real criticisms would be that I would have liked to have seen a bit more gore, as the deaths were pretty vague. Also, the story came across a bit too much like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" what with the "If you die in the game, you die for real" theme. Thinking about it, it lends a lot too "Ringu" as well, a cursed video game as opposed to a cursed video tape. Would I recommend it? Yes, but don't go into it expecting a whole lot. It is what it is.

Obscure Video gives this: 5.5/10

Monster
 Year: 2008
The Asylum

Written by: Erik Estenberg
                  David Michael Latt
Directed by: Erik Estenberg
Starring:

• Yoshi Ando - Environmental Minister
• Sarah Lieving- Sarah Lynch
• Shinichiro Shimizu - Shinichiro
• Erin Sullivan - Erin Lynch  

The Asylum definitely aren't known for producing any material that is worth a shit. This is no different. The Asylum, for those of you who don't know, are a production/distribution company that began putting out TV and DTV Movies. However, the company soon realised they could make a lot more money by essentially making ripoffs of the Movies that are popular at the time in a vain attempt to trick you into buying them, minus the budget of course. In this case the film is Monster, and what other monster movie was popular in 2008? You guessed it. Cloverfield.

I should have known better than venturing in an Asylum movie, when the film it's based off wasn't amazing to begin with. Don't get me wrong, Cloverfield is good for what it is, but it's been done many times before. "Monster" is a "found-footage" type deal. It follows the story of two sisters, both in the journalism trade. They go to Tokyo, Japan to report on environmental problems that the country is facing. However, no sooner than they have arrived a huge tremor occurs. They soon learn a huge monster is attacking Japan. The monster, you only see about three times in the movie and all that is shown is giant tentacles flailing about. No Godzilla is he. They meet various people along their way including a group of reporters, somebody from the American Embassy, a chef and her family.

This wouldn't have been such a BAD film if something actually happened. The two sisters literally spend the whole film walking, stopping to talk and then walking some more. It doesn't help that the monster is barely visible when on screen. I found myself getting more and more frustrated with the two sisters who are documenting this event. They never dropped the camera and when it was in use the camera was being shaken around so much I felt like having a seizure. I also find it funny how the footage only distorts once an earthquake begins, yet when they are arguing with one another and trying to pull the camera out of each others grasp the image is fine. As I said this film could have been shit (instead of Godawful) if they had actually done something, but no, we are left with another sorry excuse for an Asylum release. One of the longest seventy minutes I've ever had to endure. Shame on you!

Obscure Video gives this: 2/10

Dinocroc vs. Supergator
Year: 2010
SYFY Channel

Written by: Mike Maclean
                  Jim Wynorski
Directed by: Jim Wynorski
Starring:

• David Carradine as Jason Drake
• Corey Landis as Paul Beaumont
• Amy Rasimas as Cassidy Swanson
• Rib Hillis as Bob Logan
• John Callahan as Charlie Swanson
• Delia Shepard as Kimbery Taft
• Jerry Hess as Jerry the Pool Boy
• Shane Schoeppner as Scientist - Kill #2

Having watched a vast number of these "Syfy" TV "Movies", and I use the term "Movie" lightly, I went into this not expecting a whole lot. Having seen "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid" recently, I was not expecting a film as good as this. Of course, this is no Citizen Kane or Inception, and quite frankly I'm glad to be honest. For what it is, this is one of the most entertaining Giant Monster movies to come out from "Syfy" in a while.

Our film starts at a research centre. It becomes apparent that not all is good, when alarms are blaring informing the staff to evacuate the premises. In one the most hilarious and cliched lines written a middle aged female in a lab coat yells; "Everybody out now! It's escaped!" I am not joking when I say this literally happened no more than thirty seconds into the film. We now cut to a group of scientists (again, in generic white lab coats) running around a courtyard area trying to avoid giant CGI monsters. Once they have killed an appropriate amount of researchers the monsters escape the lab. The research centre is run by none other than David Carradine! (In sadly one of his last roles). Now aware that his secret creations have escaped he hires in an elite force of military to take the monsters down. Within five minutes it becomes apparent that bullets have no effect on CGI, and all the men are either eaten or crushed to death. Jason Drake (Carradine) now hires a fish and game hunter (Hillis) known as "The Cajun" to do the job properly. Meanwhile Paul Beaumont (Landis), a spy working for the government, has been spying on the secret research being carried out at the Lab, he teams up with local cop (and eye candy) Cassidy Swanson (Rasimas) and "The Cajun" to take the monsters down. After various more kills, all hilarious I might add, they finally catch up with the monsters, who are now fighting with each other. After one of them is killed, lets just call it "The smaller of the two", Landis kills the other with a grenade. Fantastic.

I'd actually have to recommend this Movie to any fan of B-rate Monster Movies. It's a lot of fun and pretty much hilarious the entire way through. If you don't want to watch 90 minutes of it, fair enough, but at least skip to the scene where Carradine is on the phone to Jerry Hess. Funny as fuck.

Obscure Video gives this: 7/10.