March-April Wrap!

Wow, what a crazy couple months here at Rock, Paper, Hatchet.

First, we received our first ever comments!  Thank you to those readers who left notes--it's personally encouraging AND it confirms that our comments function is working.  So that's a double win which we needed badly because . . .

Second, we watched some soul-crushingly awful movies.  Ranking them is sort of like weighing the relative merits of poison ivy, athlete's foot, head lice, and dry socket.  After you've had all four in a two-month span, talking about them again is as appealing as wading into a pond of leeches.

But since it must be done (does it really?  what's wrong with us?), let's jump right in!  Come on in, the water's fine and full of parasites ready to relieve you of all of that blood you've been hoarding.

Paul's Rankings (with links to his reviews):
1)  The Veil:  What the hell?  How did The Veil win?  It's like the Donald Trump of horror movies--and Donald Trump is already the horror movie of democracy!  Still, The Veil had its moments and a single effective jump scare.  It probably helps that the visual quality was so dim that it was like watching a turned-off TV.

2)  Curve:  A young woman drives off a cliff.  That's the beginning of the story.  It probably should have also been the end.  But at least the basic rules of space and time are adhered to.

3)  The Diabolical:  Ali Larter lives in a house with monsters.  When a strange man shows up asking to buy the house, she sells it and lives happily ever after.  Err.  No.  I mean she doesn't sell it, thus ushering us into a world in which the laws of space, time, and real estate no longer apply.

4)  The Hollow:  Could possibly be useful in "enhanced interrogation" procedures. 


Joe's Rankings (with links to his reviews):
3)  The Diabolical:  It's a three-way tie for third, out of four! I just want to be clear that there are no winners here, and not even any runner-ups. Instead, there are movies like The Diabolical, where a bleeding booger monster causes one child to step on a dinner plate, and prevents another from breaking a window. THE HORROR.

3)  Curve:  A woman makes a series of terrible decisions and winds up bumbling her tormentor to death.

3)  The Veil: Features the best jump scare, and the most cockamamie plot. But...it's kinda racist. And half of the movie is watching other people watch a bad movie.

4)  The Hollow:  One of the worst tropes in horror is the screaming woman who can't calm down. In this movie, there are three of them, and they're up against a monster that's attracted to loud noises. I SAID, IT'S ATTRACTED TO LOUD NOISES.

THE HOLLOW (2015) [Joe's Take]

...And the monster squishes his head...

Have you ever had a nightmare where something was chasing you, but your feet were stuck in quicksand? Well, what if instead of being slow physically, you were slow mentally? The Hollow explores this question, pitting three histrionic sisters and a few idiot townsfolk against a burning tree monster.

THE HOLLOW (2015) [Paul's Review]

...What’s more wonderful is that, in a movie about a killer tree, no one even notices that it’s a tree!...

The Hollow is a made-for-TV movie about a killer tree.  Before you snicker, think about it, trees are everywhere. They stand around your house silently, looking in your windows, judging you as you throw out the yellow pages (honestly, why do I still get those?), wantonly go through paper towels, or just brazenly burn succulent woodflesh in your fireplace . . . for ambiance!

Yep, the killer tree premise is killer, and the first 10 seconds of The Hollow are promising.  There’s a shot of a jack-o-lantern on the main street of a small town, and nothing sucks yet!  Then a dog barks at a tree. . . which is totally a-ok!  Yet as good as the pumpkin, dog, and tree are in these opening moments, everything gets ruined when, 42 seconds into the movie, humans show up and begin the agonizing process of “acting” and “telling the story.” Without humans or plot, The Hollow might have been merely an inert lump, not an unwatchable abomination of expository dialogue and imbecilic characters caught in a contrived story that unbelievably forgets to explain why there is a killer tree in the first place.