31 Days of Halloween 2016: Open Grave (now available on video)

[31 Days of Halloween 2016: OPEN GRAVE is now available on DVD, Blu Ray, On Demand, and Amazon Prime.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

*Note: As with last year’s 31 Days of Halloween marathon of horror movie reviews, we’ll be diving deep into the new release section looking for modern horror fare. We'll be hoping for the best, but frankly expecting the worst.*

The quick and easy pitch for OPEN GRAVE is MEMENTO meets 28 DAYS LATER. Except, like the characters in the film itself, you won't realize that right away. So, I guess, SPOILER ALERT? Whatever, the description on Amazon Prime's instant streaming service says it's a zombie movie, so it was hard to not know that fact going in.

The film begins with amnesiac John (Sharlto Copley) waking up in a pit filled with dead bodies. A woman throws him a rope so he can climb out, and he eventually makes his way to a house where he meets his unnamed savior (Josie Ho) as well as 4 other memory challenged individuals: Lukas (Thomas Kretschmann), Nathan (Joseph Morgan), Sharon (Erin Richards) and Michael (Max Wrottesley). They know their names thanks to finding their IDs, but that's about it. And given the horrifying circumstances in which they find themselves, what with all the dead bodies around and such, no one is particularly trusting of their mates. Only the woman who saved John seems to know what's going on, but she doesn't speak or write English.

The Hollars

Review by Pamela Zoslov

The indie comedy-drama THE HOLLARS belongs to a familiar category, the homecoming film, in which a person is plucked out of adulthood and forced to return to the family homestead, there to deal with all manner of dysfunction. Graced by a superior ensemble and flecked with humor and tenderness, it has the look of a winning film and would be, if not for problematic plotting and a weakness for wacky laughs.

Our returnee is John Hollar (John Krasinski of The Office fame, who also directed), a graphic artist living in Manhattan. He's wavering about marriage, even though his girlfriend, Rebecca (Anna Kendrick), is conspicuously pregnant, and he's dissatisfied with his job at a publishing house (he aspires to be a graphic novelist.) John learns that his mom, Sally (Margo Martindale) has been hospitalized after collapsing at home. Rebecca puts John on a plane to his hometown.

Chappie

Review by Bob Ignizio

While it is by no means the first film to concern itself with a robot possessing human-like emotions, CHAPPIE is one of the best. In the not too distant future, writer/director Neil Blomkamp imagines that the police force in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been heavily augmented by near indestructible robots designed by scientist Deon Wilson (Dev Patel, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE).

While these law enforcement machines are quite effective, they lack true artificial intelligence, something their creator is actively working on despite being told not to by his boss (Sigoruney Weaver). Deon tries his experimental consciousness software out on a damaged unit, but before he can get the bot up and running he's kidnapped by a gang of small time crooks – Ninja (Ninja), Yolandi (Yolandi Visser), and Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo).

Maleficent

Review by Pete Roche

Hard to believe it today, but Disney considered 1959’s SLEEPING BEAUTY a commercial disappointment after the triumphs of FANTASIA, DUMBO, and BAMBI.  The House of Mouse put all potential “princess” features in hibernation—like their own poisoned apple-munching maidens—for three decades.  But the film has endured, delighting (and terrifying) new generations of tikes over the years. 

Like SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES and CINDERELLA before it, SLEEPING BEAUTY became a definitive “princess” picture.  Princess Aurora is innocence idealized in pen and ink.  And if vengeful Maleficent isn’t the Mother of All Movie Villainesses, she’s damn near close, perhaps sharing the mantel only with The Wicked Witch of the West. 

Elysium

Review by Pete Roche

“Blessed are the poor,” opined evangelist Matthew.  “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The beatitude figures heavily in the sophomore science-fiction adventure from Neill Blomkamp, the upstart South African director who delighted many fans of the genre (and disgusted others) with his 2009 segregation allegory DISTRICT 9. 

In ELYSIUM, urban blight has gone global by the early 22^nd century, leaving Earth ill, underfed, overpopulated, and crime-infested.  The skyscrapers once occupied by well-to-do execs have been abandoned to street urchins and opportunists, but most of the planet’s millions of luckless souls live crammed in polluted slums and tent cities on the outskirts of the former metropolises.  Sentry robots maintain order with iron hands (literally) and have zero tolerance for resistance or sarcasm.  Astounding advances have been made in science and medicine, but the tech isn’t available to the impoverished 99%.