Vampire Knight

Plot

Yuki, the shy girl who becomes in some ways entangled with some of the "night students" at her school.

It's hard to know whether it is in a all romantic way, but it sure has the tones of a romantic story. But that's not hard to guess as the manga is a Shojo manga, which means it's written for girls at the age of 12,13,14-ish.

We will find out, Yuki's first memory, is being attacked by a vampire, and her job at the school (which is run by her father) is to make sure the day classes does not discover the secrets of the night students, this she does together with her childhood friend Zero, whom also becomes a vampire and Yuki battles to make him keep sane and not become what they classify as Level E vampires (the savage ones).

What makes the story even more tangled up, is the fact that Zero's family, was killed by vampires.

What we also get to know during the story is that Kaien Cross, is not really Yuki's father, and that Yuki has her own heritage that she carries, deep within her self.

Recommend?

Oh, yes. Even if it's silly, romatic yucky and ucky, I do recommend the anime. But, it's not for those who do not like really romantic stuff.

It's rather like many other Shojo manga, and it's rather similar to many vampire stories looks like, but it is a nice break from all those new vampire stories that looks the same like Twilight and True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse novels.

Queen of The Damned (the film)

Queen of the Damned

Plot

Based on the book by Anne Rice, we see Lestat, having been dorment for many years, waking up in a new, modern era. He decides the best way to lure the vampires from their hiding, exposing them, to make the vampires the leading race, is to become the singer of a rock band, and in the lyrics reveal all the secrets of the vampires. Not all vampires are to keen on it though, but one girl at an agency that looks for vampire's becomes very excited, as Lestat is the one vampire she has been looking for.

Opinion

I still haven't read the book, so I don't know whether it follows the book or not. But the film in it self is a master piece. It's rather predictable though as soon as Jesse comes into the picture, you know what will happen with the love story. On the other hand, I did not believe that Lestat would come as far as he did with his exposing strategy, and he did execute it very well, and in ways I would never guess. As in Interview with a Vampire, Lestat shows us some hidden talent, that he does not want to share, he knows lots of stuff, be he do not want to tell... Exactly the same from IwaV, where he never tells Louis the whole story, and that might be the reason they fall out all the time.

It becomes a bit boring though with all the long, I mean really long, flashbacks, if they were shorter, it would be more interesting to watch, as, yeah we get it music had some significance in Lestats life, but instead of doing one very long flashback, I think it would have been better with a few shorter ones.

But at a whole, this really is one of my favourite films, and no matter, I will always prefer Stuart Townsend as Lestat rather than Tom Cruise.

Picture found at:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnFsyBTIENfubTlz1CqcrYN48zsLSNIcC0Ey2Whjq1nytq2IiiO7L-bmjDhdMcsrBSViazNwt6vVBjHuOX3GxQ29nRGvPaIH23q4VOEB1Uid-beEXPFH7UXyi4pwxsZmb4yvjZDnhEf7Y/s1600/QUEEN+of+the+DAMNED+01.jpg

Das Cabinett des Dr Caligari

.I will not make a review as on the other films on this as I think this way of reviewing this is the better way

Well, the film looks like an early expressionism painting. I could never have realized that so much was hidden in it. I will try and compare the films with the Romantic movement.

First of all, I would never have guessed how alike it is to the Romanticism books and literature written in the early 1800's such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. If we compare Cesare with the monster in Frankenstein, you can find similarities in how he has his master, and how he is alienated from the rest of the world, but the difference is in how Cesare does not break free from his master the way the creature does in Frankenstein.

Furthermore, you can see how the landscape is similar as the Germans are building the Third Reich and how the economy is poor. It becomes a question about class in the end.

There is also many elements of fantasy and horror (as we can find many similarities between German expressionism film and modern horror films) similar to the ones in the books written in the beginning of the 1800's. This unreal worlds are in the expressionism film most clear in the backgrounds and the acting. We see worlds that do not look like our own, there are few shadows that makes the world "real" and the acting is often grotesque.

As many of the expressionism films are similar to the literature written during the Romantic movement, there is no surprise that the first vampire film based on Bram Stoker's Dracula also originated from this time in the shape of Warnau's Nosferatu.

If one like the 1800' romantic Gothic book, you will love this film.

Ju-On

Experimenting with a way to review again!

The films are the Japanese original versions of The Grudge. The film came out in 2000, and if you want the story, check out IMDb on this link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330500/plotsummary

What I found interesting was the use of multiple narratives. This can be found in Rashomon by Aikira Kurosawa from 1950, but also in the old German expressionism films from the begining of the 1900's.

After watching myself tired of old German expressionism films, Russian montage films and Japanese films for my two courses, i thought this was going to be a relaxing film session, but no way...

One interesting thing I have noticed that also makes the similarities with the German expressionism films (which have influenced the history of horror films, as you can see up till modern day time) is the use of sounds and exaggerating (sound film became a part of film history during the German expressionism movement). An example is when the small child are making a cat sound when he opens his mouth. This is what the producer are using to scare us.

Sound, are the most important component for this film as of what I can interpret from the film. We have many examples of unnatural sound (like in above mentioned scene with the child and the cat sound), but also in the segment with Yuki, Yuki can hear sounds her friend Kanna can not. We have even an example of non-diegetic internal sound when the teacher (Kobayashi) is reading the mothers diary.

We can also find quite a few similarities with the other film too (in this case not Ju-On 2, but Ju-On: The Grudge II, which I have understood is not second film in the series), both in the plot where we can find for example the pregnant woman and the cat, but also in the way the film is made, with multiple narratives and we can start to assume that sound has a important role even in this film in the opening scene when the radio is not working.

Död Snö (Dead Snow)

Plot

A gang of eight Norwegian medical students decides to go for a trip to the mountains. The first evening a old man comes around and tells them the story of a Nazi party who occupied a town close by, but the villagers rebelled and the Nazis fled into the mountains. This is the

start of weird things, and when one of their friends don't show up, her boyfriend starts looking for her while the others stays at the cabin and starts the party. When one of the girls goes missing and they find the backpack of the first missing person, they start to get suspicious and this is when they start the battle against the zombies.

Opinion

Död Snö is an entertaining film, made by a small scale Norwegian company, with a relatively low budget. They have many of the classical horror film traits, but they have twisted them together into something new. They have taken any zombie film and mixed it with Wrong Turn, and the result became a real good horror film, even though the plot has a few holes, but as the effect of the zombies was so good, it doesn't really matter.

I would really recommend it, it is not scary scary, but it's really good when wanting a cozy evening with some not to brutal horror films in the autumn, when there is to cold to go outside anyway.

And if you liked this one, Norway has manged to produce yet another really good horror film. Snarveien. The film is following a couple who has been in Sweden buying booze, and can't get back home to Norway, so they take a short cut...

The others

Plot
Nicole Kidman, here as Grace Stewart, has with her children lives in a big house, waiting for her husband to come home from the war. Three people comes knocking on her door and asks for work and after a while her daughter starts to see a boy, whom none of the others can see, but after a while Grace starts to feel the presence of something non-human. When her husband then comes home, and then leaves, you start to get scared. Voices, sounds are heard. And who are the three people who came knocking on the door really?


Opinion
The story is not something completley new, it does not always look the same, but the basic concept is the same. An unbeliver who starts to believe after and encounter, the spooky house maids and gardners, the child who sees ghosts. All are elements that exists in other films, the thing that makes this film really good is light and sound.
As the kids are sensitive to light, big curtains are always drawn, and therefore, sound is not as it's supposed to be. Also there is a lot of whispering, which makes the atmosphere as there is secrets, things not everyone is allowed to hear. And as all the curtians is there, there is always dark, very rarelly light. Together with the whispering, and the lack of sound, the mice-en-scene gets rather interesting, you never know what lurks in the corners, what will jump out in the next dark hallway or whom will show up next. You hear sounds, but you don't know what's making them.

The film in all is an incredibly good film. The end is not suspected (at least not from me!) and it's frightening in a way impossible to tell.

An interesting thing would have been to watch the film without the soundtrack, but with the sound (e.g steps, cracks and so on, but without the music) as I think it would be real scary.