Review: Choose

ME: This looks like a good one..
TIM: What's it about..
ME: A girl finds her parents hog tied and is told she has 60 seconds to choose who gets killed.. her mother or her father. If she can't decide then he kills both.
TIM: I would choose neither. That's horrible!!!!
ME: ... and that's why it's a "horror" film? Duh?
TIM: Good point.

Ok..

That brief synopsis is only what occurs in the first five minutes of the movie...

Even BEFORE the credits!

Not sure how this one missed my radar.. and with Kevin Pollack and Bruce Dern you wouldn't think it would have gone straight to video.

It shouldn't have...

This is THE BEST psychological thiller / horror movie that I've seen in a long time .. better then "Case 39" and "My Soul To Take" .. maybe even combined.

Smartly written.. not cheesy... not unbelievable.

And that's probably the scariest thing about this movie.

This mad man (he isn't necessarily a "killer" because he doesn't actually kill his victims) gives his victims a choice.. I'm not going to give anything away so let's say he makes them choose between A or B .. Black or White.. Apples or Oranges ...

For each victim, either choice is devastating so it basically becomes the lesser of to evils..

And everything.. everything ties in.. no loose strings.. no questions left unanswered.. everything fits right down to the last second of the film..

If I tell you anymore it's going to feel like I'm giving something away and this movie is too good to go into it knowing "something".

So my  lips are sealed.. you'll have to watch it for yourself and let me know what you thought.

Review: Case 39

Sorry.. but there's nothing like a scary movie and by "scary", I don't mean slasher films or horror movies or Michael Moore movies.

Ok.. so I had to throw that in. Sue me.

I'm talking about movies that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.. hands over your eyes, peeking through your fingers.. The kind of movie that makes you turn on every light in the house when you need to go to the bathroom even though there are four other people, two bark-at-a-leaf dogs, two cats and a whole lot of fish in the house with you.

Before FX became the general method of fright, movie makers used light, shadow and camera angles to put the scare in ya.

Case 39 isn't THAT old school, but it's old school enough to leave an impression.
Renee Zellweger plays a social services case worker who is issued the title's Case 39, a file regarding a tween girl who is suspected of being abused. She takes the case, interviews the parents and leaves with a gut feeling that something just isn't right.

Her attempts to convince her boss and a detective friend that the girl is in danger fall on deaf ears until one night when the girl calls her pleading for help.

In one of THE MOST DISTURBING clips of film I have ever scene in my life, you realize that this movie is going to put both The Exorcist AND The Omen to shame.

I'm not going to go further with the plot because this is a movie that you have to see for yourselves.

Bradley Cooper supports as a child psychologist with romantic interests in Zellweger's character :: worth noting that the two are a couple in real life .. or do you live under a rock? :: and Ian McShane appears as the detective friend.

Jodelle Ferland plays Lilith, the girl at the center of the movie and believe me, she's going to be someone to keep a tag on if she doesn't fall into the Lindsay Lohen mode of child actresses.

Go to the movies to see this one.. hell, spring for a large bucket of popcorn. It's definitely worth it.

Two big thumbs up.