Dead Genre

Mary Shaw breathed life and unspeakable horror into inanimate ventriloquist's dolls. Dead Silence seeks, with the help of the long-dead Mary Shaw and her dolls of small-town Ravens fair, to breathe life into the near-dead horror genre. When wife Ella Ashen (Amber Valetta) is brutally murdered, husband Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten) embarks on a fact-finding mission that delves into local lore, and is punctuated by much copybook horror sequences at motels, graveyards (!), and abandoned theatres. What could set this movie a bare notch above the mindless horror flick, is a few reasonably unexpected twists in the tale. A recommended movie only for those hellbent on picking on the last vestiges of an idea-starved genre

11.5/20

End of Days

De Niro and Pacino come together after more than a decade (Heat) for the movie Righteous Kill. It is poignant to see the passing of two great stars – the dialogue does not quite carry the punch of yesteryears, and the ending is quite predictable and not much of a twist. Having said the above, the movie is still worth a watch – there is still fire in those old bones, and a good supporting cast make up for some of the ageing in the star attractions. Watch this for its own sake, but comparing it to the likes of Heat and other sundry classics could be disturbing.