Page 8
February 2009
BY ADAM EISENTROUT
Staff Writer
Coraline 3-D
Coraline is the story of a
young girl who has just moved
into an apartment flat with her par-
ents. Her parents are garden novel-
ists busy at work on a new garden
catalog who give more attention to
their computers then their own
daughter. Coraline is restlessly
bored with her new home and
soon discovers a small door that
leads her to a paradox universe
where everything is wonderful and
perfect.
Of course, all is not wonderful
and perfect in a world where every
oppositional doppelganger has
buttons sewed into their eyes. It is
not too long before Coraline is
asked to have her own eyes re-
placed with buttons and the para-
dox world drastically changes
from fantastic to grotesque in a
matter of seconds.
Coraline is the new stop-
motion animated film from Henry
Selick, the director of such other
clay mated classics as James and
the Giant Peach and The Night-
mare Before Christmas. Yes, that
Nightmare Before Christmas that
has gained a cult status and has
been recognized by many as just a
Tim Burton film. Selick seems to
have managed to break away from
having his name minimized by the
likes of more popular related art-
ists but it shows as Coraline is
nothing less than magnificent. It
is almost indescribable to how
well made the film is; one can tell
that the thought and time of four
years of production meant some-
thing for the films creators.
Everything the film offers ter-
rific voice acting by the whole cast
to the film’s soundtrack that is de-
lightfully sinister. The art design
is absolutely astounding as each
and every scene is visually stirring
from the subtle; Coraline’s facial
expressions, to the unsettling;
room’s sudden transformation into
a spider web. The 3-D aesthetic is
also a welcome surprise as it
works delicately to engage the au-
dience rather than distract like in
Coraline is essentially a chil-
dren’s version of Pans Labyrinth
but better. The film is a living
typepad.com
work of art that works as a time-
less, dark, fairy tale that most
movie goers have nightmares
about but for the rest of us, it is a
film we dream of and when we see
it we are utterly mesmerized.
In Theaters: Wide Releasing
My Bloody Valentine 3-D
With the popular rise of horror
remakes rampant throughout Hol-
lywood of the few past years
we’ve seen Texas Chainsaw Mas-
sacre, the Amityville Horror,
Dawn of the Dead, and now My
Bloody Valentine...3-D. The
original My Bloody Valentine be-
ing a mean spirited, often silly,
but indescribably lovable slasher
flick. The original and the re-
makes plots almost similar starts
simply, a massacre occurred ten
years ago, in a small Pennsylva-
nian mining town, after a mining
accident left one of its few survi-
vors, Harry Warden in a coma.
When he woke up, hilarity en-
sued. Just kidding, he murdered
and killed over 22 men, women,
and children. Shortly after, Harry
was supposedly killed but re-
appear without hearts and it
seems Harry just might not be
dead after all or of course it could
be someone else! With the film
eagerly using Harry as its stan-
dard slasher villain, we get a
fairly standard slasher movie fair.
condoning it would be criminal as
it is popcorn film of mindless
slasher. Take the 3-D away
though and you have a film dead
on arrival (pun intended).
At Home: DVD
Eden Lake
Dimension Extreme has been re-
leasing some of the rawest, un-
nerving, brutal, and grittiest hor-
ror films to date that did not get a
release state side. They not only
released Broken a film that makes
course is when Harry kills a vic-
tim ala ripping there jaw off with
his pick axe, the jaw wonderfully
gets thrown at the audience. Fun?
Of Course! Gimmicky?
course... The film does not hold a
pick axe to the original film but
Street and the terrifically intense
French horror film Inside. Now
they bring us Eden Lake a UK
horror film that easily could have
movie experience because of its
subject matter and it delivers ex-
actly that. Not to call Eden Lake a
bad film, its not, it’s far from it
and is actually one of the best
horror films of the recent. Its just
the film is a heavy, disturbing,
brutal, unnerving, tense, shock-
ing, thought provoking, real, and
grim experience. The film bril-
liantly keeps itself from becom-
ing an exploitative show of
shocks and gore. In fact the film
has barely to any gore and does
not glorify itself for that. It deliv-
ers a tight thriller that is pulse
pounding and difficult to sit
through until its very end that is
more then just depressing but fail-
ingly its biggest flaw. The ending
plays it unfair unlike the rest of
the film but other then that the
film is a must see for horror fans.