M A M A

In all honesty, I consider myself a horror movie virgin. I never really considered that genre my bag...baby. I'm a lover of comedy and bad-assery, not movies that make me smell like bad ass (laying on puns thick up in here). So a few weeks ago, my heart was set on seeing Zero Dark Thirty, but for a variety of reasons, my friends and I were unable to sneak in and I was rejected from buying a ticket even though my 17th birthday was a day away. We discussed what we should do and my friend brought up Mama. I wasn't really that thrilled. Its not that I was being a wuss (I kinda was at first), but that I viewed paying to see Mama as a cop out. Eventually, I decided to join in and we got tickets to see the movie. I was wrong about it being a cop out.

Many have criticized Mama  for being a bit too cliche and not that scary, and I agree with them, but that doesn't make the movie bad. It was a stereotypical ghost/ monster story and the monster even hid in the closet and underneath the beds. I think that was more a homage to the typical monster convention than a serious plot move. Though the movie wasn't terribly frightening, the first hour was extremely suspenseful for me because I spun this elaborate illusion in my head in which the monster would indiscriminately attack everyone at almost every time.  That wasn't true, but the ghouls appearances were unexpected and frightening; well, until the last portion of the movie.

Creepy

By the last thirty minutes of the film, Mama's face was already revealed and as everyone knows, seeing the face of the monster almost immediately dissolves the power it once had because the true fear of a movie monster comes from the fear of the unknown. The fact that her face was revealed made the climax less tense and scary as the rest of the movie and diminished its importance. 

The one part of the movie that I thought was very excellent was the use of the two little girls who are essentially Mama's adopted children. Their dynamic was interesting as it led to some tense situations between the girls and other characters and made the audience more emotionally invested in the movies outcome. No one wants to see two little girls die or become perverted by Mama's evil influence, so their presence in the movie made the audience care just a little bit more.

Overall, I found that Mama was a pretty good horror flick and it is awarded a 4 out of 5.

Django Unchained Review

This movie was my second Tarantino Film (preceding Pulp Fiction) and I built up a huge dream of how it would play out and how awesome it would be. I was expecting gruesome violence, some humor, a accurate rendition of the Antebellum South, and a unique, engaging  plot that would be a throwback to the classic Westerns of a bygone era. 

I was not disappointed. My conception of the movie was saturated with awesomeness, but the actual film was even more saturated with awesomeness. Dare I say, it was the most awesome movie I have ever seen. Ever. Straight Up. 

Tarantino's work is most known for treading the line between utterly insulting and sickening for focusing on subject matter that people tend to avoid on a day to day basis. He forces the audience to confront socially unacceptable ideas and tabooed subjects. Not only is the violence visceral, but the script is packed full of taboo words, and in this movie, the N-word is the king of all bad words and it is used in nearly every line of the film. He also shows slavery in its most ugly light, not retracting any horrible detail or commonality of life as a slave.

The plot starts as Django is saved from a chain gang by a German bounty hunter named Dr. Schultz, who poses as a dentist and drives around in a comical buggy. He uses Django to help him bring in his latest bounty, and makes Django his protege. Django wants to use the money he earns from bounty hunting to purchase his wife, who is still in captivity, and Schultz decides to help him. There scheme to retrieve his wife involves infiltrating Calvin Candie's estate and paying to free his wife, but not everything goes as planned.

The heroes of the film, Django and Dr. Schultz

The plot is well paced and the suspense is high throughout the movie, until the end, when it seems like the movie is all wrapped up, but Tarantino drags it on a little longer in order to deliver Django a total happy ending. There was never a truly dull moment, even the more mundane parts were punctuated with humor, or the tension between certain characters was palpable. Additionally, classic westernesque music was broken up by Tu-pac songs or other rap songs, lending the movie a curious modern yet classic effect, which seemed to say "This is a western, but not your typical one".

Overall, Django was extremely satisfying and gets a 5 out of 5