I figured out who he is (The Old Man and the Gun 2018)

 

 

 

216.

The Old Man and the Gun

 

 

 

 

6/10

 

It had been a while since I had managed time away from work and seen an Odeon Screen Unseen. The clues weren't really up to much and I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. Sitting down and having a quick discussion with my mate about what it could be, we were still none the wiser and as the screen appeared with the title, I quickly got onto IMBD and had a look at the synopsis and its running time. The film stars Robert Redford, who I had heard of by name obviously but never on the big screen. Casey Affleck is one I do recognise and along with Danny Glover, the cast isn't too bad.
The story is a true one. Following a fella at the ripe age of 70, who hasn't long escaped prison, this gent is called Forrest Tucker. Now Forrest loves trouble and as we can see from this movie, he is never too old to get a heist on the go. Being an old man, no-one suspects him and bank after bank, he gets the job done. One day he meets a lady, played by Sissy Spacek, whose face I recognise from somewhere and even now I had to have a look at her. She played Carrie in the older version of the movie years ago. This woman is someone that Forrest and see himself with and even openly admits to her his profession. There's no chance she believes him.

After the news stories start rolling in and Affleck's character gets on the trail, it's still hard to believe that the eyewitnesses are claiming it to be such an older guy. The general public is even falling in love with this idea. That's when the lady starts thinking. She doesn't leave though, just pleads the case for him to give it up. As he is finally caught, along with an accomplice for one heist, played by Glover, he is finally thinking about ending it and settling down. Never too late I suppose.

 

 

 Once the car chase has ended, and a few months have past whilst living with his new love, we figure this could be the end to the movie. There is one last scene though. Forrest is seen sitting on a bench, outside yet another bank and puts on his usual hat and coat, carrying his briefcase and wearing a massive smile towards the camera, he enters and the movie ends there. He could never really stop his true calling.

 

 

This movie was a little more fun than I was going to give it credit for. I'm not too sure what the true story was and if this was followed in this movie but it was more of a lenient heist movie. No real violence and tilted more towards a romantic comedy at times than an actual crime film. It contained the main 'will he won't he' scene that a heist movie possesses and maybe even more than once. Will he get caught, especially a scene where the detective and the robber and dining at the same place. Will he give up the robbing now that he has found a woman. These questions come with their answers within the movie. The acting was pretty decent and there was a lot more humour than I would have expected but Redford put on a show, whether this was his flirtatious attitude down to his seriousness when on the job, he could switch it on and off on demand. 

Happy Halloween, Michael. (Halloween 2018)

215.

Halloween

 

 

 

7/10

 

It's the time of year that I love and that time is Halloween. This means we get some shite and some good but no matter what, they are horror movies and I'll go and see them. This time it's going to be from one of the most famous franchises. Michael Myers, not the guy who plays Shrek, but a serial killer is back on the big screen, 40 years after the original came out. We've has some remakes that we've been asked to forget about and even some sequels that again, we've been asked to pretend aren't around. Instead, we are bringing back Jamie-Lee Curtis as Laurie Stroud and even Will Patton as the cop, who I hear was in the earlier movies, which I have to be honest about, haven't seen.

The movie follows a simple concept, as many serial killer movies do. We have to investigators loving the story surrounding it all, trying to trace down Michael to ask some questions and moving onto Laurie to ask them the same. We catch our first few glimpses of Michael without his famous mask, which was a big talking point before the movie but ended up being a whole lot of nothing. The movie progresses as Laurie is seen by her daughter, son-in-law and the public as a bit of a crazy cow but the granddaughter actually has a degree of sympathy for her. Laurie kicks off after finding out that they are going to be movie Michael by bus, which of course, crashes and he escapes. As a car pulls over to help, he claims his first victims and heads to get some petrol and clothing.
 

 Coming across the investigators from earlier, he makes easy work of them, collecting some teeth and adding to his death tally. Laurie has a sixth sense about this and instantly tries to protect her own family. She's been living away from years, in a cottage in the sticks. Surrounded by fences and some target practice, she's been waiting for this day.
Now apart from the usual rivalry between the killer and his target, we need some side story and this comes in the form of the granddaughter. Not only was she the only person to believe Laurie from the start, but we follow her closely. With Michael, he's found his way to a petrol station and low and behold, it's the same one as the investigator's from earlier. He makes easy work of them before finding his old mask in their trunk. The granddaughter is at a school dance as Michael finds his way into town, going door to door he picks off people with ease, adding to his tally. They two come to their first meeting in a garden than the Granddaughter cuts through with her friend. He makes light work of the friend and sets his sights on her, realising her resemblance to a young Laurie. Now, this is the part that always winds me up. The girl can run as fast as she can but the serial killer with a slow walk always catches up. The girl is picked up by the cop, who is giving the shrink a ride and when they come across Michael, the cop plows him down. The shrink isn't best pleased about this, showing his fascination with Michael and when they inspect the body, the cop gets stabbed in the neck by the shrink, who drags Michael into the car to sit next to the girl. Crazy bastard.
Laurie is off making sure the rest of her family are safe. She grabbed her daughter and son-in-law and taken them to her house in the woods. The Shrink is on the way too, just before Michael wakes, kills him and goes after the girl, but she escapes and legs it into the woods. Now Michael has a new plan.

He heads to the house in the cop car and plants it outside so that the only gent after he's massacred the cops, comes to have a look. He's easily dealt with and the only people left to stop Michael are the three generations of ladies. The two eldest are hiding the basement and the youngest is in the woods somewhere. Laurie has a plan though, she has been waiting for this for years and has laid trap after trap around her house. Even the granddaughter makes is back in time so that they are all in the basement, tempting Michael to come down until he is shot, locked down there and caged like the animal he is. All of a sudden the faces on the two eldest change to stubborn bitches and they know they have won. The room fills with gas, as does the rest of the house and with one match, Michael is lit on fire, standing, unbothered, as he burns to death without a sound. The females walk away from the house, just as it explodes and the movie draws to a close.

I'm going to look at this movie as a standalone to an extent, mainly because I haven't seen the others but because it was also told quite cleverly. Although we have a story 40 years on, there are enough references from the earlier movies to fill in the gaps for the first time viewers to this tale and I find that very well done. This isn't the type of horror that would have too many jump-scares, maybe a leap out the closest and such but it holds it's esteem by being such a creepy thriller, not one that the cops will end the case but a vigilante. This movie shows that there could be a monster in anyone, without actually showing a true monster. Instead, we get an iconic mask that is a symbol of this franchise. The music score does will to add to this suspense at the right moments, more meaningfully as Michael regains his mask. Putting in a little bit about the bad points, as one has already been spoken about and that's the love of the slow walking killer who never gets outrun somehow. This alongside some continuity errors. The door to the basement was hidden under a countertop in the kitchen, one that as the movie carried on, got slower and slower at closing, obviously giving some more suspense but Jesus wept, you could clearly see this was slowing down on purpose. The main feature of this movie that I enjoyed, was the most unexpected parts. This would stem by how quick the investigator's deaths came about, how the shrink turned on the good and how the women banded together in such a fashion towards the end. This was definitely a movie that could once again do the franchise justice, whilst forgetting the terrible ones that apparently came in the middle.

 

A thousand year army needs a thousand year soldiers (Overlord 2018)

214.

Overlord

 

 

 

 

 

7/10

 

 

A horror that gave me a little bit of excitement once I read that it was coming out. One of the first games that I remember being into was Return to Castle Wolfenstein and this movie looked like an absolute twin to that game. Now there is no promise of it being just as good, following the storyline or even being a good horror, all I cared about was that it looked like it could be. Always a sucker for horror, I couldn't wait until the time went to watch the movie.

 

The story followed a group of American soldiers, heading behind the enemy line to take down a radio tower. Knowing there's a chance they wouldn't make it out is the least of their problems. In the old French town that they need to make it into, lies a secret that they wish they never came across. It turns out that the Nazi's are running experiments on the local. These involve draining the poor buggers because there is something in the land that they live and pouring this blood into the Nazi soldiers, creating some sort of super zombie Nazi army.

 Good one Hitler you crazy bastard. Once our main villain takes a bullet to the face, he ends up taking a needle of the good stuff and sorting himself out. This guy is the only one that I do recognise, playing Theon Greyjoy's uncle in A Game of Thrones. This is now the part of the game I loved. Just like this movie, it started as a normal war storyline, taking a dark turn with all sorts of disgusting soldiers heading to kill the good guys. Obviously, we know the outcome. Our guys save the day by bringing down the labs, radio tower and whatever else was in the tunnels below. If you went into this movie thinking that is was going to be a war movie, you'd have been dead wrong.

 There was such a creepy and dark aspect brought about halfway through the movie that really turned this story on its head. I can imagine the unsuspecting audience would have had the same look on their faces as the soldiers, once they seen their first zombie on screen. This sort of cross over has only really been done on movies that have gone straight to DVD.

The look of this movie was exactly as I expected. There was the war aspect to begin, looking like something fresh of the beginning of a Call of Duty game and then as the team made their way below, the story turned downwards towards hell too. With pitch-black corridors, old ruins, plenty and I mean plenty of gore, this was a clever twist to a zombie movie which usually depicts some slow walking gormless bastards. There was plenty of action, killing and explosions to brighten up our screens at the right time, keeping this as an action-packed horror. It was always going to be an interesting idea when J.J Abrams is involved. He never likes normal.

This movie will go well below the radar and maybe not be successful in any real way but for me, the nostalgia that came from this movie became a massive talking point amongst my friends. It would be very interesting to see which mission this gang of soldiers were sent onto next after seeing the horrors that they had scene.