My expectations weren't high on this one, since we've been buying some bad cheap movies lately - but I shouldn't have doubted Stephen King's ability to deliver!

Amazon summarizes the plot with simply "a mysterious mist, thick with blood-thirsty creatures, descends on a small town, where a group of people holes up in a grocery store to fight for their lives", and I'm not gonna go more into it than that either, cause that would spoil the surprise.

There was a few times, especially during the first half, where the dialogue was a bit slow and you figured "right, it's that kind of movie, doesn't seem too interesting". However, I'm glad we didn't give up on it, because there was always a new turn with new horrors to be brought.

If you've read my reviews you know I love nothing better than an excellent ending, happy or heart-breaking, as long as it's surprising. Even if you've read the Stephen King novella, this movie adaptation ends dramatically different, so it would be worth watching it just for that. Click the picture to find the DVD on Amazon.com or click here (The Mist) for the novella on paperback.

I don't know how many times I've seen this movie now - it's still the funniest thing ever!

Ed: Are there any zombies out there?
Shaun: Don't say that!
Ed: What?
Shaun: That. The 'Z' word. Don't say it.
Ed: Why not?
Shaun: Because it's ridiculous!
Ed: Alright... Are there any out there, though?
Shaun: Don't see any... Maybe it's not as bad as all that. Oh! Nope, there they are.

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Ed: Ain't you gonna thank me, then?
Shaun: For what?
Ed: Tidyin' up.
Shaun: It doesn't look that tidy.
Ed: Well, I had a few beers when I finished. Do you want your messages?
Shaun: What?
Ed: Well, your mum rang about you going around tomorrow night, and then Liz rang about the two of you eating out tonight, and then your mum rang back to see if I wanted to eat her out tonight.

Been rewatching the Spiderman trilogy since yesterday, and remembering how good the first movie was. Number two and three don't quite live up to it, even if the third was an improvement.

It just felt like they were trying really hard to be funny in the sequels. Especially in the second one, where there was so much personal problems for Peter Parker that there was barely any room for the super hero action. In the third film there's a scene with a planned proposal, and everything just seems to go wrong. If that scene had gone on one second longer it would have turned into a bad american rom com disaster.

However, I shouldn't be too harsch, because on the whole I think it's three pretty excellent movies who don't get enough credit for good story-telling. It's just the fact that the original was so perfect, which makes the other two seem bleek in comparison.

With some of my birthday money, we decided to invest in a good combo printer / scanner / copying machine. Now that I can't rely on my school to supply me with anything I need anymore, I'm gonna need to get these things for myself.

So far it seems good and easy to use. Had some trouble setting the wireless network up, but that's only what you expect - printers are always trouble! It's definitely a plus to have it all wireless, so you can just lie in bed with your laptop and press print, ahh.

We haven't tried printing on proper photo paper yet, you only got three small sheets for free with it, so we're saving them for when we want to print a really nice photo. Cool to have that function though, for the price we paid we got quite a bit for it! This is a complete luxury to me, anything that makes the little organising geek in me jump for joy.

Now I can scan articles for my blogs, print recipies, make copies of course literature...
*geek overload*

So hey, check out one of the things Allen got me for my birthday, Only by the Night by Kings of Leon. I've been thinking about getting it myself so it was a great present. He always knows me so well. I already knew about four of the eleven songs and the rest were great too, we've been listening to it when going to sleep and it's got a real nice sound to it.

It was such a coincidence the day he ordered it. I was away on a gala at Gotland Game Awards, and about an hour after he'd made the order online, he's sitting there wondering if his presents were any good, and I send him a text saying something like "you'll never guess what break music they have on, it's Kings of Leon! it's the full album, with all the less famous songs too! someone's got good taste."

We had this movie recommended to us, but Teeth mostly freaked me out. Here's yet another example of what happens to young people if they don't get proper sexual education. Well, I mean, the awkwardness is. Hopefully lack of education doesn't cause people to mutate and develop teeth in their genitals, but if that ever did happen then open education could hopefully have been resolved the problem a bit better...

The main character is a popular, attractive girl who for some reason is very frigid and determined to not have sex before marriage. It turns out that living close to a nuclear power plant has caused a mutation in her holiest of regions, but she hasn't noticed anything is abnormal about this, she just goes on with her life. As the story develops and she becomes interested in this guy, she wants to stick to her promise of purity. The guy however, turns out to be a bit pushy, and his attempts to seduce her end in tragedy.

Toward the end, it just got a bit much. I just felt disgusting watching it. I'm not usually prude there's a limit to what a person can endure. I mean... gross, lol. Give it a try and watch it if you're intrigued though, it's definitely... an experience.

Not even to mention how good the actual series is, I just love the intro. There is something so simple and intense about it. It's just a guy getting up the morning, having breakfast, getting ready and leaving, but it's like art. I don't know if it's the extreme slow-mo close ups or the music or what. When he's squeezing that orange, I can almost feel the little sprays hitting my eyes.

It really reflects what Dexter is like as a person. Innocent and proper, a clean perfectionist but with that hint of something violent, the references to blood and strength, the contained calm.

Video beauty at it's best anyway, so give it a watch if you haven't seen it. Watch the Dexter series intro here.

Yeah... after this, I think we're done with horror movies for a while. With The Haunting in Conneticut, it's as if no one ever realised that adding more and more slamming doors at one point goes past scary and into plain ridiculous.

At the start, I thought it seemed to be a pretty good movie. Classic story, family has a son with cancer and since they need to live closer to the hospital, they rent a cheap house which turns out to have a history as a morgue. I love those little moments when the unknowing victims wander around the house and you catch a glimpse of someone moving in the background, or a dead face in a mirror, and you jump in fright and think "phew, that was a good scary one". There was plenty of those, straight to the point, getting started with the freaky images long before the inhabitants realise what's going on.

But soon, the tempo had to pick up. And that's when it got really bad. When you start off too early you just have to go worse and worse until I, as a viewer, didn't even care. Less is more, people! When you have no sense of reality left, why would you care about the story anymore?

By two thirds of the movie Allen had officially placed this in his "at least top 5 Worst Movies Ever". Not good. We were mostly bored waiting for it to end, if we hadn't paid good money to rent it we might not even have watched it all. Weak ending. Kind of bad acting, most of all from the mother. So yeah... not my favourite.

Who believes a single woman whose word is against the word of the LA Police Department? Isn't it easy to claim her to be crazy? But imagine her despair when her lost son is returned to her by the police and she realises the returned boy is not her son at all. No matter what proof she has to show that there has been a mistake, officials refuse to listen.

There's nothing like a true story, that's what makes this any good to me. I was a bit worried during the eventless middle part, that there wasn't much to this story at all. But, if you get through to the second half, there are plenty of new plot lines to make this more unbelieveable and interesting by the minute.

Really enjoyed it after all, makes you think about who to trust and how our society works. This might have been a long time ago but there's no doubt in my mind that plenty of similar things have happened through history and still today.This is a great story about hope, trust and fighting for what you believe in.

Finished reading for my Jules Verne assignment. :)

Can't believe I haven't got around to reading anything by him before, so this was the right subject of choice for me. I was really surprised how much I enjoyed this book! The meaning of "science fiction" suddenly became clear, because that is truly what this is - a fictional story with great focus on the scientific evidence of why it could be true. Wonderful!

The fact that this was written in the 1860's baffles me. Did they know all this stuff back then? Very detailed. To me, who is not exactly educated in geology, this sounds like something that could actually have been published last year about a travel that actually did take place.

In the story, Axel finds himself being dragged along to an adventure when his uncle, Professor Lidenbrock, makes a very special discovery. If he is to believe the rare coded document he has found, there is an underground path which can lead them all the way to the Center of the Earth! Axel doesn't know what to believe, but his uncle is obsessed with the possibility and is already packing for their incredible journey.

It's a shame I got the ending ruined (I had already accidentally seen it on Wikipedia), cause it was an excellent and unexpected ending, which is always a big plus to me. Anyone who likes adventure books and has a slight scientific interest should give Jules Verne a try. I wouldn't mind reading a few of his other books in my free time. :)

More horror, yay!

The Ring is a proper horror classic, and not many good movies like that get sequels that are actually well thought through, entertaining, make sense and even add to the story of the original in a natural way.

The Ring Two is a better sequel than most. I feel closer to the story with this than with the first movie, to be honest. When you're too occupied being confused with all the weird plot, there's not a lot of time left to be scared. In this second movie, we already know what the background is and can focus on what's important.

Aidan becoming "possessed" might seem a bit Exorcist-rip off at first, but it turns out very good and creepy. There's nothing more evil than when it infests the one you love, right? The mother soon gets declared crazy for her behaviour towards her son, which is excellent, very realistic and makes it more scary. Anything that brings you back to reality a little bit is a good thing for a story like this, where the plot could otherwise spiral away so far into unbelieveable that all credibility is lost.

Definitely worth a watch for anyone who ever enjoyed a horror.

 Sunday night we watched The Others. I've only been watching horrors for the past couple of years really, so I'm catching up on a lot of old movies.

I liked this one cause it's a lot like a ghost story you'd tell around a camp fire, but without the cheesiness and the bad ending. Many horrors just go too far, throw in some dead bodies and plenty of pouring blood and maggots and gore and you've got it good and scary... I say nah. This movie has no blood, nothing visually revolting and still made it good.

Instead, it's a pretty beautiful visual experience, great story with a perfect twist, and I loved the performance by Nicole Kidman and Fionnula Flanagan who made it very believeable. This one is great for the slightly squeamish type who feels sick from blood but still wants a good scare. Chick-flick horror, I guess. :)