Rise of the Zombie (2013) 1h 26m

I've been trying to understand why films from India will switch so freely between English and Hindi.  At first I assumed it was just phrases or certain words that don't translate well, such as when English bleeds into Japanese or Spanish.  I actually did some quick research (read as: Google) to find out that the reason this happens is that a lot of India, especially the youth, tend to be bilingual.  In addition to this, when something needs to be stressed for emphasis a person will say a phrase in Hindi and then repeat the same phrase in English, which is prominent in early parts of this film.  Now that you've learned so much, "what film" you ask?

Rise of the Zombie (not to be confused with the Danny Trejo film Rise of the Zombies) is apparently India's first zombie origin film.  At least that's what the poster says.  As a nature photographer, Neil's work takes him to remote and unreachable places for long periods of time.  After returning from one of his trips, his girlfriend dumps him.  Not to be slowed down, he sets out on his next trip only to be bit by some flying insect.  The wound becomes grossly infected but Neil thinks that just dumping water on it is enough to help.  Over time he begins to feel himself change.  He loses control of his urges and craves raw meat, all while he thinks about the good times he used to have with his ex.

Despite having the name "Zombie" in the title, the horror elements are few and far between.  Most of the film focuses on Neil and his emotional state in regards to his break-up while simultaneously having this slow transformation from man, to cannibal, to something I guess you can classify as a zombie.  I feel like it's a very loose use of the term here.

I wasn't really wowed by Rise of the Zombie.  I like that it tried to do something different and have ride sidecar to Neil's change, but it was far too slow and frustrating.  Why he assumed he could just keep dumping water on his arm makes no sense to me.  He went into a nearby town to buy supplies and use a phone which I assume he could've found a doctor or something close to one there to tell him "Yooooooo!  You need to get yo' ass to the hospital!"  The break-up also serves no real purpose except for someone to spark the search for him when he's been missing for too long, which is still weird because she broke up with him and is then all up in his business again.  Who knows?  I don't.

I give Rise of the Zombie 1.5 Rise Against albums out of 5:

Ranbhool (2010) 1h 50m

Some people say that you can learn something from every experience you have.  I think that after watching this film the only thing I learned was to not trust dudes that wear tie dye and play guitar.  This isn't really new information for me.  I talk shit on hippies all the time.  So maybe this film didn't teach me anything, but rather just reaffirmed my dislike of hippies.

Ranbhool is an Indian film in which a man believes his music is essentially the music of god.  He is such a religious zealot over this thought that he has killed people that have prevented his music from getting out or say that they don't hear the message of god in it.  A teenage girl goes to her father's home with her younger sister and a friend and make contact with this crazy guy via the internet (as ya' do).  Using an Omegle style chat they view a video stream of him playing his music, but they miss him murdering his fiancé.  Everyone tracks everyone else down and it ends with hostages, a standoff, and someone's grandmother getting called in to stop all this shit!

This was not a film for me.  Pushing close to two hours is actually short for most of the Indian films I've watched but this one just kept drawing out scenes for too long.  We get a lot of our killer playing his music but it is literally just the same song over and over again with him jamming on some changes.  It's not even a good song!  I mean, maybe I'm missing the voice of god or whatever in it, but it was just sounded like shitty Phish, and I already hate Phish so imagine that!  I will say there is one moment I liked and it's right after he kills his fiancé and then he plays a guitar solo over her corpse.  That was one of the most metal things I've been privy to in a film.  Too bad it was a hippie solo!

I give Ranbhool 1 dirty hippy out of 5:

Horror Story (2013) 1h 31m

I don't mind subtitles in films.  In fact, I would much rather have subtitles instead of a terrible dub where the context gets changed.  Like that episode of Pokemon where they're eating rice balls but keep calling them donuts because they assumed English speaking children wouldn't know what a rice ball was.  What's even worse though is when the character is speaking English but the subtitles say something different.  It's definitely one of those "you had one fucking job" moments that confuses the hell out of me, and it happened multiple times during my viewing of this.

Staying in India, Horror Story takes the always hard to believe plot of a group of friends out partying the night before one of them is about to move away.  I've moved multiple times in my life and you do not go out and fucking party the night before unless you have a moving service hired and someone is going to drive you where you're moving to. I'm getting off topic but I hate this plot line in horror.  Anyway, our group decides to go to a supposedly haunted hotel because trespassing and breaking and entering are always good ideas the night before someone is moving.  This hotel ends up not just being haunted, but super haunted as it was previously a mental hospital that had a violent patient that claimed to have married Satan in it.

Horror Story is really just a series of dumb decisions.  The bending of the space of the hotel was a nice touch but in truth it's nothing that really made me want to become engaged with this film.  I will say that the hotel "library" having an occult section meant that this was a classy establishment, and the final run with a hand full of fire was climactic, but the rest was a snoozeroo.

I give Horror Story 0 H.H. Holmes houses out of 5:

6-5=2 (2014)

Three days deep and we get our first "found footage" film of this Cut.  I wanted to rip into this movie right at the start of this review but I decided to take a moment and look into it a bit more.  This is really a bare bones production done on a shoe-string budget.  It's the director/producer's first film and there wasn't much of a crew.  I'm filling you in on this info because it's something that I'm taking into consideration.  I came into myself thanks in part to a very DIY punk scene in Pittsburgh, so I can respect this kind of lo-fi production.

6-5=2 is a film out of India where a group of friends go hiking on a random mountain path.  I'm having trouble remembering what their actual motivation is for this because I've had a lot of Indian found footage films I've ended up watching for this blog.  This movie turns into a bootleg version of the Blair Witch quickly (a film which was said to be the major influence) with faux graves appearing in the night, cameras catching weird behavior, and everyone being lost.

This isn't the best horror film I've ever seen, but it's also not the worst.  The Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity influence is far too heavy and feels more like copying than just an homage.  This is especially prevalent when they use an alternate Paranormal Activity ending where the remaining female walks up to the camera and cuts her throat in front of it.  The parts I liked were really more of things that maybe only I would enjoy.  For example, during one of the evenings a girl sits up and starts doing some sick thrash metal hair spins for about a minute.  I was waiting for some DRI or Municipal Waste to kick in, but it didn't.  The other thing I liked was a brief ghost appearance that lead to my note of "Oh shit! Special appearance by the Babadook!"  So as I said, only dumb stuff that got me excited.  As for the rest, they made a movie with what they had.  That's more than I can say for a lot of us.

I give 6-5=2 1 Suicidal Tendencies album out of 5:

Hisss (2010) 1h 30m

No snakes were harmed in the making of this review.  I feel like I need to have that since this film felt the need to open with that notice as well as telling us that all the snakes were rubber or CGI.  I honestly didn't need that notice because they all looked fake a shit.  Definitely a higher quality rubber snake than you can get around Halloween but damn your shit is fake.  The snake woman however, rad as hell!

We have three main characters with Hisss:  The Nagin (a female snake goddess), a police officer, and a rich white American that has stage three brain cancer.  The American hears a story that if you take the Nagin's lover then you could hold it hostage for something, in this case some form of philosopher's stone.  The Police officer just wants to find out who or what is causing a rash of strange killings with puncture wounds and poison.  The Nagin wants her lover back and also stands up for women by killing rapists and men who beat their wives.  She is the heroine this world needs.

Rubber snakes and CGI aside, this film looked great. I felt like I was getting a real view of rural India as opposed to just the opulent upper-class areas we get in a lot of Bollywood films.  The story was a little iffy at times but I never got bored with it.  Once the Nagin became this sort of avenging/defending snake woman I was 100% behind her.  I did get a bit worried that the ending was going to pull some sort of magical fix but it was the most realistic ending I could ask for with a film involving a snake-woman-goddess.

I give Hisss 3 cobras in a top hat out of 5: