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Movie clip: Stranded (2013)




Four isolated astronauts on board a bio-dome space craft, experience a ghostly intercession after a meteor storm, leading to paranoia, fear and death. From: IMDb.com

Stranded (2013) Directed by Roger Christian



Oh my, Roger Christian has seen "Prometheus" as well. There is no stopping him now!

It's very easy to hate on this movie and make fun of it. After all, it's directed by the director who did "Battlefield Earth", which is generally considered to be one of the worst movie of all time (which it of course isn't) and it stars one of the uncrowned kings of straight to DVD movies, Christian Slater. But in all fairness, is this movie truly that bad? I don't think so! It's actually pretty good far what it is.

Of course this movie isn't anything too brilliant or original but common, did you really expect it to be? Positive thing I can say about it is that it actually has plenty of variety to it! Quite an accomplishment for a movie that's almost entirely set aboard a small confined space station. Its variety ensures that the movie never becomes a slow or boring one, so yes, I actually think that this movie does a pretty good job at brining entertainment.

It's basically a mishmash of different movies, all rolled up into one. It 'borrows' heavily from lots of other, better known, genre movies both story-wise and tonally. The movie especially reminded me of "Prometheus" and I just couldn't help thinking that Roger Christian had seen the movie as well and decided he wanted to do a movie just like it. But even so, as far as these type of, cheap, ripoff movies often go, this hardly is the worst one you could ever watch!

The movie is never a truly tense or engaging movie to watch but it's all still good enough to keep your interest. It also isn't as predictable as you would suspect. It still comes up with plenty of original things of its own and has a few surprises for you. It isn't always handling all of its horror elements too well but this never turns this into a horrible movie to watch as well.

Worst thing I can say about it is that it's miniature effects are pretty bad and cheap looking. Oh well, at least bad practical effects are still far better and less distracting to watch than poor CG effects.

Simply a good and entertaining enough little movie, for what it is.

6/10

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Trailer: Stranded (2013)

Four isolated astronauts on board a bio-dome space craft, experience a ghostly intercession after a meteor storm, leading to paranoia, fear and death. From: IMDb.com





Directed by: Roger Christian
Starring: Christian Slater, Brendan Fehr, Amy Matysio and others
Current release date: 2013

Silent Night (2012) Directed by Steven C. Miller



It sounds so perfectly fun and awesome; a slasher with a Santa Claus killer. But the movie in fact is a far from fun or awesome one unfortunately. I haven't seen the 1984 original "Silent Night, Deadly Night", so I can't say how it compares but I can only hope and assume it's a better movie than this one was!

It's doing plenty of things wrong, which will especially displease the horror lovers. Sure, it has some gory killings in it but other than that there are very few other effective horror elements in it.

The movie for instance absolutely never works on creating a good, moody and tense atmosphere, with some interesting mystery thrown in. In the end you could say the movie is still a whodunit but the movie itself is absolutely never handled and buildup as such. As a matter of fact, it constantly shows you far too much of its killer, which ultimately makes him a far from scary or mystic figure. And when the 'twist' finally comes and you learn who's behind the Santa mask, it makes no impact at all, since it's so incredibly random and has almost absolutely nothing to do with anything the movie did before. The more you even start to think about it, the less sense it makes!

Because the movie is showing you so much from the killer's perspective, this also goes at the expense of the movie its main character. Due to this, it really feels that the movie is missing a good and likable enough main 'hero' in it. I don't feel I ever really got to know the Jaime King character and why exactly was she picked as the main character in the first place?

And really, you might at least expect to get some fun out of this movie. After all, it's one that has a Santa Claus as a killer! But the movie as it is takes itself too seriously and never gets clever or creative with anything neither. Entertainment-wise, this movie has even less to offer than its horror.

No good build up, no good atmosphere, no good acting, no good scares. No, this is just not a very good horror flick at all!

4/10

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Trailer: Silent Night (2012)

The police force of a remote Midwestern town search for a killer Santa Claus who is picking off citizens on Christmas Eve. From: IMDb.com

Directed by: Steven C. Miller
Starring: Jaime King, Malcolm McDowell, Brendan Fehr and others
Current release date: November 30, 2012

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