Friday, October 25, 2013

Parasitic (or I Want My 79 Min Back)



I don't really do movie reviews here, but with Halloween around the corner I thought it might be a fun filler post that doesn't require any real work  change of pace. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been having sort of a rough time right now. As a well adjusted adult, I tend to bury my problems in a deep hole of denial and movies. Some of my very favorite are horror flicks. I adore slimy creatures, zombies, gore, violence, and the frequent ridiculous situations that arise in some of the less serious fare. Now don't get me wrong, I really get excited by a true, unique (well as unique as horror gets) movie that has a great deal of care and effort put in, but that doesn't mean I don't crave some terrible brain candy from time to time. For that reason, I will occasionally watch something with terrifically bad reviews, just to see if everyone missed the point, or at least missed the chance to laugh. "Parasitic" was one such a movie. It boasts a whopping 2.1 on IMDB, a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, and some of the worst reviews I had come across in some time. The premise however seemed terribly intriguing, or at least terrible and intriguing. As it turns out, the majority was absolutely right on with this one. This movie was such a perfect storm of bad acting, terrible writing, and the director knowing just enough to get himself in trouble. If he (Tim Martin) hadn't been trying so hard to control everything here,(written,directed, and effects by) perhaps he could have stepped back and turned a critical eye on his masterpiece. From what I can tell Tim made this as a way to showcase his fairly impressive practical effect skills. However, this could have been achieved better by almost any other means rather than to release THIS.
I really try to find the positive in stuff but there was slim pickins here. Let's break down the problems. 
Terrible sound quality, no lighting, and bad directing. Abysmal acting. Some of the worst I've ever seen. One reviewer I read said that they made him appreciate regular bad acting and I couldn't agree more. That being said, they could have had Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Helen Miran, and Don Cheadle, acting their asses off, and this script would have made them look awful. The premise was weak, even for a virus, parasite, zombie, stripper movie. SPOILER ALERT. I'm just going to spoil the whole damn flick here. You'll thank me. Bitchy goth stripper stereotype orders sushi. Sushi (which is green) is full of parasite. Bitch eats parasite. She gets sick and removes her bra (which I wouldn't think was that unreasonable if it weren't for the rampant misogyny throughout. I mean barfing in an underwire can be awful)  Things grow out of her. She turns Zombie and begins to share her affliction with her equally quality human coworkers that she has trapped in the night club with her. For stupid reasons. She has that only key. She locks in her coworkers and none of them have friggin cell phones. Also the windows are barred in case the idea to bust one out crossed your mind. Useless crap happens, people die, people turn, guy commits suicide with a bic lighter, and then these absolutely beautiful practical creatures grace the screen for maybe a combined 1min, 30 seconds. The main monster at the end is huge, scary, and beautifully crafted, but only on screen for the last ,poorly lit, 30 seconds. Watch the movie on Netfilx, but ONLY the last 30 seconds. It will (almost ) spare you the experience of the rest of the movie, but you will get to see Tim's do what he does best. And in all fairness, he does it well. Just don't quit your day job Timmy.



















In conclusion, you would feel more fulfilled staring at the wall for 79 min then watching this. And that's honestly being nice.
So has anyone else seen this, and should I do any more of these? 
What say you?
Vanessa*

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