Ashley Judd & John Cusack go in a Room, Only 1 Comes Out

Since I haven't done a film review before on here, I give you guys a little background on how I'm going to do this section of the blog.  As Double Feature suggests, I'm going to review 2 movies with a similar theme.  For our first theme, I thought I'd start off with something in my favorite genre: Horror/Thriller.  First, and foremost I love being scared, there's something about the adrenaline running through you.  Feeling your heart pumping.  Knowing your alive.  Unfortunately I'm really hard to scare.  You really got to do some whacked, crazy ass shit to even make me shiver.  But just picking 2 horror movies to review is not enough.  These paranoia inspired films, both take place primarily in a hotel/motel room.

Lucky for both you and I, I got to enjoy 2 films which were both extremely good in their own right.  Both with an express checkout system!  Mwahahahahaha.


Bug - (3/5 Stars)

Bug is a disturbing film which follows 2 people whom are falling further, and further down drug induced K-Hole.  The true horror in this film is that It can be true.  Bug is based off of a screenplay of an Off Broadway film and is directed by William Friedkin, director of the Exorcist.  Ashley Judd, plays a woman who lives in her motel room who one night gets introduced to an odd and eccentric drifter.  Ashley character seems like she's a little whorish and eventually hooks up with the drifter and a relationship between the two develops.  Unfortunately it seems like that takes a long time to get to that point, but everything after that is so worth the pay off. 

The drifter proclaims that a "bug" he contracted while in the military might have been purposely implanted in him. He then convinces Ashley's character that she herself might have contracted the bugs. Most of the story plays, well you never truly see the hallucinations as if you were in the room with the two characters.  Observing their behaviors, their actions, their paranoia.

The story then takes a sharp turn, and the speed of the paranoid drastically increases.  This causes the tempo of the film to turn into a race of hysteria, pain, torture, and gore.  I mean who doesn't like to see a movie with a bruised up Ashley Judd.


1408 - (4/5 Stars)

This film stars, John Cusack and Sam Jackson, in a film based upon a short story about a haunted room in a hotel.  I was psyched when I first heard about it, because I mean it's Steven King story and I'm a big fan.  I usually go out of my way to see his stuff, but I heard mixed reviews on 1408.  Because of that I didn't run out to see it at the theater.

For a haunting, I felt they did the best I've seen in recent memory.  They do an extremely good job at pulling you slowly into the room, and watching it unravel it's tales of blood and paranoia.  The room is a physic vampire.  One who's dark yellow overtone giving the room a jaundiced feel.  A room which has a sickness.

1408 uses a lot of different methods to insight paranoia on the viewer, such as: paintings that come alive, to clocks that tick down from 60 minutes, to being unable to hear you scream.  And that's just before, the good stuff begins.  The entire question of the film is, is the room real?  Is he hallucinating, dreaming, or totally popped up on drugs.  No matter what you think during the course of the movie, you would want out of that room. 

The movie wasn't perfect though, there were some kinda lame moments to the movie though, the fax of clothes?, dizzy spins, and vent monsters.  But other than that, I thought it was really good.

What lengths would you go through to get out of these rooms?

Tagged with: 1408, Ashley Judd, Bug, Exorcist, John Cusak, Stephen King