Movie Review: Geo Disaster – 2017 – directed by Thunder Levin

Wow! There is bad and there is laughably bad. Geo-disaster falls headfirst into the latter with such velocity you can’t help but continue to watch to see how much more inept it could possibly become.

It shares the writer of sharknado series, so right out of the gate we would never expect a masrepiece of cinema but whereas Sharknado embraced its stupid idea, this tries to be entirely serious in a mission to show us a disaster that could threaten the entire world. The cover of the dvd features more action and intensity then the entire runtime of the movie. Its not that there’s nothing good about the film its just that none of the good/amusing is intentional.

The movie follows the Mason family as they aim to rebond with one another as theyve become more distant. Matthew and Rick have the whole distant father and son thing going on and decide thry should go camping. Johanna along with her daughters kaley and Cassie decide to leave them to it. During their time away a collision with dark matter causes a hole straight through the centre of the planet. (Yeah…throigh the whole planet) . This splits the family in half, thus setting up the smallest scale earth threatening disaster known to man.

The first Matthew and Rick know of the disaster is when they wake to find their tents casually sliding down an almost endless volcano hill-like thing which would, i imagine, lead them to their death. They dont both wake up straight away and they have a fair amount of time to climb out of the tetrible cgi tent. Once out they face a climb back up the slope, during which Matthew tells his son he would never let anything harm him, right before a large rock smashes Rick in the face. Its all as dramatic as that rock.

At the top they meet a band of military people (i’d call tgem survivors but there is little going on for them to survive). They have a littl arguement but them all become friends. It almost feels they are all going on a frand picnic.

While father and son are having such a tremendous time, mother and aighters face an equal threat, they are not very good at hiding. (Hiding from an earthquake-like event doesnt seem a great idea to be fair.)

During all of the chaos, a roof collapses on Johanna and her daughters. A large rock crashes onto her leg, pinning her to the ground. Underneath we expect the crushed remnants of what used to be her leg. Instead, when finally freed we have a tiny scratch and very little pain. Its great that Johanna can walk fine as she does a lot of jogging from one situation to another.

This jogging leads her and her daughters to a old man who seems adment on dropping a brick on a motorcyclists head, a tense moment where the hide in plain sight on a rooftop, a moment of peril as they hide from the disaster on another rooftop. I mean its hard not to be truly engrossed in all this peril.

Its all over as quickly and as shoddily as it all began. The disaster just fizzles out and everyone goes on with their lives lile little happened, except now dad and son love each other again!

Movie Review: Hostel part II – 2007 – directed by Eli Roth

Many would put the first Hostel right at the beginning of the ‘toture porn’ genre (even though there were many foreign films before featuring similar themes). This is probably because it was one of the first big mainstream US films to openely advertise itself as such. It was a pretty good little horror film and made enough money to get a sequel green lit.

Hostel 2 (directed by the same director as the first, Eli Roth) doesnt aim to do much differently from the first on the outset as we yet again have a group of backpackers (this time all females) who get caught in the sights of the ‘hunting club’. But upon watching the film its clear Eli Roth has a much clearer sense of world building and characterisation. It would have been so easy for him to have done a quick easy rehash of the first but i’m happy to say this feels fresh and tense.

The three female leads have an interesting dynamic between them that feels realistic thanks to a well written script that clearly has had a lot of thought put into it. It wont win any screenwriting awards but it is nice to see some well written characters in a genre that seems to thrive on the opposite. As there backpacking holiday quickly unravels each handle things very differently, which creates some very tense and quite thought provoking consequences.

This time round we also get an almost equal time following the people who are planning on commiting sadistic acts on these girls which also highlights how the club wirks and is organised. This for me is one of the highlights as its well thought out and gives everything another dimension.

While the film does feature strong violence and gore, it doesnt focus on it as much as one might expect. It also never feels out of place as it all benefits and guides the story along its path.

The final act features some truly great twists and turns all of which work well and help elevate this film from the usual genre tropes.

I never expected to like this film as much as i did. Its easily the best in the series and is well worth your time if you like tense horror thrillers.