Hits & Misses: House of the Dead 2

Real Talk: Despite Uwe Boll having no involvement with this sequel, it still turns out to be shit.

Miss: *Some rando frat boys raided some rando sorority house with super soakers.* Because that what was missing from the House of the Dead games, apparently.

Miss: They dragged Sid Haig into this piece of shit.

Hit: Also, Ladies and Gentlemen Mr. Sid Haig, god rest his soul.

Miss: Was there a reason why Professor Curien had to stripe this one dead college girl naked? All he did afterwards was injecting her in the arm with a special serum. It just feels deeply unnecessary and exploitive. Now I'm all for nudity as much as the next person but there needs to a reason/point for it.

Miss: Naked Zombie College Girl pulls a Batman without being Batman.

Miss: After the start of a zombie outbreak via opening credits, movie cuts to 29 days later with main character Alex on a dinner date. Consistent tone, how do?

Miss: Also there's no way this outbreak is contain in this one college campus during and/or after those 29 days. Were the zombies too lazy to stroll into town or something?

Miss: Stereotypical French chefs are stereotypical.

Hit: Oh hey it's Nathan Stark from Eureka.

Miss: So there's been reports of outbreaks and the whole of city hasn't gone to shit how?

Miss: Alex doesn't move the waiter away from infected French chef before turning into a zombie and bites the waiter. For someone who kills zombies as job you would think she do better than warning people to get away from an infected person.

Miss: So the colonel in charge of AMS is played by the same actress (Ellie Cornell) from the first movie. Even has the same last name Casper and is an amputee. So am I suppose to believe that the Casper from the first HOTD movie went from harbor patrol to a colonel in the two years between movies? Either way movie did a piss poor job to established that.

Miss: Movie's trying too hard to be like Starship Troopers with the co-ed shower/looker room.

Hit: Alex side boob

Miss: Oh god they dragged Dan Southworth into this garbage.

Hit: Also, Ladies and Gentlemen Mr. Dan "Vergil" Southworth.

Miss: *Nakagawa (Southworth's character) does a stupid by fighting a zombie hand to hand. Only to end up bitten on the hand doing a grapple move.* Well that was a waste of Southworth's time.

Miss: *Griffin spots a "survivor" and just assumes it's not a zombie because "they don't read".* Oh yes, this one college kid calmly sitting in a dark library in the middle of an outbreak raising no suspicions at all. These special forces guys sure are the best. 

Hit: Half Naked Zombie Chick

Miss: *Bart tries to get Henson to take a picture of himself with the dead half naked zombie woman. Then contemplates on whether or not to "stick his dick in her".* The special forces requirements/processing are either lacking in professional etiquette or just run by fucked up creepos. 

Miss: *Instead of keep moving with the rest of the group, Griffin decides to split off to investigate a noise elsewhere. Only to eventually get killed by zombies.* Nice going jackass...

Miss: *Movie reveals that before Rudy and Alicia (from the first movie) returned to the mainland, Rudy injects Alicia with Castillo's serum to revived her. But eventually she turns and kills Rudy while his father Roy Curien kept her captive for his experiments.* OK one problem, Alicia was just find at the end of the first movie; despite the fact she was stabbed in the chest. Also when did Rudy got a hold of Castillo's serum? His lab got blown up after Rudy and Alicia escape. And what made Rudy think the serum would heal Alicia and not turn her into a monster in the process?

Real Talk: With Alex and Ellis obtaining a blood sample from zombie Alicia the movie will go out of its way to have dumb situations happen.

Real Talk: After all the trouble of getting the right blood sample for a cure, Ellis loses the sample after a zombie grabs his back pouch doing the escape.

Real Talk/Sarcasm: After what happened last time you'd think they get multiple blood samples just in case? But I'm sure Alex and Ellis will escape with the ONE blood sample this time. 

Miss/Sarcasm: *After Ellis hands over the blood sample to Bart, Alex shoots him behind. But Bart set off a grenade, killing himself and destroying the blood sample.* Oh no, that ONE blood sample got destroyed and the building where zombie Alicia was kept got bombed so they can't go back again. So now humanity is screwed thanks to Alex and Ellis being too stupid to obtain more than one blood sample. Good work guys... 

Hits & Misses: Annihilation

Miss: When a movie starts with the one surviving character then having to recap on what become of the other characters in flashbacks. It makes it difficult to connect with the other characters now knowing they won't make it to the end. 

Real Talk: The movie shows flashbacks of Lena before and after her husband goes into the Shimmer. They really don't amount to anything with the main plot in my opinion so I won't be mentioning them.

Miss: The previous teams sent into the Shimmer were mostly military and (besides Kane) never came back out. How's a team of five scientists gonna fair any better? It be one thing the movie establishes that there's something unique/special about this team in particular. But it doesn't seem to play out that way, especially when it's already spoiled that (except for Lena) the team doesn't make it.

Miss: Also since they have lack of hard data on what goes on in the Shimmer. They might as well be carrying a neon sign reading "OH YEAH, WE DONE SCREWED OURSELVES".

Real Talk: Lena talking to Ventress: "Why are you going into the Shimmer?" Ventress: "The mission statement is to reach the supposed source of the Shimmer, the lighthouse. Enter and acquire data and return." Given how no team has ever returned with any acquired data I considered that mission statement a bust.

Miss: No offense to Jennifer Jason Leigh's acting but she sounds really bored in this movie.

Miss: *Lena and the team enters the Shimmer with no type of hazmat protection.* What is it with certain sci-if horror films having a group of characters exploring an alien environment with next to no protective suits? It didn't worked so well with the characters of Alien Covenant. 

Hit: *Lena takes down a mutating alligator with an M-16.* The way how Natalie Portman held the gun clearly shows she's been training for this scene. Unlike some other movie where she didn't train for a certain character and the studio just gave her CGI muscles.

Hit: *Lena looks over the dead alligator.* Credit for the prosthetic work on the alligator.

Real Talk: Cass explains to Lena that they're all "damaged goods". Anya is a former addict, Josie hides her self-harm scares on her forearms and Cass lost her daughter from Leukemia. As much as this is really heartbreaking, I'm reminded that these characters won't survive to the end. And it's not like their personal demons will come into affect within the Shimmer.

Hit: *The group watches a video recording of Kane cutting open a soldier to find his insides moving like eels.* OK...that was a really gruesome effect.

Miss: *Anya denies what happened in the video and claims the soldiers went crazy and killed themselves.* I hate that one character in most movies/shows who's the skeptic of the bunch despite the weird things that've been happening so far. We the audience know what just happened and the movie doesn't attempt to makes us see/think otherwise. So it just comes off one sided therefore not fully agreeing with Anya. Oculus done something similar but did it right; the two characters arguing of remembering things wrong/differently. And the movie shows this from the two characters perspective rather then being one sided.

Hit: *Ventress and the others find the remains of the soldier now all molded/reshaped to the wall of an empty pool.* This is like a wet dream of H.P. Lovecraft and H.R. Geiger.

Miss: Now how did this big ass bear managed stealthy napped Cass just like that? 

Real Talk: There's really nothing stopping/preventing the group from leaving from the Shimmer. (Except for Ventress who has cancer so she really doesn't care by this point. And Lena lied to Anya and Josie into continuing deeper in the Shimmer.) It's not like they're being threaten or blackmailed or some eldritch entity is keeping them from leaving. I mean yeah Lena wants to know what happened to Kane but is it worth having your DNA in constant mutation by the Shimmer? I'm just failing to see any motivations to keep moving forward with zero chance of survival. So many teams went into the Shimmer and never seen again, by that point it's a lost cause. Utterly no further reason to investigate the Shimmer.

Hit: *As Lena, Ventress and Josie are tied up by Anya. The mutated bear that killed Cass enters the house and roars with Cass's voice repeating "help me".* If that's not the perfect nightmare fuel I don't know what is.

Miss: *This one bear maws Anya to death within seconds but merely baby taps Lena until Josie kills it.* Well that's definitely plot armor....

Miss: Lena talking to Ventress: "What are you doing?" Ventress: "I'm leaving..." Lena: "Now? It's not even light yet." Ventress: "I don't have time to wait. We are disintegrating. Our bodies as fast as our minds. Can't you feel it? It's like an onset of dementia. If I don't reach the lighthouse soon... The person that started this journey won't be the person that ends it. I won't be the one that ends it." Again nothing's stopping you from leaving the Shimmer knowing damn well what's happening to your body. An alien phenomenon that continuously mutates all DNA should be enough acquired data to go by. But OK just keep going because reasons. I'm sure the novel has some explanations that are missing from this movie.

Hit: Josie having roots growing from her self-harm scars is quite unsettling.

Miss: When Lena finally arrives at the lighthouse, one question crossed my mind. If getting to the lighthouse was the objective than why not just airdrop close to it? Kinda a waste of time taking the long way getting to the source of the phenomenon.

Hit: Oscar Isaac's performance when Lena finds a video of Kane talking to his doppelganger before killing himself.

Hit: *When Lena finds Ventress at the source, her face is of dark greyish and eyeless. But goes back to normal when Lena calls her name.*

Miss: *Earlier Kane's doppelganger was slowly dying but when the Shimmer got destroyed he's fully stablized.* Well that's convenient.