10 – Perfect Stranger,
• Back in the days when Halle Berry was a viable A List star she was cast in a lot of thrillers and stuff like Gothika and it never made much sense. About as much sense as this movie’s ending.
• Perfect Stranger is a forgotten movie where Berry is trying to expose Bruce Willis as a murderer and does so by the end of the second act. But wait do I see a twist coming? Yep! Berry was the killer all along too!
• These ending clichés of taking your main character and making them the killer can work well if done right but here it’s a mess with Berry turning into a killer without any subtle hint or plausibility. At the end of the film she a perfect stranger to the one she plays at the start….oh wait.
9 – Signs,
• Yes we had to get to Shyamalan at some point and yes it’s the one pretty much everyone knows outside of the ending for The Village.
• Signs is a decent flick spoiled but its “it was all planned by God” ending and even stupider twist that creatures that have mastered interstellar travel would chose to invade a planet that is the equivalent of two thirds acid.
• Hell that’s the plot of a 80s kids film where they figure out they can kill the invaders using Super Soakers. By damn I would watch that film. But in Shyamalan’s movie it’s just stupid.
8 – High Tension,
• Sigh another “the main character is the killer” films. How fucking many are there of these? Did people really think they are being original when they write them?
• This French slasher flick is bloody and tense up until we find out final reveal that Marie was the killer THE WHOLE TIME! Which feels really cheap because we had been shown a different person as the killer. You sneaking lying film you.
• Just because your film has subtitles it doesn’t mean everything you do is smart France! But this is a decent slasher that is worth watching for the gore.
7 – Life of David Gale,
• Disagree with the death penalty? How can you protest it? Get yourself framed for murder and get onto death row! Wait what?
• That’s the twist in this murder mystery film that thinks it’s being much cleverer than it actually is. The end trade off makes capital punishment protestors look like lunatics rather than giving any sort of real insight into the debate. Giving this motivation to Spacey’s character is totally unbelievable and ruins the whole film.
• The idea that anyone would sacrifice themselves to prove that innocent prisoners are executed is a self-defeating action, literally
6 – Color of Night,
• Bruce Willis and twist endings somehow have gotten linked much like Harrison Ford and improvised scenes. With very mixed results. Sixth Sense. Fine. Unbreakable. Fine. Color of Night. Fuck No.
• This erotic thriller see Big Willy as psych treating a number of patients and one of them is a killer. Not a bad start. Then the film is boring…boring then twist ending! One of his male patients is the woman he has been sleeping with and she’s the killer!
• Too bad we can see that a mile off and we have to endure several terrible sex scenes to put the “Erotic” into erotic thriller. Bruce please stick to shooting things or at least not banging things.