Blockbusters three for £5 for a week

I saw the above offer. And I thought, well, why not? For some reason not entirely clear to me (and possibly influenced by reading Tabbyrabbit's review of Land of the Dead (actually it may have been Dawn of the Dead, I read the review but not the title), I was eager to see a film involving the living/un-dead. Noticing in the shop as I did that the new cartoon thing featuring both Ricky Gervais and Ewan McGregor (sadly not in the flesh) was out, I would also have settled for a movie involving pigeons. Err, just the one I just mentioned, then.

Unfortunately, for reasons even he cannot explain to me, zombies and the living dead in general scare the bejaysus (is that right sp?) out of other half. Extreme gore, mass murderers, horrific stories based on true crimes are all fine. It's just the implausible possibility of some dead people getting out of their final resting place and wandering around, shambolically and groaning a lot.

So we decided to try and make us all happy with the three for a week offer and watch things neither of us had seen before. So, after much deliberation, we chose Jeepers Creepers, Requiem for a Dream, and Identity.

In the order we saw them -
Identity - not bad. Nice twist, but a little high on the spooky child element (am not at all keen on freakish children, it's just wrong). Nothing too outstanding, but an original premise quite tightly worked out.

Jeepers Creepers - Oh my god. What a crock of shit. Started promisingly enough with a bickering brother and sister taking a teenage roadtrip home after university. But, seeing as she insists on taking the country route, they obviously find a terrifying monster who runs them off the road. Feeds into a lot of decent cliches such as curiosity killed the cat and in a sort of self-aware way makes reference to them. At this stage, genuinely quite spooky. Then we actually find out more what the killer is. And it's the biggest pile of pants story I've ever seen/heard. I won't give it away (not that I'm recommending anyone waste their life watching this) but come on, really? Its one saving grace is the very end where it decides to be a little bit brave and avoid the copout happy ending, but all in all, there were unnecessarily gruesome bits and the killer thing was just plain ridiculous.

Requiem for a Dream - heartrendingly upsetting. Got this out because other half had heard there was a scene involving a double-ended dildo (which there is, but trust me, even if that kind of thing turns you on, it is in no way sexy. at all) and because it has Jared Leto in it. Didn't really know much else about it. I suppose the best way to describe it is a poignant depiction of how drugs of any kind and addiction can destroy once beautiful relationships and lives. And the ending was just deeply, deeply depressing. I actually cried because while I'm aware it's all made up, there are people for whom that is their life. And the way they film it, you can kind of understand how they got there. Also the cinematography of how they show the drugs being taken and juxtaposition of different stories and different states of mine is really well done.
But it's not one to watch on your own, late at night, feeling vulnerable.

So those were my films of the week, I think Requiem for a Dream was the best one but it was very far removed from light entertainment. If I were you, I would just go and borrow a pirate copy of next season's Lost (haha I did that too, I know what's down the hatch).

Off for a weekend of drinking and dancing.

Keep safe.