HICK [2011]

It's unfortunate when actors give strong performances for weak films.
Eddie Redmayne & Blake Lively do just that for director Derick Martini's road movie Hick, based on Andrea Portes' novel of the same name.
Chloë Grace Moretz pulls off a pretty impressive job as a runaway teen who meets a gaggle of folks who seem fun at first but as she gets to know them better it becomes apparent they're all nothing but trouble.   It's overly gritty, terribly uneven and the whole thing feels pretty pointless.  If not for the amazing acting I would have turned it off after about 30 minutes of this trashy dribble.

2 fluffy god-damned delicious eggs out of 5

SIGNS [2002]

Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan lightens up a bit with a heavy dose of skittish paranoid humor in the alien invasion thriller Signs.

With some interesting camera work, enjoyable performances, startling moments and fantastic music, Signs is a joy to watch even if it does slap you in the ass with some groan worthy moments.   It doesn't leave enough to the imagination to make it fully effective as the perfect blend of humor and thrills that it tries to be.  

3 tinfoil hats out of 5

Mean Creek (2004)

A group of teenagers plan revenge on a school bully, but when it gets down to it, is he as bad as he seems? MC is not a happy film, but it’s a damn good film. The sense of impending disaster is almost suffocating. The low budget and lack of big names will mean it’s overlooked by most people; it’s their loss.

3½ big brothers out of 5

SCRE4M [2011]

After getting over the initial disappointment of not living up to the first Scream, like the cast & crew interviews kept on promising it would, I found the fourth installment of the popular Wes Craven slasher flick franchise to be an entertaining ride upon a second viewing.
While not meeting it's full potential, it is light years better than the third one and just trailing in behind the first two films. It never makes full use of the killer using the updated technology to his advantage, like he would have in the original films or really acknowledging the huge change in horror cinema since the last one came out over 10 years ago. There are a few moments of using blogs, webcams, phone apps and poking fun at remakes, reboots and torture porn but not as much as it could have been and that was a little disappointing. The new cast was a hoot to watch, although some were painfully underused or killed off too early. With the hugest body count so far in the series, slasher flick fans and gorehounds won't be disappointed.
It's still fun and I hope the next two patch up the mistakes this one made.

3 Robert Rodriguez "cameos" out of 5