Savages (2012)

Entrepreneurs Ben, a peaceful and charitable marijuana producer, and friend Chon, a former Navy SEAL, run a lucrative, homegrown industry - raising some of the best weed ever developed. They also share a one-of-a-kind love with Ophelia.

Life is idyllic in their Southern California town until the Mexican Baja Cartel decides to move in and demands that the trio partners with them. When the merciless head of the cartel, Elena, and her enforcer, Lado, underestimate the unbreakable bond of the three friends, Ben and Chon, with the reluctant assistance of a dirty DEA agent, wage a seemingly unwinnable war against the cartel. And so begins a series of increasingly vicious ploys and maneuvers in a high stakes, savage battle of wills.

(Synopsis from Universal)

Directed by Oliver Stone. Written by Oliver Stone, Don Winslow and Shane Salerno. Starring Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Travolta, Benicio del Toro and Salma Hayek.

More of a thriller than horror, Savages is a very interesting story. An unconventional relationship mixed with a fair amount of gore, action packed scenes and great dialogue created a unique viewing experience.

All three leads are in a polyamorous relationship which helped grab my attention from the start and kept me engaged in the story to see if this scenario would play a factor throughout the film.

The all-star cast made this one a real treat to watch although it was nothing close to what I was expecting to see after viewing the trailer prior to it's original release. My mindset was that it resembled something along the lines of the "Army of Two" video game series, thanks to how the theatrical trailer was played out and it's use of heavy weaponry and face masks which reminded me of said video game.

Thoroughly a great watch! The story was so different that it made it much more interesting and enjoyable in comparison a lot of other movies from the action / thriller genre which leads me to giving Savages an 8 out of 10.

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Book Review: Slasher: A Joshua Matthews Thriller (2014)

A serial killer in Los Angeles. A string of ever more famous victims. A sergeant out of his depth.

After a body is found on his duty, Sergeant Joshua Matthews is handed his first true homicide, one he has no choice but to accept. With no motive, no clues and zero real suspects, the police are getting nowhere, until another body turns up. It’s not in his jurisdiction but there are striking similarities between the two crimes. On his captain’s orders, Joshua finds himself temporarily transferred to LAPD Homicide. It seems he might be dealing with a serial killer, one targeting slasher movie actresses from the infamous horror studio, Hitlist Pictures.

As the evidence starts pointing towards someone connected to the studio, Joshua and his new partner Detective Crawford face a race against time to solve the mystery before Hitlist premieres its brand new and highly anticipated horror thriller, Slasher. The film's lead and Hollywood's newest rising star, Kiralee Martinson, surrounded by police, is adapting quickly to the instant fame and pressure of becoming a film star, but nothing can prepare her for a violent finale to the killers' plans as she finds herself directly in the cross hairs in this tense and brutal thriller.

(Synopsis provided by the books Author, WD Jackson.)

I started out very excited to read Slasher. Not only did it have my obvious favorite genre wrapped up into it, it also involved a murder mystery all mixed into one which really got my excitement levels up.

Although after reading the first couple of chapters I was slightly turned off by it. This was due to the fact that the author was throwing a very large amounts of detail into single sentences as well as paragraphs. It was seemingly annoying but was quickly corrected as you read through.

The story had picked up from there and soon I was hooked!

Another small problem I had was with the main character. He was very annoying to me for the first little while, repeating his issues until he was able to fully the problem he had to face in his past. After this he was much more tolerable but seemed to be much more absent throughout the remainder of the story which helped me enjoy the side characters and their stories much more than that of Joshua's.

Next to the co-characters, one thing that really intrigued me was how well the dialogue between characters was written making it feel like a natural conversation that anybody would have with a friend. Nothing was far fetched or out of context.  

After everything was said and done I loved this book. I do however believe that the book could drop the  "Joshua Matthews Thriller" from it's title, seeing as most of the focus of the book seems to be on the character of Kiralee Martinson. But none the less I give Slasher an 8 out of 10.

I would like to take this time to thank the author, WD Jackson for allowing me to review his work and if you are interested in reading it, you can purchase a copy here.

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