Cold In July

Directed by: Jim Mickle

Written by: Nick Damici

Year Released: 2014

Sub Genre: Thriller / Murder

Cast: Michael C. Hall, Sam Sheppard, Don Johnson

During a home robbery,  a father and husband shoots and kills an intruder, who, unbeknownst to him was unarmed.

Shortly thereafter, the father of the intruder comes to town to seek revenge. He stalks the family in order to terrorize them but is quickly apprehended by police.

But after a few days of being able to rest, the father finds out the man he killed is someone completely different than who the police have identified him as leading him to unravel a highly corrupt sheriff's office.

I was feeling in the mood for some Micheal C. Hall and thankfully Netflix delivered with this nice little IFC flick.

Hall delivers a very realistic performance of a man faced with a terrifying situation and hits the roll right on the nose as he always does without error. If you don't believe me, watch a few episodes of six feet under followed by a few episodes of Dexter and try to tell me otherwise.

Most of the remaining cast were very strong in their performances which made this viewing that much more pleasurable.

With that being said, the story line took an exciting turn but unfortunately turned predictable and rushed  by the end of the film.

It's feels like a mix of Walking Tall meets Walker, Texas Ranger with a dash of Dexter to garner people's attention. There is some comedy and the acting is far superior to a lot of what IFC may offer but it sadly falls flat by the end.

The biggest problem I had was that this small town family man who happened to have killed one person by accident instantly turns into some kind of bad ass for about two minutes and then reverts back to a useless tit. It's honestly upsetting and, once again, really aid's in the demise of greatness it had initially started with.

Conclusion:

I would suggest this only for the first 3/4 of the movie as the remainder is predictable and better left to the imagination. And only because of that first 3/4 of the film.

5 out of 10.

Twitter: @horrorshoot
Instagram: @horrorshoot
Facebook: horrorshootmoviereviews
E-mail: horrorshootreviews@gmail.com

Exorcismus (2010)

Exorcismus follows two stories. One of which is about a teenage girl named Emma who starts going through a series of odd events, most of which she can not remember having happened to her.

She believes it has something to do with her recent use of illicit drugs, but soon finds out she is dealing with a much stronger force.

The second story is about Emma's uncle, a priest who has been excommunicated from the church following an unfortunate event in which a young girl had died while an exorcism was being perfomed on her.

Directed by Manuel Carballo, written by David Munos and starring Tommy Bastow, Stephen Billington, Doug Bradley and Sophie Vavasseur.

The begining of this movie really sucked me in and got me wanting more right from the get go. A lot of the scenes that they show you from the start are bits and pieces of how the story has unfolded, so as the film progresses you start putting different scenes together to come up with new conclusions as to what started Emma's whole situation.

The procedure for the exorcism was done in a neat manner where they did different sessions and when Emma was back to "normal" after completion her sessions, she would be at the dinner table eating. This helped them avoid going the "feeding tube" route.

This I really liked because it also allowed Emma to leave her home and progress the story line in other aspects.

Most of the story was fun to follow and watch till you arrive to the end of the film. The last 15 minutes in particular you notice the quality of the story drop dramatically as well as the quality of the effects used. The idea behind the ending was good, it just did not play out as well as they thought it would.

For the most part the film was good with the exception of the aformentioned ending, I will admit however that it was not a finish that I was at all expecting to see, nor did I think I would ever see in a film of this nature.

I believe this film is deserving of a 5 out of 10 due to how it played out but again, and I can not stress this enough, the ending should have been restructured and due to that, it's giving it an obviously lower rating.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment, e-mail (horrorshootreviews@gmail.com) or follow us on twitter @horrorshoot!

Have a great day!