End Call Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A group of friends call a mysterious phone number said to grant your wishes in exchange for a portion of your life.

Review: Oh no, it's never a good sign when there's not even a wikipedia page for a movie! I've said it a hundred times at this point, but here's 101: this film wasted its potential. The plot isn't anything revolutionary, but there were some good ideas with a terrible execution; actually, at this point, anything having to do with cell phones is almost standard fare in Japan, but they tried to work with it. Where things went wrong was by never exploring the mythos behind the plot and instead focusing on the drama regarding the friends and their little love interests. In fact, so little of the premise is explained, you tend to forget you're supposed to be watching a horror movie.

The story is that there is some urban legend about calling a phone number and making a deal with the devil to have your wish come true. In exchange for your wish being granted, you lose life equal to the amount of time you remain on the line. Okay, right from the offset this is stupid because the phone calls are like a minute or two at most. Oh shit, I lost 2 minutes of my life! Fuck, I lost 90 minutes watching this movie! I suppose they claim your cell phone becomes permanently connected to the hotline or something as your life ticks away, but, still, wouldn't you have to be on the phone for years? None of this matters because there's a secondary condition anyway; apparently the devil can send out phone bills, and if you can't pay the bill you die. So with your life hanging in the balance, surely these girls are making life altering wishes that would benefit humanity, right? Of course not! They just want boyfriends! It gets dumber though--two of them want the same loser dude; seriously, you're fucking killing me here...the lovelorn Japan phenomenon strikes again. The format of the film's presentation is sort of all over the place as we jump in time often but to sum things up: the girls start off happy with their wishes until their lives fall apart from the phone bills. When the first girl dies it kind of sets off a chain reaction that leads to the demise of all the other girls. Along the way, we only have a few, faint hints at the supernatural aspect of the phone number such as a shadowy figure that appears on the screen, people forced against their will to do things, and some books move on their own; unfortunately, that's about it. There's random background chatter about the same thing happening at another school that some how connects to one of the girls' stepsister, but it's brushed over seriously without proper development; they act like this is some big twist, but if it is never explained, what is the audience supposed to be shocked by? Basically the film ends with all the girls dead, the love interests are dead, and it feels like everything was pointless. This could have easily been salvaged by changing the wishes to be less stupid, take away all the drama with the girls that eats up most of the scenes, have more to do with the creepy number, add some kind of antagonist even if it's just the shadowy figure (maybe lurking in the background), and, finally, do something--anything--to spice up the horror elements even if we have a damn, long-haired ghost woman.

The movie sounds much worse than it is, but I can't deny that I was disappointed when there was a lot to work with. It would have been cool if you had multiple wishes but the cost kept going up the bigger the wishes became, and the girls became corrupted by getting everything they wanted. Like have one wish for the idiotic boyfriend but then ask for their molesting teacher to die and so on and so forth until they end up unable to pay for their crimes, so to speak, and turning on each other. There definitely should have been a scene of this so-called devil coming to collect when one of the girls couldn't pay the bill. Oh well. I liked some of the ideas and the girls are dorky-cute, but little is explained, the direction of the story is misplaced, and the overall quality of production feels low. I'd say pass, but I would give a sequel a try if they decide to explore the tale of this stepsister or at least deal more with the phone number in general.

Notable Moment: When Mako commits suicide but inadvertently kills Mai by landing on her when Mako jumps from atop a hospital roof.

Final Rating: 5/10

Segunda Mano (aka Second Hand) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A woman with a troubled past believes she is being haunted by the ghost of her boyfriend's ex-wife.

Review: So this is yet another Kris Aquino horror movie which means you can expect a shit load of cheesiness. Coming right off the undeserved success of "Dalaw," this film became even more successful while managing to be even more stupid. This shouldn't have even been advertised as a horror film, because it lacks almost any horror elements. I mean, this film was produced by the same company and it's almost the same exact plotline of "Dalaw" except with more emphasis on soap opera elements accompanied by one contrivance after another. I can overlook the soap opera moments for a second if this were at least a unique story, or, even if it's a ripoff, don't make it a ripoff of the movie you just made the year before! Plus, a haunted handbag? Are you fucking kidding me?! This is why I always bring up "Sukob" because that's like the best Filipino horror movie with real scares, actual horror elements, and a ton of creativity and imagination. Why can't more films strive for that type of formula even if bordering on cliched?

The plotline of "Dalaw" was something to the nature of Ms. Aquino thinks she's being haunted by her dead husband but is actually being haunted by her current boyfriend's ex-girlfriend. The plotline of "Segunda Mano" is Ms. Aquino believes she's being haunted by her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, which she is, but the ghost is actually her sister. It's not exact, but it's too close and they play out similarly enough to be frustrating. Honestly, I wouldn't have minded this too much if it weren't for how much time is spent going over the relationship drama of Ms. Aquino, named Mabel, and her boyfriend, Ivan. What's worse is that we also deal with the relationship of Mabel and Ivan's (somewhat understandably) bratty daughter, Ivan and his troubled childhood, Mabel and her goofball friends, and, of course, Mabel and her momma drama over the alleged death of the sister, Marie. There was too much going on that it became a distraction and the horror elements faded into the background needlessly. It really felt like a lame TV show; I could even see it now: "Will Ivan and Mabel get together?! Find out on the next exciting episode of "Segunda fucking Mano!" Even if I could overlook all of this clutter and appreciate this as a drama with light horror elements, it's hard to ignore that the drama is so weak, unoriginal, and beyond contrived. The main twist, that the ghost, Mariella, is, in fact, the thought to be dead sister, Marie, is hilariously predictable. Hmm, could Mariella be Marie? That's a tough one, I mean their names are exactly alike, they look the same, and the film claims a ghost can only interact with someone if they touch something or someone close to them. Hmm, could it be the idiotic handbag or perhaps Mabel? Surely, it's the fucking handbag, right? What, it's Mabel? Oh noooos! Grrr, and how the hell did Marie survive anyway? She was swept out to sea and looked to have been drowned already the last time Mabel saw her. So, let me get this straight--Marie, as a little girl mind you, miraculously survives being drowned after being pulled into the ocean current, is found some time later (by mermaids perhaps), has amnesia or is a retard because she doesn't simply go back home, is adopted by some family without ever realizing her own family thinks she's dead, changes her name a little bit (you know, just for shits and giggles), lives her life until she runs into Ivan, cheats on him, and gets killed because Ivan really hates cheaters. Then by the most ridiculous of contrivances, her sister dates the same man? Sounds perfectly plausible to me. There's suspension of disbelief and then there's begging me to punch you in the face. If this isn't already pushing it, you discover Ivan was the one killing everyone in the movie. Ugh..."Segunda fucking Mano..."

I don't get it--a pretty cool Filipino movie like "The Road" gets universally panned and a piece of shit like this is one of the highest grossing movies of all time in the Philippines?! Well, at least this film had that shitty film quality I love so much that makes every film look ten to twenty years older than it really is...so there's that. Man, at least "The Road" looked good and made the landscape look beautiful. What can I say? The story was stupid, contrived, and tried to tackle too much while forgetting what genre it was occupying. The acting is okay, the effects were tolerable, and some decent looking girls in the background. Other than this, all you need to know is that this is more of a supernatural drama with little originality while spending too much time dealing with characters that do not contribute to the overall story. I'd say this is an easy pass unless you're a fan of the actors involved and even then they have done better work than this.

Notable Moment: When Ivan throws Mabel and Adela down the stairs at the same time. Oh god, so unintentionally hilarious!

Final Rating: 4.5/10

Blood: The Last Vampire Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A half human/half vampire, named Saya, must do battle against legions of demons infesting 1970s Japan.

Review: Oh, what a mess. This is actually a remake of an anime that, while short, is superior in almost every regard; the original was also titled "Blood: The Last Vampire." I can understand why they would deviate from the original material in order to flesh out a full length feature, but the padding was too apparent and unnecessary when you factor in that the original film inspired an awesome TV show, "Blood+," in comparison. Between the original, the TV show, and even the manga source, how could you not incorporate any of those ideas and, in turn, produce a film this stupid? There were even discrepancies in the acting because you have some decent actors like our lead, Saya, played well by Ji-hyun Jun (cute enough, but she looks so much better on the poster), and her so-called handlers, Michael and Luke. But then you have totally abysmal acting from the likes of the co-lead, Alice, her father, and the first two demons. Oddly enough, you have actors that could have been pretty good if they had more than two scenes to work with like the main villainess, Onigen, played by Koyuki Kato of "The Last Samurai" fame.

I don't know who to blame here, because the editing is a major factor in why this movie sucks; every scene feels random, out of place, and nonsensical. At the same time, this film was either brutalized during the editing process or there was never a flowing continuity to begin with. Was there even a storyboarding phase in production? Despite all of this, there was still some potential, but, unfortunately, the more interesting ideas were wasted because they are never explained or end up simply mashed together incoherently. Saya's thunder is weakened with this friend plotline with Alice; honestly, Alice probably has more lines and more scenes than Saya and she's a made up character! Michael and Luke were kind of cool but should be replaced with the David character who is in both the original film and TV show. There is never clarification of what the hell Saya is fighting because they keep calling them demons yet they were supposed to be more primitive vampires called "chiropteran." This is further perplexing as Saya's creation conflicts with the notion that she and all the others are descended from this Onigen villain; what I mean to say is that if Saya was born from this Onigen, why is she so different from the so-called demons? Onigen herself is not explained except that she is an extremely loose interpretation of the Diva character from the TV show. The whole point of the story is that Saya wants to kill Onigen because she killed Saya's father and she works with her handlers, dubbed "The Council," in an effort to rid the world of these demons and track down Onigen; unbeknownst to Saya, although plainly obvious to the audience, Onigen is Saya's mother. A lot of this would be well and good if it weren't for one stupid subplot after another to spoil the story as a whole. You have shit with Luke mindlessly betraying Michael for no discernible reason, drama with Alice and her dad, Alice's dad trying to find out who Michael and Luke are, the demons running around Japan, Onigen's main crony having a backstory with Saya, Saya's upbringing with some old man, Saya's dad being some demon slayer, and this is pretty much how the whole movie rolls! There was no focus or sense of direction and the result is that the audience no longer gives a shit about what's going on. If this weren't bad enough, the special effects and CGI are atrocious to the point of embarrassment! No wonder this movie was delayed for at least a year!

Even if you ignore the TV show, how hard is it to recreate the basic principles of the original movie in live-action form? You can pretty much sum the original up as follows: vampire-esque, Japanese schoolgirl kills other vampires at US military base while under direction of a mysterious organization. The plot is so simple it almost writes itself yet retains enough room for growth or to turn into one hell of an action/horror helmed gloriously by some hot chick in the classic schoolgirl outfit! How could you go wrong with that formula?! Hell, Saya has absolutely no mystique this time around as all we do is hear about her past. In the original, the audience is suddenly caught up in a battle we can assume had been waging for centuries given by the ending when you see a photo of Saya from the 1800s. Here, Saya is borderline emo because she wants Onigen dead and has no reason to live beyond that until she pointlessly befriends Alice even though the two have no chemistry or connection; oh wait, was the lone scene of Alice defending Saya from an insult about her being Japanese (even though she's not) supposed to be character development?! There was actually way more chemistry between Michael questioning Saya's motives, the hint of his care for her, and even the look of hesitation and reflection by Saya as a reaction. Ugh. Obviously I don't recommend this movie unless you are a diehard fan of the original or TV show. Overall, this film is mediocre through and through with every good element counterbalanced by a terrible film aspect. I wanted and expected more, but, alas, there is no depth to be found.

Notable Moment: Probably when Saya has to mop up an entire bar worth of demons. It was a decent fight sequence, but it was still hindered by too many crappy effects shots.

Final Rating: 5/10