Eberts Thumb

The Big Brother we'd really like to see

House of 9 is just like Big Brother in that there are 9 people trapped in a house with cameras everywhere, but instead of getting viewers to vote people out, the contestants (chosen at random) have to kill each other to win. The winner gets 5 million dollars, with no prize for the runner-up. Everything starts out OK with everyone not trying to kill each other, but after an hour of slow-mo drinking, someone gets killed, and that lets the murder genie out of the murder lamp. People start freaking out and it becomes everyone for themselves.

House of 9 had some good characters and the scenario was interesting. Probably the biggest problem was that Dennis Hopper tried using an Irish accent most of the time. Irish accents are hard to pull off, especially when surrounded by actual Irish people. His stuck out like a sore thumb. Some scenes were longer than they should have been, and music right after the slow-mo drinking drowned out what the actors were saying. Otherwise it was an interesting movie, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Eberts Thumb's Ratings
Entertainment: 78%	B-Movieness: 50%
Quality: 80%	Regret: 12%

El Chupacabra

If the movie Saw threw up on the movie Cube...

Nine strangers wake up sealed inside a large, marble-floored mansion. My first reaction? Sweet! But then a mysterious voice over a hidden PA system calmly informs the house's unwilling inhabitants that the last person left alive will walk out with $5 million for their troubles ...So like Survivor except there's literally a single survivor. And so for the next 40 minutes, nothing much really happens, as can be expected. People don't just attack each other like rabid hyenas just because someone tells them to. No, instead these humans surreptitiously make plans for the demise of those they see as threatening and then wait to see if the mysterious voice was talking shit or not before they enact their plans.

And so the group, composed of hit-and-miss performances (Hopper as an Irish pacifist priest pleading for faith and calm is a miss), manages to sustain a level of civility, but ends up coming off like an episode of the British show Celebrity Big Brother. Despite the cussing and complaining and a scene where everyone freaks out trying to find a way to escape, it's a bit doldrumic. Saw started much the same way, but the lone room with it's two inhabitants seemed to create a greater sense of tension and claustrophobia.

It was unclear how time passed in the marble house, but my theory is that the house was travelling at the speed of light relative to movie viewer.  I swear they had only been in that house for a few hours and yet the characters were starting to bug out like they had been couped up for weeks. And then the mysterious voice hit them where it hurts, their stomachs. All they were given to sustain themselves were raw potatoes, cold chicken breasts, booze, and trendy IKEA pillows. Being locked up with a bunch of crazed, filthy-mouthed British people might be entertaining. Throw in Dennis Hopper's terrible Irish Accent, who at times sounded like the the guy from the Lakota commericals, and I'd be starting to make a shiv. Give me low-blood sugar and I'd get a bit cranky. Throw in a French guy that likes to wear lipstick a draw circles around his nipples with it and I'd use the shiv. Which is what the French guy actually does. Don't trust the French!

Half-way through, everyone notices the $50,000 home thatre set-up and extensive alternative/rap collection. Either that, or someone smuggled in an iPod. The viewer is treated to a 7 minute (!) musical interlude during which the game's participants get drunk, smoke pot they must have had on their persons, and generally get messed up. This is also the turning point in the film because finally SOMEONE DIES! The lone black man, who is an up-and-coming rapper (very creative!), pushes the French guy's wife and she hits her head on a railing killing her instantly. Didn't seem so bad a fall, but maybe her head's growth plates never fused? This sets off 40 minutes of indiscriminant killing to balance out the previous stretch of character development and make us entirely forget the musical intermission. Did I mention Dennis Hopper plays and Irish priest? Holy shit, how did I forget that? Oh, maybe because he barely does anything other than getting one guy bludgeoned to death and shooting someone else in the head.

I don't want to say anymore because the ending was a somewhat requisite, but subtle twist that seemed to gel a small amount of appreciation for this flick. It was in the same vein of the Cube and Saw franchises "you win, but still lose" themes.

El Chupacabra's Ratings
Entertainment: 68%	B-Movieness: 23%
Quality: 63%	Regret: 21%

Crap Bag

Dennis Hopper should not try to do an irish acent

Nine people.  Complete strangers from different walks of life trapped together in a house which appears to be buried in cement.  Add to all that you have an irish priest played by Dennis Hopper whose acent keeps fading in and out depending on what lines he has to say.  Seamingly the only way to leave is to be the last person alive, but you get a crap load of cash.  Between the drunken stoner dance party, the cold chicken potato meal and trying to sleep in the ikea designed beds people start to die.  With every death comes more food for the remaining people.  This people seem to tumble into the downwward spiral of maddness quite easily after the first few deaths, becoming more isolated as the minutes go on.  The only saving grace is that the french guy final dies after being shot in the stomach, stabbed in the leg, falling off the balcony and being impaled.  The lucky winner gets the money and eight more people to kill and eight more bags of money.

Crap Bag's Ratings
Entertainment: 50%	B-Movieness: 35%
Quality: 70%	Regret: 50%