The Cabin in the Woods - The Best Horror Movie Of 2012

Type: Mystery, Psychological Horror

Review:

I'm gonna spare you the trouble of reading this article to the end.
This thriller is simply AWESOME you should get up right now, run to the nearest movie store, get it, run home as fast as possible, push the play button and start watching.
"SERIOUSLY!!! What are you still doing here?"

So what's so awesome about The Cabin in The Woods?

I'm not sure where should I start from, well this is so far the best horror movie of 2012 and it's not just my personal opinion, because if you check its rating on Rotten Tomatoes you'll see that critics gave it an incredible 92% and I believe it really deserves it.

The movie tells the story of five teenagers who went for a break at a remote cabin in the woods. And during a Truth or Dare game the cellar door flings itself open, it seemed strange at first but then they thought it was just the wind (This is a typical scene in so many horror movies, something weird happens and they all blame it on the poor wind). They dared Dana (Kristen Connolly) to go down and see what's there. She found a pile of weird items, relics and curios. Curious, her four friends joined her to investigate this collection ignoring that they were observed all that time. And... that's all I'm going to say about the plot for one sole reason: The less you know about it the better and the more you'll enjoy it.

The Cabin in the Woods comes from the minds of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard, and if these names don't ring any bells let me refresh your mind, they are the same guys that wrote the sagas: Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel and with this masterful horror movie they're challenging you with a very clear message: "You Think You Know The Story", but the truth is: it is nothing like what you'd expect.

Joss and Drew were able to merge the Scary Movie comedy style with some typical horror elements to create a film that is twisted, weird, hilarious at times and breathtaking at others.

The film features some really great acting from Kristen Connolly and Chris Hemsworth and a shocking appearance from one of the best actresses of all the time (Spoler!!!), but for the most part the credits go to Fran Kranz, Richard Jenkins & Bradley Whitford who were really hilarious.

Towards the end of The Cabin in the Woods, the tension reaches a very high level that I started torturing myself with the question: "WTF is going on?" -for several minutes- because thing get really f*$%ed up!
I'm not sure if there will be a sequel for this one but given the nature of its ending I think the story still has potential and there's a lot of questions to answer and a lot yet to explore. So it would be great if they can make another movie but my only worry is if it's gonna be as awesome as this one.

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by: Drew Goddard
Produced by: Joss Whedon
Written by: Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard
Starring: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford
Music by: David Julyan
Cinematography: Peter Deming
Edited By: Lisa Lassek
Distributed by: Mutant Enemy Productions
Release date: March 9, 2012
Running time:95 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $30 million
Box office:$66,486,080

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In Time (2011) - a Potentially Awesome Concept Not Fully Explored.

Type: Sci-fi Thriller

Review

Being a die hard Thriller Movies fan, I had a hard time accepting the fact that Justin Timberlake can be part of one, yeah we've all seen the guy on the big screen before, but it was mostly in Romance or Comedy movies. To my surprise, his performance in this Sci-fi Thriller was really good. So easy on our friend here, apparently he is not what caused this film to be a bit disappointing!

So what's so Awesome about In Time?

Let's start with the good part first. It takes place in a dystopian future world where time is literally money, people were genetically altered to live normally till the age of 25, then, they stop aging, but this mutation triggers a clock that is implanted on their forearms and it starts counting down from 1 year. 

So you only have one year left to live unless you can buy your way out of it. And since Time has become the only currency worldwide, the rich can live forever and the poor have to struggle with the constantly rising prices in order to stay alive.

"You have to work, borrow, beg or steal to make it to the next day. Trust me, you don't want to see 13  Zeroes!!!"

In this cruel world our hero Will Walas (Justin Timberlake) lives with his 50 years old mother (Olivia Wilde), - "Yeah you heard me right, the hottest 50 years old mom I've ever seen, and it makes sense since people stop aging at 25"- he is falsely accused of murder and  forced to go on the run with Sylvia (Amanda Seyfried) the beautiful daughter of the wealthy Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser) after she developed a Stockhom Syndrome for him.

Living minute to minute,chased by cops called Timekeepers led by Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy) and Minute Men (gangsters) led by Fortis (Alex Pettyfer) the duo's love becomes a powerful tool in their war to give people their time back and bring down this corrupt, oppressive and unjust system.

As you can see, this thriller is based on a potentially awesome concept, an idea that could have earned it a honorable place with the most memorable Sci-fi Thrillers of the last 10 years, such as: Inception, Looper & Limitless. The film is at its best during the first half hour where it laid the ground and introduced you to its world and rules. But the main problem with In Time is that its writer-director Andrew Niccol didn't take time explore the idea to its fullest. I was expecting more information about the history of the events that led man kind to be like this, but he didn't even bother telling us anything about who put out this system or what is the organisation that pulls the strings of this new world.

On the other hand the movie has a really good visual style and that's one of the things that stand out, but isn't that just normal when you have Roger Deakins as the director of photography? The same guy who worked on: The Village, No country for Old Men and most recently: Skyfall.

The acting was overall good, it was great to see Amanda Seyfried getting out of her cute little girl cocoon that she was trapped in for so long and the same thing goes for Johnny Galecki from The Big Bang Theory, although his role was kinda short and it was weird watching him all serious. Justin Timberlake did a good job, not awesome but not bad. Cillian Murphy who I think was really great in this role, this guy is awesome and you should definitely check him out as the main character of Red Lights.

In Time features a lot of metaphors about the way we live in real life and the value of our time, it's a fun movie to watch, it could have been more awesome if Niccol explored his story in a better way instead of stuffing it with repetitive car chases and gun fights and turninig into a just fine, futuristic Bonny & Clyde.

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by: Andrew Niccol
Produced by: Andrew Niccol, Marc Abraham, Kristel Laiblin, Eric Newman
Written by: Andrew Niccol
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Justin Timberlake, Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde, Alex Pettyfer, Vincent Kartheiser, Johnny Galecki
Music by: Craig Armstrong
Cinematography: Roger Deakins
Edited By: Zach Staenberg
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release date: October 28, 2011
Running time:109 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $40 million
Box office:$173,930,596
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Contagion (2011) - The Most Realistic Viral Infection Apocalypse Movie.

Type: Psychological, Apocalyptic, Thriller

Review

In the last 10 years, we've seen a huge amount of Viral Infection Apocalypse movies, some of them were really great and creative but most of them - and no matter how huge their production was - were just repeating the same thing over and over.
Contagion is an exception, it is like no other film of its kind, it's a breathtaking, down to earth thriller.

So what's so Awesome about Contagion?

"Don't Talk to Anyone, Don't Touch Anyone!!!"

Before I started writing this review, I knew it was going to be a hard task, because it's difficult not to throw some spoilers at you due to 2 main reasons:
- The number of characters whom are equally important to the story.
- The nature of the twists in this film that makes it a non-stop thrill ride.


Anyway, I'll do my best not to tell you things that may spoil your fun ;)

Contagion follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving epidemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself. They must first identify the type of virus in question and then find a means of combating it, a process that will likely take several months.

Meanwhile, the thriller tells us the stories of: a small Chinese village near the source of the virus and its struggle to survive with the help of a World Health Organization epidemiologist (Marion Cotillard), a blogger (Jude Law) who seeks fame and wealth and ends up inciting violence, a recently single father (Matt Damon) who tries to protect his daughter, the head of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Laurence Fishburne) that has to pay the price for his government's mistakes, and the sacrifice made by Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) and Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) with a hope to save humanity.

As I said before, Contagion is a down to earth thriller and by that I mean that it is more about ideas, arguments, conflicts and most importantly words than visuals and graphics. Actually the visual style of this movie is very simple, and now that I think about it I don't believe there was any use of CGI, I guess that's exactly what director Steven Soderbergh was trying to accomplish: a very realistic portrait of what could happen to our world during a viral infection apocalypse. But that couldn't have been possible without the believable performances provided by the solid cast (Actors of that caliber I don't think you need me telling you how AWESOME they are).

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Produced by: Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher, Gregory Jacobs
Written by: Scott Z. Burns
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet
Music by: Cliff Martinez
Cinematography: Steven Soderbergh (as Peter Andrews)
Edited By: Stephen Mirrione
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date: September 9, 2011
Running time:106 minutes
Country: United States and United Arab Emirates
Language: English
Budget: $60 million
Box office:$135,458,097
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Black Death (2011) - A Gothic Thriller About One Of Humanity's Darkest Times.

Type: Horror, Fantasy, Gothic Thriller

Review:

Black Death is one of the darkest and most bleak movies I've ever seen, and in my opinion, that's the core of its beauty. It's not just some depressive Gothic Thriller that's gonna make you hate watching it, it's a thought-provoking film with a deep message, gruesome and gory at some parts, but you just can't make a movie about that era of history without the brutality of blood and steel.
So Brace yourselves, Black Death is coming!!!

So what's so Awesome about Black Death?

The year is 1348, one of humanity's darkest times. Europe has fallen under the shadow of the Black Death. As the plague decimates all in its path, fear and superstition are rife. In this apocalyptic environment, the church is losing its grip on the people. There are rumors of a village, hidden in Marshland that the plague cannot reach. There is even talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to bring the dead back to life. Ulric (Sean Bean), a fearsome knight, is charged by the church to investigate these rumors. He enlists the guidance of a novice monk, Osmund (Eddie Redmayne) to lead him and his band of mercenary soldiers to the Marshland, but Osmund has other motives for leaving his monastery. Their journey to the village and events that unfold take them into the heart of darkness and to horrors  that will put Osmund's faith in himself and his love for God to the ultimate test. [Source: Magnolia Releasing]

Black Death is a fine piece of film making and what I really loved about it is the fact that it has some well-put twists and surprises that you simply won't see coming. 

It's not a typical movie that portrays the eternal conflict between good & evil, the church & the blasphemous ... No! it's more of a philosophical journey inside the psyche of a human being, an analysis of how grief and guilt seeds can grow and influence the path of those who see them selves as righteous.

Let's not ruin your fun with philosophy... Anyway!!! The fighting scenes are beyond awesome, the script is simple for a Gothic Thriller yet very impactful and throughout the movie's running time you feel that the characters' words, intentions and thoughts are really heavy and have the most influence on the way that the story heads. 

Christopher Smith made the best use of the historical context of the story in order to make us relate to the characters by creating a sort of bond that links us to this band of mercenaries despite their cruelty and ignorance, and no matter how extremely orthodox we think their ideas are.

This thriller features some award deserving performances from all the main actors especially Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne, they plunged into their characters and delivered one of the most believable piece of acting I've ever seen! So, if you want a thought-provoking movie that you'd want to debate with your friends afterwards then Black Death is a really good choice! 

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by: Christopher Smith
Produced by: Douglas Rae, Robert Bernstein, Jens Meurer, Phil Robertson
Written by: Dario Poloni
Starring: Sean Bean,Eddie Redmayne, John Lynch, Tim McInnerny, Kimberley Nixon, Andy Nyman, Carice van Houten
Music by: Christian Henson
Cinematography: Sebastian Edschmid
Edited By: Stuart Gazzard
Distributed by: Revolver Entertainment and Wild Bunch
Release date: 11 June 2010
Running time:97 minutes
Country: United Kingdom, Germany
Language: English

Get back here after watching this Awesome Thriller and lets have a discussion about it in the comment section below! You can also recommend your favorite thrillers by clicking the "Recommend a Thriller" on the top-menu.

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The Tall Man (2012) - An Unexpectedly Awesome Thriller Movie.

Type: Horror, Psychological Thriller

Review:

Hello everyone and happy new year to you all, we hope 2013 will be a healthy, wealthy and most of all fun year for you!

The Tall Man is an  Awesome Thriller that caught me off guard. Seriously! I wasn't expecting much from it, and watching the trailer I thought it was going to be another mainstream missing children horror film so I kept it on the shelf for more than one month before I finally hit the play button to watch it. But the truth is that it is nothing like the trailer, nor as dark as it what was marketed as. This is a film with a really great plot and some clever twists which -I personally think- makes it one of the best psychological thriller movies of 2012.

So what's so awesome about The Tall Man?

Julia Denning (Jessica Biel) is a nurse who lives in Cold Rock, an isolated, slowly dying ex-mining town where children go missing without a trace on a regular basis despite the police efforts to stop what the town's people call: "The Tall Man" who became sort of a local legend surrounded by superstition.
Julia found the story hard to believe... until she faces The Tall Man in the middle of one night before he kidnaps her young David.
Frantic to rescue the boy, Julia lives every parent's darkest nightmare as she tries to track down where her child was taken while a shocking truth starts to unravel in this twisting, mind-blowing thriller from the mind of the acclaimed director Pascal Laugier.

The Tall Man starts as a Dark Horror and turns into a moralistic, twisted story that portrays how crazy our big world can be and how can people fight blindly for an idea or a belief that they see as right.
The twist can be a bit hard to understand, or as I like to say hard to swallow as there are some parts to question. Some of you just won't accept the fact that this movie is actually taking that direction, and as I said before the trailer and the marketing campaign were definitely a misleading, but it's the kind of film that needs you to put your expectations aside and give it a chance.

Pascal Laugier successfully created a weird but powerful thriller with a thought-provoking story but in my humble opinion, the credits mostly go to the solid and richly-textured performance of Jessica Biel who handled the material in the best of ways. 

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by: Pascal Laugier
Produced by: Clément Miserez, Kevin DeWalt, Jean-Charles Levy, Scott Kennedy, David Cormican
Written by: Pascal Laugier
Starring: Jessica Biel, Jodelle Ferland and Stephen McHattie
Distributed by: Image Entertainment
Release date: 31 August 2012
Running time: 100 minutes
Country: Canada and France
Language: English
Budget: $30 million
Box office:$4,532,359


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Looper (2012) - A Hard-hitting, Futuristic Sci-fi Thriller

Type: Action, Psychological, Sci-fi Thriller

Review:

Looper is one of the best Sci-fi Thrillers of the last 20 years, it draws an image of a world that is very similar to ours but follows its own rules, it had that same impact that movies such as Inception, The Matrix or Source Code had on me, if you've never seen any of these movies or you don't know what I'm talking about then this explain things better:

"You know it's a fiction, which means that it's pure imagination, but it's well made to a level that it makes you think it's real".

So what's so awesome about Looper?

This thriller takes us to the future where time travel is invented and was made illegal by the government, and since forensics and surveillance technology are very developed to a level that makes it nearly impossible to kill someone (You know, like in Minority Report),  large criminal organisations started using a time travel devices to get rid of troublesome people by sending them 30 years back where Loopers are hired to finish them off and disposed of their bodies like they never existed. The worst scenario for a Looper is when a target escapes, and that's exactly what happened with our protagonist Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) when his older self (Bruce Willis) - who was back in time with very specific intentions - managed to escape before he could finish him off.

One of the most awesome things about this thriller was to see how committed Joseph Gordon-Levitt was to become a younger version of Bruce Willis, yes, the make up artists did a great job, but it's also obvious that he did his home work very well, he studied the "Die Hard" superstar: the way he walks, the way he talks, EVERYTHING! The funny thing is that I didn't know he was actually Gordon-Levitt the first time I watched the trailer, I was thinking: "Wow! where the hell did they get this guy? he really looks so much like Bruce Willis" it was until I watched the trailer for the second time that I noticed it was him. I won't bother talking about Willis since we all know how great that actor is.

Emily Blunt's american accent was perfect, and her acting was top-notch, it's different from all her previous roles as an English cutie. But the surprisingly standout performance was Pierce Gagnon's, a 7 years old actor who was really awesome at all levels, his facial expressions and the way he acted and talked were those of an old soul in a little boy's body. I haven't seen a kid delivering a performance with such professionalism since Haley Joel Osment's in The Sixth Sense.

Looper is not just what you watch on the trailer or read on reviews, I don't want to spoil all the fun for you guys so all I'm going to say is that this movie is full of surprises, there's a lot of layers that you won't be able to discover unless you watch it for yourselves. If you expect it to be a bit hard to follow, I want to reassure you that it requires nothing more than little bit of concentration (it's not Momento guys!!!), the twists flow very smoothly and the plot is well-constructed which makes it a very easy movie to watch. 

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by: Rian Johnson
Produced by: Ram Bergman & James D. Stern
Written by: Rian Johnson
Starring: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Pierce Gagnon, Paul Dano, Noah Segan, Piper Perabo, Jeff Daniels
Music by: Nathan Johnson
Cinematography: Steve Yedlin
Edited By: Bob Ducsay Distributed by: TriStar Pictures & Alliance Films
Release date: September 6, 2012
Running time: 118 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $30 million
Box office:$166,181,033
[Don't forget to tell us what you think about "Looper" or recommend your favorite thrillers by clicking the "Recommend a Thriller" button on the top-menu.]

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V/H/S - Just another disappointing found-footage Horror movie.

Type: Found-footage, Horror Movie

Review:

You know what is the real problem with the film making industry? It is the fact that once someone makes a really awesome movie with a unique and creative style, everybody tries to go down his way because it's money we're talking here.
Found-footage films were really cool at first, Thriller/Horror movies' fans would definitely remember titles such as: Cannibal Holocaust(1980), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Rec (2007) or Paranormal Activity (2007) because they were, unlike anything we've ever seen before, creepy as hell, and even though they have a lot of things in common, each one of them has a unique style of storytelling, unlike the massive amount of found-footage movies that have become so increasingly predictable and boring.

V/H/S is about a group of misfits hired by a mysterious third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire a rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they bargained and they split up to search the other parts of the house, one of them starts to view some tapes that were already near the TV set and discovers that they contain strange and shocking videos.

So what's so awesome about V/H/S?

You want my honest opinion? Nothing... Really nothing!!!

They say: "Two captains sink the ship", but what if it has like 6 of them? I bet that ship won't get anywhere!

That's exactly what happened with V/H/S, it was made by 6 directors, each one of them worked on a segment, the idea of the movie is brilliant but they wanted to make it as mainstream as possible by adding all the stuff that's been going on Hollywood for the last ten years (Vampires, Teenage Gangs, Killers that pop up out of nowhere and start killing people...). 

The mediocre execution resulted in a boring, story-less, crappy movie that lacks direction, and don't get me started on the acting or the script and how terrible they are since most of the characters - for a huge part of the film - are just walking around aimlessly, and segment after segment I waited for V/H/S to develop some sort of sense so I can understand why people were making such a fuss about it but my waiting was in vain. 

So if you had high expectations about it you'd be highly disappointed, because it's just another Found-footage Horror movie and it's not even worth watching.

Thriller Info: [Source Wikipedia]

Directed by: Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence
Produced by: Brad Miska, David Gary Binkow, Roxanne Benjamin
Written by: David Bruckner, Glenn McQuaid, Ti West, Chad Villella, Justin Martinez, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Nicholas Tecosky, Simon Barrett, Tyler Gillett
Starring: A lot of Unknown Actors
Release date: January 22, 2012
Running time: 116 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $40,000,000
Box Office $100.345

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The Prestige - A Prestigious and Magical Mystery Thriller

Type: Mystery, Psychological Thriller

Review:

I wanted to watch this movie few years ago but I don't remember how or why I missed it, it's a mesmerizing and atmospheric masterpiece. You don't expect less when you have actors such as Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and 'Sir' Michael Caine leading awesome theatrical performances. This thriller was adapted for screenplay by the visionary director,  Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan. Apparently Nolan has a sadistic passion for taking our breath away by keeping us wondering "What's gonna happen next?" until the last minute of every film he makes.

So what's so awesome about The Prestige?

The story takes place in a Victorian-era London where the ultimate act was "Magic", Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) are two obsessive, rivaling magicians and they both long to create the perfect trick. This whole film consists of 3 acts, the same 3 that every magic trick consists of:

The Pledge:

"The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't" - [Wikiquote]
This is where the characters are introduced, Angier and Borden are two friends and share the same passion: Magic.

The Turn:

"The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet." - [Wikiquote]
An act of magic that went wrong leads to bad blood between the two friends, this results in a series of twists filled with hostile plotting fueled with anger and the will to revenge. And this is the part where the movie will make you scratch your head and make your eyes go wide.

The Prestige:

"Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call: The Prestige". - [Wikiquote]
This is when Nolan asks you "Are you watching closely?" because you should be ready for the final and most amazing act of the movie, I don't want to throw spoilers at you, just keep your fingers crossed and get ready for surprises.

The Prestige is a very challenging thriller, I clicked the play button knowing that I won't get any answers before the last few minutes, it features some really complex narrative which is hard to keep up with and that's something to look for if you're familiar with Nolan's movies such as Momento, Insomnia, or Inception.

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Produced by: Aaron Ryder, Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan.
Screenplay by: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan.
Based on: The Prestige by Christopher Priest
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, David Bowie, Rebecca Hall.
Release date: October 20, 2006
Running time: 130 minutes
Country: United Kingdom, United States
Language: English
Budget: $40,000,000
Box Office $109,676,311.

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Truth or Die - SAW fans would definitely love this one!

Type: Psychological Thriller, Horror

Review:

Awesome Thrillers is 1 month old today and for this special occasion , I thought I should share with you something really heavy, hard-hitting and very well made.
Truth or Die (formerly Truth or Dare) is a hell of a thriller, I've noticed that a lot of websites are labeling it as a Horror movie and it true that it has some Horror movie elements but overall I think it fits more in the Psychological Thriller basket. Anyway it's one of the very few movies that I enjoyed watching from the opening title to the closing credits, it has all what it takes to make it one of the best thriller movies of 2012.

So what's so awesome about Truth or Die?

Let's start with the plot, Truth or Die starts with a party thrown by some college friends to celebrate the end of the term, the anthem "Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll" is maybe the best way to describe the few first scenes. Things went wrong when they started a truth or dare game as Felix (Tom Kane), a very shy and introvert guy embarrassed himself and got humiliated after revealing a truth that his friend Chris (Jack Gordon) didn't enjoy hearing, Felix ended the party with a sore nose.

This little game will have a huge impact on the events to come, as Felix's friends were invited to his birthday party few months later where another game of Truth or Dare took place only this time their life were at stake.
This movie is so much fun to watch, the acting is high quality, and  for the first half of it you'd think you're watching a typical Horror film since it's obvious that there will be blood and cat and mouse games, but it's gets more awesome as it starts playing with your mind and the twists unravel one after one.

You'd definitely see a lot of similarities between Truth or Die and SAW movies which I think is a great thing, it's not just another pale copy, it's original and well-crafted.

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

AKA: Truth or Dare.
Directed by: Robert Heath
Produced by: Rupert Jermyn & Richard Johns
Written by: Matthew McGuchan
Starring: Liam Boyle, David Oaks,Florence Hall, Jennie Jacques, Jack Gordon & Alexander Vlahos.
Release date: 6 August 2012.
Running time: 116 minutes
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Budget: $3206000 (estimated)

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Headhunters - The Scandinavians are Coming!!!

Type: Action, Crime Thriller

Review:

While the Scandinavians are determined to invade the world's theaters with their awesome pieces of film making, the money-obsessed American film companies are also determined to make profit out of it, one of them acquired the rights to remake Morten Tyldum's action, crime thriller Headhunters while it was still in production. And that leaves us with the question of "What's the point of making another pale copy when the original is awesome enough to blow our mind?", we've already seen it happen with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which I'll make a detailed review of it soon to compare the original Swedish version with the American remake.

So what's so awesome about Headhunters?

Headhunters is a twisted, action, crime thriller with a dominant dark comedy atmosphere based on Jo Nesbø's best-selling thriller novel from 2008. It stars the amazing Aksel Hennie as Roger, a charming scoundrel who has a highly paid job as Norway's most accomplished headhunter.
Roger is trying so hard to keep up with the lifestyle of luxury of his wife Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund) that he loves so much, and it appears from the first minutes of the movie that things weren't going so well, and that he'd do anything to keep the balance of his life.

His job enables him to case the careers and homes of rich, middle-class applicants who own valuable paintings with the assistance of a cheerful crook employed by a security firm.
When his beautiful gallery owner wife introduces him to Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) a former special forces operator that owns an extremely valuable painting, Roger decides to risk it all to get his hands on it, and in doing so discovers something which makes him a hunted man.

Headhunters is one of the best thriller movies of 2011, it's very very well-made, from the visual feel of it to the deep and meaningful screenplay and of course the masterful directing by Morten Tyldum. But in my humble opinion, the credits mostly go to the actors without any exception, they all delivered very believable performances and that's what I mostly like about Scandinavian movies, it's that spontaneous acting that makes you think the actor is actually like that in real life and there's no way he's just pretending. This movie would definitely join the Best Of list of Awesome Thrillers !!!

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by: Morten Tyldum
Produced by: Brad Miska, David Gary Binkow, Roxanne Benjamin
Written by: David Bruckner, Glenn McQuaid, Ti West, Chad Villella, Justin Martinez, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Nicholas Tecosky, Simon Barrett, Tyler Gillett
Starring: A lot of Unknown Actors
Release date: January 22, 2012
Running time: 116 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $40,000,000
Box Office $100.345

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Argo - A true story that was declassified from the archives of the CIA

Type: True Story, Psychological Thriller

Review:

Argo is an intense dramatic thriller based on a true story, or should I say a declassified story? yeah because it only went public on the late 90's by president Bill Clinton. It takes place during the Iranian hostage crisis in the early 80's when the American embassy in Iran was invaded by Iranian revolutionaries and several Americans were taken hostage, six of them made it to the Canadian ambassador's house where they took shelter while the CIA was trying to explore options for ex-filtrating them from Iran and get them back home. That's when Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck), a CIA specialist proposed the crazy idea to create a cover story that the escapees are Canadian filmmakers, scouting "exotic" locations in Iran for a similar sci-fi film. And that's when the real fun begins.

So what's so awesome about Argo?

For the first half of Argo, and except the dramatic scenes from the embassy, Argo was more like a comedy than anything else and I mean by comedy a funny journey of a CIA agent to create a movie.(even now after watching Argo this idea still makes me laugh).

But things get more serious as Mendez lands on Iran and the tension rises leaving no room for the comedy as the day when he and the 6 hostages fly back home draws near. My favorite part of Argo was during the last 5 minutes of its running time  in which I felt the adrenalin pumping through my veins as the tension reaches its maximum level.

Ben Affleck's performance was awesome, mostly because he was so down to earth for a role of an American hero, since we're used to actors overdoing it, either because of the enthusiasm or all the pressure that makes them over-think it, but our guy -once again - proved that he's a great actor and director by making this true story based awesome thriller that would definitely be rewarded with year-end nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and most certainly Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin who did a great job and was the delight of this movie.

Thriller Info: [Source: Wikipedia]

Directed by:  Ben Affleck
Produced by:  Ben Affleck, George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Screenplay by:  Chris Terrio
Based on:  The Master of Disguise by Antonio J. Mendez & The Great Escape by Joshuah Bearman.
Starring:  Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman
Music by:  Alexandre Desplat.
Release Date:  August 31, 2012
Running Time:  120 minutes
Language:  English & Persian
Budget:  $44,500,000
Box Office:  $132,802,313

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