Parasite Eve (1997)

Even the Japanese have issues adapting some popular novels into film, even if the adaption into a video was a smashing success. The movie version of "Parasite Eve" was a complete let down and not nearly what I was expecting. The pacing is terribly slow and fails in it's attempt to make the scenes seem more meaningful and heart felt. The action sequences, when there is any action, are not impressive and full of cheap special effects, especially the poorly done "people on fire" effect. The background music is too grandiose for such mild action and the script stumbles around before deciding to ever move forward and the final 15 minutes of the film are the hardest to get through.


Hiroshi Mikami ("Premonition") stars as Dr. Toshiaki Nagashima,  a microbiologist expert on Mitochondria, a type of symbiotic parasite of human DNA cells. Toshiaki's wife, Kiyomi, carries an intelligent Mitichondria known as Eve, and Eve is ready to take her evolution to the next level. She causes Kiyomi to crash her car in near fatal accident. Eve then influences the people around her to ensure that Kiyomi's kidneys are transplanted to a suitable host for Eve's child that she procreates with an unsuspecting Toshiaki. This of course happens after Toshiaki takes Kiyomi's liver and makes cultures form it, in which Eve is allowed to grow and evolve at an astounding rate. When Toskiaki realizes what Eve is and what she plans to do, only he can save the human race by trying to reach the real Kiyomi that is still deep inside Eve.

Cure (1997)

"Cure" is an earlier collobration between director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and actor Koji Yakusho. Much like "Retribution", "Cure" is a crime story that focuses on a detective trying to find the connecting theme between murders and their victims. While there isn't a ghost or some other supernatural entity, the movie does deal with mysticism in the form of hypnosis. What makes this film worthy of the horror genre is the fact that the "innocent" murders are unaware and unable to resist the urge to kill. The scene where a hypnotizes murderer is peeling off the scalped face of her victim is pretty horror-genre worthy too!

Detective Takabe, who is trying to solve a string of murders by people who would never want to kill anyone, let alone their victims. Detective Takabe discovers that each of the murders has spent time with a young man with extreme amnesia named Mamiya. Everyone who meets Mamiya ends up killing someone close to them; a wife or a coworker for example. It turns out that his amnesia is just a ploy and a part of how he hypnotizes his victims. When Takabe finally meets Mamiya, Mamiya becomes fascinated that he can not hypnotize the detective. To what ends will Mamiya go to force his will over Detective Takabe?

Mimic (1997)

"Mimic" was Guillermo del Toro's first American film and only his second full-length production. His work as a director in the horror genre takes a few steps forward from his outstanding debut "Cronos". The film feels like a summer blockbuster, that it was made for the masses, which is made appearant by the casting choices and hefty budget for the time. While most people rate the movie highly, it failed to cover it's costs while in the box office. Luckily this fact did not harm del Toro's future as a director as he followed this film with "The Devil's Backbone" in 2001 and "Blade 2" in 2002.


The cockroaches of New York City are carrying and spreading a diesease that target and kills young children. The CDC is unable to find a cure or develop a vaccine to neturalize the diesease. They decide to approach the matter from a different angle, and with the help of Entomologist Susan Tyler, they introduce a bio-engineered breed of insect named the Judas Breed to kill off the cockroaches. The experiment is a success and the cockroach population drops to a new low. The Judas Breed were designed to die off within six months and were unable to reproduce. But.....
Fast forward three years and Susan is once again called into duty after two kids sell her a "weird bug" they found in the subway tunnels. To Susan's surprise, it's a large baby Judas. Before she is able to fully disect the spescisem, her office is broken into and steals the dead insect. Susan and her husband Peter go to the subway and break in to the area where the boys had found the bug, only to be turned away by a subway police officer named Leonard. A young austistic child named Chuy and his father Manny become involved after Chuy sees "the man with the funny shoes" enter an old church where a murder supposedly took place. All the main characters end up in the subway tunnels for their own reasons and end up attracting the attention of the Judas Breed, now called Mimic for their abiltiy to look like humans with long coats. These human sized, praying mantis-termite hybrids are quickly reproducing and present a real threat to the world at large. It's up to Susan and the others to find the nest and end the Judas program once and for all.

a Mimic

Susan and her husband Peter

A solider class Mimic

Norman Reedus is thrilled to be in his first movie

Scream 2 (1997)

"Scream 2" is a delightful follow up to the hit that resurrected Wes Craven's career just at the right time. He's back with writing partner for the sequel, one that proves to be just as effective as the first. It has more scares and more victims but it also has too many faces with too little screen time to ever clearly suspect who the killer or killers are this time around. The opening scene is fantastic and sets up the mood perfectly for the rest of the film.


The film takes place two years after the Woodsboro Murders from the first film. After a gruesome double killing at a preview showing of the movie "Stab", which was based on the Woodsboro Murders, news reporters flock to Sidney Prescott once again to see what she thinks about the situation. She wants nothing to do with the media circus, preferring to focus on her college studies and her boyfriend Derek and her friends Randy (from the the first movie) and her best friend Hallie. It's not long before Dewey arrives on the scene as well as Gale Weathers, who attempts a one on one confrontation between Sidney and Cotton Weary, the man Sidney accused of being her mother's killer. After all of the stress and awkwardness of the day, Hallie convinces Sidney to come to a party with her. Of course the new Ghostface Killer/s shows up and kills one student before attacking Sidney. She escapes and the movie becomes a cat-and-mouse game as Sidney tries to figure out who the killer is while trying to stay alive.

An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)

“An American Werewolf in Paris” is perhaps the largest guilty pleasure that I will ever admit to in this blog. Yes, I liked this film despite all of its major obvious flaws. The CGI is over used and horrible, replacing and outright forgetting the best damn make-up special effects moments ever seen in a horror film, the transformation scene in the original “An American Werewolf in London”. And this film tries to blend comedy and this also falls flat and feels forced.  And of course there is the “cure” that is discovered by accident at the end of them movie, which simply mocks the curse of being a werewolf. So why do I love it? Probably because it stars my all-time celebrity crush, Julie Delpy. And the story isn’t bad; it’s just the best for a horror movie. Another redeeming quality is the fact that they include the various ghostly victims that are killed throughout the film, going so far as to try to cause an accident or two so their killer will get himself killed.

Three American friends are traveling around Europe, trying to outscore each other by performing crazy stunts; they’re also keeping score on how many women they meet and have sexy times with. Andy hasn’t done much on the trip and that’s because he’s waiting for Paris where he has an extreme stunt planned; to bungee jump off of the Eifel Tower. Once there after the Tower closes, Andy is preparing to jump when he sees Serafine, a Parisian woman who is about to jump off of the tower and commit suicide. Andy Jumps after her and catches her but ends up injuring himself as the rope retracts. He wakes up and decides that he has to find her. Andy eventually finds her and soon learns that she tried to kill herself because she’s a werewolf; unfortunately he learns this after he himself is bitten by a werewolf at a nightclub. Now Andy has to come to terms with his situation while dealing with a pack of werewolf bullies who throw parties that turn into bloodbaths. 

The Devil's Advocate (1997)

Al Pacino as the Devil? Yes Please! In a role that allows him to be deadly serious and yet cheesy as Hell (pardon the pun) at parts, “The Devil’s Advocate” is the perfect film for him and the amazing cast that includes Charlize Theron, Craig T. Nelson, Jeffrey Jones, Delroy Lindo, and Keanu Reeves. I consider this film a guilty pleasure because it does have an uneven Keanu Reeves performance as the main character but I’m able to overlook this because Pacino and Theron are so freaking amazing. I really enjoy the story, the special effects, and the quick flow of the final act. And for once the results of the final confrontation with the Devil are not an all or nothing/the end of the world as we know it type of situation.

Kevin Lomax is a defense attorney in Gainesville, Florida who has never lost a case. At times his clients include people who have done some very bad, very despicable acts that he knows that they are guilty of, but his job is to prove that they are innocent and he refuses to lose. His stunning record attracts the attention of a New York City law firm who ultimately hires and relocates him and his wife Mary Ann. Kevin’s abilities are tested with various tasks including picking a jury and defending a voodoo priest before he is given a high profile case defending a billionaire who is accused of murdering his wife, one of his children, and a maid. As Kevin spends more time with the firm’s lead partner, John Milton, and working on the murder case, Mary Ann begins a horrifying descent into madness, seeing visions of demons and a baby holding her bloody uterus. Kevin only begins to realize that something strange is going on when the office manager, Eddie Barzoon, is murdered by two homeless men/demons while running through Central Park and the sudden death of a U.S Attorney asking about John Milton. When Kevin finds Mary Ann covered in deep cuts and naked in a church and then learns that Milton is responsible, Kevin confronts his boss and learns exactly what he has gotten himself and his loved ones involved with.

Favorite moment – “favorite” is not the correct word to use here, but the most intense scene in the movie is when Mary Ann kills herself in the mental ward, unable to deal or live with what has happened to her. 

Event Horizon (1997)

“Event Horizon” is one of the ultimate outer space themed horror movies because it utilizes several elements that could only be found in that kind of environment. At its core it’s a simply search and rescue storyline, much like the movie “Ghost Ship”; little ship finds big ship which happens to be the find of a lifetime, little ship is destroyed and crew is forced to try to survive on big ship…and usually fail. And the Event Horizon is a REALLY BIG SHIP. But instead of the Bermuda Triangle or what not, the ship the Event Horizon is lost while trying to perform a death defying feat of physics and ends up going to Hell. With this story happening in space, the idea that the crew is literally weeks away from help really sinks in and if they fail, they die. And to prove this point, a few crew members nearly die in space related accidents. Critics and fans have both described “Event Horizon” as being very similar to “Hell Raiser”; if this is true or not can be debated. But as Sam Neil’s character eerily claims, “Where we’re going…we won’t need eyes to see!”

The Event Horizon was lost in one of the worst space tragedies in history; on its maiden voyage, the ship suddenly disappeared without a trace when it neared the planet Neptune. Seven years later it mysteriously appears and the search and rescue team of the Lewis and Clark is sent out to check for survivors and to find out what happened. Joining Capt. Miller and his crew is Dr. Weir, the designer of the Event Horizon as well as person who developed the experimental gravity drive engine. This massive device was meant to fold space and make travel from one point in space to another practically instantaneous. Once the crew of the Lewis and Clark arrive, they find evidence that a gruesome massacre had taken place on board the Event Horizon and that there isn’t a single survivor. Soon several of the crew members begin to have hallucinations based on their personal fears. Weird accidents occur, Dr. Weir becomes obsessed with his ship and ultimately possessed by the evil that emits from the gravity drive and the ship itself. The crew discovers only too late that the Event Horizon has been to Hell and back and is determined to go back with them as her crew.

Favorite moment – I really like when Capt. Miller is telling his story about his greatest fear and regret in leaving a crew member behind during a past rescue attempt. The crew member was burned to death in a room with zero gravity, and the way that Miller described the fire was poetic. Seeing the visual later in the movie does not do his story justice but it was a decent attempt.