The Best Movies of 2014

This year was tough for me in terms of good movies, because I saw a shitload of them, and there really wasn't a clear 'winner.' I do stand by my Number 1 choice on this list, but really it didn't win by a huge margin. Almost all of these films were neck-and-neck, with the top six or seven of them being nearly equal in terms of quality. It was tough to make this list just because there were so many fucking good movies out this year, and I didn't even see everything I wanted to.

First, though, some runners up. These are the movies that I really enjoyed, though not quite enough to put them on an actual list of the best movies of the year, but enough to mention them anyway out of some kind of impulse to cram more titles into this thing. Don't judge me.

Mockingjay

I wanted to mark this down because I hate the idea of splitting a book adaptation into two parts. It's money-grubbing crap and they could have figured out a way to put the entire book into one movie if they wanted to. But you just can't argue with how good this is. Francis Lawrence wields his directorial hammer once again and crafts a masterpiece. This has gorgeous cinematography and visuals, acting so good you feel like even the fantasy-politics they're talking are real, characters you care about and a cool, smart social commentary on how media can be used as a weapon to incite fear and change social opinions. I know a lot of people like to puff themselves up and talk about how this series is just teen crap with love triangles, etc, but it's a lot more than that, and this movie proves it. I'll see the second part too.

Blue Ruin

In my worst movies list, I talked about The Equalizer and why Hollywoodized revenge films portraying revenge as cool and stylish are shit. Blue Ruin is the antithesis to those movies. This is a down-and-dirty, Dennis-Lehane-styled Southern thriller about this little dude who comes home to get revenge for his parents' murders years earlier. I like that this doesn't give you the typical rugged, super-attractive Christian Bale-esque main lead character, the kind of guy who despite being at the end of his rope and half-insane, still manages to brush his hair and put on moisturizer every day. No – the main guy here is this meek, awkward, nervous little guy who seems like he's got a real short fuse. That's realistic and the character is interesting. With a bunch of bloody violence and a fast pace, this movie gets to business quick and remains entertaining throughout. Go see it.

Starry Eyes

Weird, spastic, out-there horror. This evokes Lynch and Kubrick at times and makes for a creepy, imaginative romp. The second half sort of becomes a different movie entirely and explodes into a gala of gore and alien serial-killing and body-metamorphoses. I also enjoyed the sort of commentary on hipster-types saying they're going to do things but usually just being pretentious fops about it and spending their time drinking and doing drugs. It's also a story about acting and the way art eats you alive. Go see it now.

And now for the real heavy-hitters – the actual Top 10 of the year, according to me!

10. The Skeleton Twins

Really raw, powerful and funny dramedy about two twins who reunite in the middle of some personal crises. Powerful performances by Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are only part of the appeal, with the rest being the stunning writing – you really get into this story and it affects you. The characters are flawed and human, and it's interesting to watch. You get a very good blend of the drama and the comedy here, and so it's a very complete, professional feeling film that will satisfy every need you have in watching one. Well, maybe not the need for sci-fi action, but even so.

9. Gone Girl

David Fincher returns with an adaptation of mega-hit novel Gone Girl from rising star Gillian Flynn. This story about a marriage gone horribly wrong is delivered with a dark sort of humor just like the book had. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as lead characters Nick and Amy are masterful, and the rest of the supporting cast does awesome, too. There's a lot of commentary here on the media cycle and the way public opinion matters in high profile crime cases, as well as commentary on the way women are treated in modern American relationships – all of this is attacked with a satirical, barbed spear and a dark cynicism and humor. I would probably love this more if I hadn't read the book, as they're almost the same thing with very few differences, but even so, Gone Girl the movie is a masterful, deftly-made piece of art.

8. The Fault in Our Stars

Another great book from the last few years hit the silver screen. This romance story about two teens with cancer is just an all around great film, tugging at your heartstrings, delivering funny moments and setting up a world you can't get enough of. The performances are intense and feel like the characters are real and the story moves along so expertly that you barely notice two hours have gone by. I actually enjoyed Shailene Woodley's portrayal of main character Hazel even more than the character from the source material – this girl deserves an Oscar already. This is just an essential film that anyone can get into.

7. The Babadook

The scariest movie of the year, as well as one of the very best new horror films I've come across. This story about a mother and her child in Australia being stalked by a storybook monster has much more to it than just that, as I've talked about already. This is a story about parenting and the scariest parts of it. The mother's character arc is just chilling and the way the visual setting and tone of the film subtly changes over the course of the film is just masterful. The lighting, camera angles, directing style – all of this comes together and makes The Babadook a chilling fucking experience. The real cincher though is just the pure fear of a parent that might kill her child – that is what makes The Babadook scary as hell.

6. Interstellar

Christopher Nolan is back with his best film in years. He directed, wrote and produced this, so I guess it's more of a personal project than something like The Dark Knight Rises, and you can tell. This is a story about space exploration and a dying world, but it's also a story about the old American pioneer spirit – and what it means for the world. There's a lot of talk here about the consequences of exploration as opposed to practicality, dealing with the world as it is, and the film weighs both sides pretty equally.

Matthew McConaghuey is the lead and he does a good job, and his daughter played by Jessica Chastain is outstanding. Like the best Nolan films, this combines conceptual sci-fi ideas with a sort of raw, intense, focused emotion – here being the father-daughter love and all the buried emotions beneath that. Visually this is also the most interesting film of the year, with some really amazing looking outer-space landscapes that will just floor you. I mean they're seriously just awesome. The visuals combined with good characters and a thought-provoking story about where mankind is going makes Interstellar one of the year's finest.

5. Men, Women and Children

I feel like a lot of Jason Reitman films don't really appeal to the sort of college-aged crowd that really obsesses over and talks about movies all the time. They're very much about characters who you don't like all THAT much and who represent the sort of mainstream, regular Americans that said college-aged crowd doesn't gel with. This is a movie about very regular, average people who you wouldn't care about in an individual film, dealing with the repercussions of the Internet in middle-class America. It's an anthology-type of story and when combined together, they form a very powerful statement. This is a movie unlike most others out right now, because it's about something very current and important to almost everyone who would come across it. No, it doesn't tackle people with the most serious or grave of problems, but it does talk about very real things.

The fact that it's about the Internet and shows people of all ages using it is fascinating because the Internet is still evolving as we speak – every day we write history and forage into new territory with it, and rather than wait 30 years and then make a historical fiction film about the early 2010s, Reitman chose to do it now. That's important. This is maybe not for everyone in terms of sheer enjoyment, but in terms of scope and dynamic and social relevance, this is one of the most important films of the year, as it talks about the Right-Now, in very candid, blunt language – showing us a mirror of ourselves and what our Internet culture does to us. It's also Reitman's most mature work to date.

4. Boyhood

This is a much-talked-about film and for good reason. Filmed over the course of 12 years with the same cast, the film was then compiled into a coming of age epic about, well – boyhood. It's a stripped down, unpretentious film and works well to show a very down-to-Earth story. There's really nothing Hollywood about it – no adornments, no dramatic flourishes, very little “witty” dialogue...it's very much like what you'd see in real life. Some people go to movies to get away from real life, but this movie pretty much just shows life how it is, complete with great acting and a lot of memorable scenes. It's a long movie that doesn't bore you – instead there are just that many more great moments to choose from.

There's a beauty to the simplicity of this and a real appeal to how genuine and detailed this all is – I guess that's a product of 12 years of filmmaking. Even if this weren't a top-10 movie for the year though, it would deserve accolades for the sheer effort and scope of it. 12 years of filmmaking is a long-ass time and the effort shows here very clearly. This is a monument to the power of film, and what it can accomplish in its most creative and long-form styles. Brilliant work.

3. Obvious Child

A very low-key sort of indie comedy about a comedienne who gets an abortion after a one-night stand with a guy. I really like this just for the way it humanizes a hot-button topic like abortion. Made by less-talented folks, this would be a propaganda film that demonized antiabortion folks and had some sort of domineering religious parent and a chief “bad guy” in some sort of Christian fundamentalist character who would try and block the main character in everything she did. But as this is a movie made by adults, instead we get a subtle, very interesting comedy with great characters telling great jokes that don't at all diminish the serious undertones of a character getting an abortion. It takes a lot of talent to balance comedy and drama this well, but Obvious Child pulls it off.

It's just a delight of a film. The lead played by Jenny Slate is just awesome and Slate just does such a fucking good job at delivering her lines and making you like the character – she's funny, sympathetic, tough, vulnerable, etc. The other leads are all good too. The way the story is told just draws you in instantly and keeps you hooked, despite its rather simple plot. The decision she makes to get the abortion doesn't feel too easy or too hard and the film doesn't moralize on you or try to take a stand – it just humanizes a really complex issue. In these incredibly polarized times politically, I think that's really, really important. That's why this one gets the #3 spot.

2. Nightcrawler

One of the most intelligent, ruthless and creative films of the year. Jake Gyllenhaal gives probably the performance of his career so far as a guy with extremely wide eyes who wants to get into crime journalism's seedy underbelly – i.e. basically going around in the middle of the night filming bloody crash sites and shit. This is an incredibly nuanced and complex film. Through its darkly comedic lenses it satirizes the 24/7 media cycle and the desensitization of modern society to violence. It also has this quite underplayed riffing on the start-up business culture our generation has cultivated. There's one scene where Gyllenhaal and his sidekick are running away from a murder scene and Gyllenhaal is lecturing the other dude the whole time about how he needs to prioritize his work, etc – it's so fucked up, but it's brilliant, and that sums up most of the movie. This is satire with a black wit and genius intelligence, and I love the hell out of it.

1. Birdman

This is simply the most artful, passionate, weird and wonderful movie of the year. Michael Keaton delivers the greatest acting of 2014 – he's just amazing in this, stealing every scene he's in. The directing is madcap-insane, with these huge stretches with no cuts or breaks, often delving into close-ups of the main characters and showing all their flaws and fears and insecurities. That's what Birdman is about – acting as an art and a lifestyle, and how the public opinion and expectations eats you alive. There is just so much in here, so much complexity and meaning, that I could never do it justice in this little blurb.

There's a reason Keaton appears in a few scenes in nothing but his underwear, is all I can say – it's about revealing one's bare soul and darkest secrets and most embarrassing moments. That's what this movie is about. Anyone who dabbles in any kind of art – acting, music, writing, whatever – will find this a treasure. Birdman is movie of the year and if you haven't seen it yet, you're missing out.

Images copyright of their original owners, I own none of them.

The Worst Movies of 2014

Welcome, readers, to the annual thing I do at the beginning of the year where I talk about the best and worst films of the previous year. Like every year, let's start with the worst first and work our way back up to the top.

There weren't a lot of bad movies that I went to see last year, because I frankly didn't need to spend a shitload of money going to see Ouija, Annabelle, the TMNT reboot, whatever Transformers garbage came out last year, or any of the numerous other shitpiles that likely ended up on every other 'worst movies' list from the year. But unfortunately, some sewage did slip through the cracks. That's why we're all here today.

Disappointments of 2014

The Equalizer

I liked parts of this rather well and I hate to keep bashing on Denzel movies – he seems like a pretty cool guy and obviously a lot of people dig him. But this just isn't all that great. After a fairly good opening where he gets involved with this Russian mafia prostitution plot, the film just gets bigger and bigger as he keeps killing more people with zero consequence. I'm just tired of Hollywood movies portraying revenge as this cool, glamorous thing you can do wearing shades at night and then not suffer any consequences, physical or mental, from it afterward. Why don't we see any of the repercussions to him killing all these scores of people? If your only answer is 'turn off your brain, it's a dumb action movie,' then I don't think you understood what I was saying here. Revenge isn't cool and it isn't glamorous. It's a choice you make at the end of your rope – let's see more human, in-depth stories about it, and less dumbass Hollywood action flicks.

Worst Movies of 2014

5. Jersey Boys

Clint Eastwood needs to retire. There's no shame in that, as the guy has been doing movies longer than most of our parents have been alive. He needs to just hang it up now while he's still got the memories of good films in our fairly recent past – because this shit is seriously just awful. It's a biopic about a bunch of 50s doo-wop singers in their prime, and for those nostalgic for that sort of music, it'll probably work fine.

For the rest of us, not so much – this is a very safe, boring, bland experience, with no weight to anything that happens and no drama. That sounds like an exaggeration, but it really isn't. This is an extremely candified, watered down movie that comes off something like Martin Scorsese on happy pills. It's going for that kind of Scorsese-esque scope and dramatic presence, but with none of the emotional impact. This was such a numbing, blasé experience that you will need to go home and watch car crash videos on Youtube to actually return feeling to your senses afterward.

But eh, the acting was pretty good, so I won't put it too low (or too high?) on this 'worst movies' list.

4. The Taking of Deborah Logan

I covered this one last week, so no need to go on forever about it, but come the fuck on. Totally half-assed material that actually doesn't even feel finished as a movie. Plots that go nowhere, barely explained story tropes even through the morass of painful exposition, dumb ideas, dumb characters – just a fucking dumb movie.

3. Dracula Untold

A very droll fantasy tale with none of the glamor or prestige needed to make it feel as big as it wants to be. This whole tale of Dracula's origins doesn't even feel like it cares much about its own story, as it's a very short, rushed mess of a movie that doesn't inspire much grandeur or horror. The writing treads shallow waters, and this is just another dumb fantasy movie with all the colors washed out to blue and grey, all the characters speaking in forced-dramatic British accents to make up for there being no real drama, and lots and lots of cinematic music to make you think you're watching something cool. Wake me up at the end credits.

We don't need an origin story for every single iconic character we've come to love or fear over the years. Contrary to what Hollywood studios seem to think, movie viewers do still have imaginations. We don't need every little thing told or explained to us through the lens of millions of dollars spent making an unnecessary movie.

2. Dumb and Dumber To

I never thought the original was great, but at least it was something. This is a mind-numbing two-hour insanity fest that just made me feel old and tired. Parts of this are just agonizingly bad, while other parts will make you hate cinema as a whole. It's hard to really go into detail about what was so bad about this, because the movie itself was just bad to the core. Bad writing, bad story, bad jokes – just bad, bad, bad all around, with really not even the smallest morsel of quality to glom onto by the woeful ending. You will be praying for the end credits.

And the absolute WORST film of 2014 was...probably exactly what you'd expect after reading my blog, if you have been.

1. The Purge: Anarchy

Already went on quite a rant about this too, but why not some more? It's a lazy hack script for a lazy modern horror movie and there's nothing good or redeemable about it. I thought the idea of the first movie had potential as it was just confined to one house – so I figured maybe, just maybe, setting the second one in a bigger and more open environment would make for a better film. Nope. What we got was awful one-dimensional storytelling and strawmanning for the movie's main shitty point – all people are bad, and would kill each other if they had the chance.

Not to mention some of the worst social “satire” I've ever seen. I really don't even get what they were trying to imply – so the government would legalize crime one day a year and that somehow gets rid of crime the rest of the time? Or is it just a thinly veiled “rich versus poor” thing?

Either way, it sucks. Unfortunately it's already been renewed for a third sequel in 2016, though, which I probably won't waste any more time watching.

Images copyright of their original owners, I own none of them.

The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

Well, it's the first review of a new year! Time to do another bland possession exorcism movie again!

Director: Adam Robitel

Starring: Jill Larson, Anne Ramsay

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

You know, I genuinely feel sorry for the people making these piece of shit movies in a way. Well, not too much. But I know that, deep down somewhere, there was some kind of glimmer of artistic intention in a movie like this. Some poor sap going 'hey, I have a really original and good idea for a horror movie. I'll do it found-footage style, so it feels like you're right there in the action. Nobody has done that before. Then I'll carefully craft a story about a possession, but I'll tie in a story about a disease like Alzheimer's to make it more grounded in reality! Yeah!'

How depressingly optimistic. I almost don't even want to be mean to it...oh who am I kidding, yes I do.

We start this off with some lame text on a black screen announcing that the movie we're about to see is composed of outtakes, security camera footage and all kinds of other bullshit that has the unique distinction of being everything but a fucking movie. Seriously, who gives a shit? Show us a goddamn movie.

We get a sort of half-told story, paradoxically forced and hamstrung to felt realistic through “whispered” lines “secretly” filmed. It kind of, sort of establishes that this woman needs money to help her Alzheimer's-ailing mother, Deborah Logan, so she lets some film crew make a documentary about Alzheimer's featuring her mother.

I don't know why the film crew is doing this, though; couldn't you just go to a hospital ward and film normal Alzheimer's patients instead of crazy old ladies living out in houses in the woods? Wouldn't that be more economically sound, easier to shoot and just plain better in every way? Oh, I forgot, a house in the woods isolated from society is just more convenient for stock horror storytelling tropes...my bad.

Anyway, we get some fairly middling scenes of Deb stumbling around and doing Alzheimer-y things that could have been interesting in a movie that cared about depicting the disease accurately. But then you realize you're just watching another dime-a-dozen ghost horror possession movie, and then you go 'oh, right,' and promptly smoke a bowl. My favorite scene is when they actually, no joke, throw in a little 'informative' bit about what Alzheimer's is, complete with totally random CGI graphics.

"This is the part of your brain that dies when watching The Taking of Deborah Logan."

No, your Netflix didn't just glitch up and jettison you over to a kids' science class instructional video – you just saw that.

So to demonstrate exactly their knowledge of how Alzheimer's works, the movie then shows us the true meaning of the disease – when you have it, you sometimes stand in dark rooms and stare ominously at nothing, like you're in a shitty horror movie:

I guess every character in one of these kinds of movies has Alzheimer's then!

And when that doesn't sound appealing, well, there's always the old 'tear off your own neck skin' trick. A classic Alzheimer's staple.

Man, I'm going to hell for this review.

After she gets released from the hospital, I'll be fair and admit that even the movie starts to admit that Deb's condition isn't actually Alzheimer's. Really? What tipped you off about that? Was it the scene where they find her naked in the attic intoning in French about snakes and burying people in the river and all kinds of other nonsense? I guess that one was a close call. I mean, it's easy to see how you'd fucking mistake that shit for Alzheimer's. I guess you needed to consult with all the top doctors and get second opinions.

One of those priceless family moments...

And because the writers of this thing apparently grew up in a vacuum and were never aware that this is a trope in horror movies older than time itself, we get a bunch of scenes after this where they go online and research why she was saying all that shit. Nothing that can't be solved by showing characters clicking around on a computer, right? Because they couldn't figure out a clever way to shoehorn the plot in without a big stinky info-dump...that's exactly what we get next. A big stinky info-dump, clogging up the movie and stopping everything in its tracks.

"Just photoshop whatever you need to on that computer screen, it's easier than writing compelling scenes!"

So, if you care, the story is that there's some serial killer from the past who used to take kids and drown them, or something like that. He mysteriously disappeared years ago, and now apparently is possessing Deb and making her do all this crazy stuff, as she spoke to him once before years ago at her job as a telephone operator. I don't know. It's all pretty obviously made up on the spot, as there was no clues to this storyline before these last few scenes, and we're halfway through the movie.

Really all we need now is the reveal that the demon is actually Toby, the demon from the Paranormal Activity series. Piggybacking off an established franchise would at least bring in some of that money the family needs to pay their bills and stuff. So there would be that advantage!

So with the reveal that this is definitely not Alzheimer's, you'd think the camera crew would move on. After all, their job was to make a movie about Alzheimer's, and clearly what we have here is a demonic possession. So they're done, right? Right?! No...actually they keep on filming shit anyway, just for the hell of it I guess. Or maybe their producers just thought it was a better story than 'hey, let's exploit an old lady with Alzheimer's!' That seems more likely.

"Isn't this a little too personal and sensitive to stand there filming? Doesn't it kind of make us complete assholes?"

So we get an astounding little text blurb under some scenes listing the number of days the project has been going on – first we see 41 days and then over 60 the next time. Jesus, what is their time frame on this? When do they plan on stopping? It seems like they're really just winging it and hanging out to film whatever at this point, as there's no clear narrative being formed and they're really just reacting to things now. They're at the mercy of the elements. There's no story or plan here anymore. Might as well just admit you have no clue what you're doing, guys.

There's a baffling scene where this old guy from next door comes over to their property shooting a gun like a madman. He hits the camera crew's car a few times and is then arrested. It's never exactly explained why he was shooting – maybe he has Alzheimer's too. See? I can be insensitive too.

Then the next day, one of their guys quits because of all the crazy shit going on like the old lady's bizarre possessed actions and the bullets that destroyed his windows last night. I guess we're supposed to feel really bad and scared for the others, but all I feel is relief for the guy who left. I mean, he's clearly the only one with any sense of career goals, anyway.

He's got plenty of other hack found footage horror scenarios do appear in.

I really wanted, later on in the movie, to have a sidebar chronicling his normal and healthy career path juxtaposed with the other main characters' continued descent into idiocy – just to drive the whole ridiculous thing home.

What's going on with the titular character Deborah Logan, you might ask? Ha ha, just kidding; nobody is asking that. But I'll tell you anyway. Apparently after doing silly things like throwing up worms, she was admitted to the hospital.

Not this month's approved dieting fad, but we all need to get worms out of our system at some point.

My favorite scene in this sequence is when one of the doctors offers up the brain-shattering conclusion his years of schooling have brought him to: she threw up the worms because she might have eaten worms when out digging in the garden in her dementia state. Yes. You read that right. Isn't this man the genius we've all been waiting for? I think he is.

Seriously, though, dude – answering complete indescribable insanity like throwing up worms with retarded levels of unrealistic “isn't it so simple?” acceptance probably isn't your best course of action here.

Apparently he isn't the hospital's only problem, though, as we see their security is so lax that even a skinny old woman like Deborah Logan can break out...somehow. It isn't really explained how, and somehow she also even kidnaps some little girl out of a cancer ward. I'm guessing the reason the movie doesn't show us the scenes of them escaping is because even the writers had no idea how it happened.

The story here, supposedly, is that the serial killer possessing Deborah wants to kill cancer girl. Why? Because he's crazy and a serial killer, so no other motivations are needed. He's just kooky.

I guess we then get a long, long, annoyingly, painfully long action sequence where the cops team up with the camera crew and Deborah's daughter to go find the girl. Somewhere in the blitzkrieg of nonsense before this, it was established that the sheriff and the daughter are old friends, so I guess that means it's okay to take her and a random camera crew of people you don't know on a hunt for a kidnapper. Cops of the century, ohhhhhhh yeah!

"You go ahead of me. It's just for safety."

Seriously. This is established police protocol? Just invite the cancer girl's entire 3rd Grade class along too. Why the fuck not? Invite the goddamn Nambian church choir jazz ensemble, too. Maybe throw your AA buddies in, too. Surely someone will be able to find that girl!

Turns out it's the camera crew who ends up finding the girl. Convenience to the point of contrivance? What big words!

But yeah. Just take a look at this:

You can insert your own caption this time. I'm sure you'll come up with brilliant ones.

Because you know, cancer patients make the best food for serial killers. Which is a sentence I never thought I'd say.

They shoot Deborah Logan and save the girl, and it's all a happy ending except for the fact that somehow the serial killer guy body-jumped into the little girl now.

Presumably she is incarcerated for life into a mental asylum when she starts talking about drowning people in the river.

How did he do that? I'm sure there was some unfinished line of dialogue in this half-assed mess of a movie that explained it, but fuck it if I'm going to waste my time with finding it. I'm just going to assume the moral of this movie is that Alzheimer's means demonic possession and cancer patients are good nutrients for serial killers. Happy New Years.

Images copyright of their original owners; I own none of them.

End of the Line (2007)

I'm just going to go out on a limb here: for the most part, horror movies about cults are generally not made by people who can read. This is some caveman, base-level shit. It's an easy route to throwing in a bunch of gore, sex and screaming, which are all cheap gimmick tricks movies like this use to try and hook you in to watching them. I really don't know how better to express this to you all than by talking about End of the Line, a worthless piece of trash that is, really, nothing more than that.

Director: Maurice Devereaux

Starring: Ilona Elkin, Nicholas Wright

IMDb

That's right – it's the end of the line, for my kindness toward these movies! Oh yeah, I said it. Let's get started.

We start this off with a girl named Karen, who works as a nurse and is stressed out by her job, to the point where she has to go into her office and take off her clothes – yes, that was the only point of this scene. Just to show boobs for a millisecond. I'm already astounded at the high standards here, aren't you?

Because really, that's the only purpose this movie sees for women – to get naked and show off their boobs after acting submissive and lost. It's misogynistic garbage, plain and simple, but then again, why show women as complex human beings while you can just have them take off their clothes? I think her facial expressions in this shower scene show her progression in realizing this movie won't advance her career:

Then again, the guys in this movie aren't any better really. So fuck it. No standards, zero stars – that's where we're starting off with End of the Line! The movie that thinks a guy coming through a door with a piece of hospital equipment is a good jump scare.

Just to put things into perspective. This is the kind of 'scares' we're dealing with here.

Later on, she goes down to the subway and gets hit on by some creepy guy. If you want some of the brilliant dialogue we get, well, how about this: the guy goes “You got a cigarette?” When she says no, he then says “C'mon, just one cigarette!” Yes, please, materialize cigarettes out of nowhere, you cold-hearted miser! Make them out of thin air!

Then the guy starts to get weirder and creepier, until she gets saved by this other guy in a green shirt. His character is that he's as bland and boring as a guy can be. He also starts talking to her like they're old buddies, since I guess saving a chick from a creepy guy entitles you to start talking her ear off immediately when she's just trying to go about her business. Hypocrisy? What's that?

They get on the train and the lights go out, causing some confusion. While they're trying to figure out what happened, some old lady with crazy eyes comes on the train and acts like she's confused, too. It's all a ruse, though, as she then stabs Mr. Green Shirt in the back for no apparent reason.

How does an old fat lady sneak up on you with a knife like that? C'mon, man, put in a little effort.

This is apparently her 'evil switch' flip, as she then starts babbling about the end of the world in a manner similar to how all these characters are going to act. It's revealed pretty quickly that she's a member of this religious cult called Voice of Hope or something, which apparently has a huge following. And tonight, the movie tells us, is their “day of reckoning” where they're “saving” everyone by killing the shit out of them!

I'm sorry, but for one, how did this group get enough followers to overrun a city and start murdering people? I can see a situation like the Jim Jones Kool-aid stuff where you'd attract a bunch of desperate, weak-minded souls, but that's a whole other ballpark from getting a bunch of people to straight up MASS MURDER everyone they come into contact with for no reason! But, sigh, as we see later, they really do overtake this entire big city somehow. The city was just no match for a bunch of two-bit serial killers with knives. I guess it is too much to ask for even a little bit of logic.

Yeah, the people on the subway aren't prepared to be stabbed to death, because frankly it's a stupid and implausible situation.

Two, why do these people all act like fucking cartoon characters? I didn't realize religious zealotry and horrible goofy acting were part of the same package, but yeah, all of these characters constantly scream every line of dialogue they say, have wide eyes and talk in shaky voices like they belong in mental asylums.

No, you fucking hack, having the characters say "God is love!" while killing, does NOT count as good religious commentary or even remotely decent writing. It's shit. You should feel bad.

Meanwhile, that creepy Quentin Tarantino-looking guy from the platform holds some hot Asian chick at knifepoint and then proceeds to try and rape her. And I would be more offended at this, except he doesn't rape her – he just sort of holds her back against the wall and rubs his hands on her shoulders and arms. I just find it funny how long this goes. He's just sitting there rubbing her arms for like, several scenes in a row cut in-between the other scenes.

It would make sense if this guy WASN'T part of the cult of bad guys, and was just some random dickweed that the cult killed a few scenes later, but no. This is just more of the movie's weird fixation on women - "hey, show them helpless and victimized sexually; THAT makes for good cinema!"

We also get this couple, who decide to start fucking in the train car while the power is out and they're stuck on the tracks. Extra stupidity points for when the conductor announces they'll be delayed and stuck there, and the guy goes “Oh, take your time!” because he's busy making out with the girl. What, so you got no better place to do that? You were just waiting for a fucking subway train car to stop so you could have more titillating sex? I somehow don't think that's really the best idea, unless lying on top of a dirty floor where thousands of peoples' feet have stepped turns you on! Have fun lying in vomit, dirt and all manner of other disgusting things!

I wouldn't complain about the sexism so much, but it's really just all over this movie like a roach infestation. Every other scene is some chick getting half naked on camera or getting groped or harassed, and it starts to feel gross and weird almost immediately because of the tone and context of the whole thing. I don't even really think there's much to be said about it being a message about prudishness like, say, the original Friday the 13th films. It's just weird, perverted garbage. Just go watch a porno next time.

So they get run out of the car and into some kind of break room with two employees of the subway I guess. They have a long conversation about what to do, mostly just repeating the same shit over and over again. God it's boring, too – there's just nothing interesting about this at all. Movie, just stick to showing your juvenile trash boobs and gore scenes – you can't handle anything else.

Most of the group leaves that break room upon deciding that the religious cult members will come back for them otherwise. My favorite part of this is that even though they were with two guys who know these tunnels, they don't ask them how to get out. No, they're fine with just wandering the labyrinthine tunnels all by themselves with flashlights and hammers. Have fun getting lost, you morons.

They run into a few kids from the cult and kill both of them with very little drama or hesitation. Child murder, the fun way!

Later on we cut back to the two workers though, and maybe then it's clear why these guys wouldn't have been a big help – they start arguing almost immediately about how they should stay in the break room and hide, even though they only have one sandwich apparently. Riveting! Then this bald guy reveals he's part of the cult, which prompts the other guy to kick him out of the room and lock the door.

Meanwhile, the group runs into that crazy psycho rapist guy from earlier, who has axed a couple of technician-looking guys in this control room. They tie him up, but don't kill him. I guess since he isn't a little kid, it's okay to leave him alive even though he's clearly murdered at least two people and sexually harassed several others. But he COULD be okay in the end I guess! Here's hoping! Fingers crossed!

Well, fingers crossed for this character to get genital warts, anyway.

Elsewhere, the cult members find the two workers. Apparently they didn't know Mr. Bald Guy was a member, as he has to plead with them and convince them he is – maybe try keeping track of your members better, you fucking idiots. They kill the other guy right there, even though Mr. Bald Guy could have probably helped him and said he was a member too. Then they bring in Mr. Bald Guy's pregnant wife, and she stabs him in the gut and kills him instantly.

Oh, but she says she loves him first; that makes it okay. That is one of this movie's favorite tricks – having a character tearfully kill a loved one and then muse over their dying body about how much they love them. It's a cheap-ass substitute for any real character development. We know nothing about these people, barely even their names unless you reference IMDb while you're watching, and really, it's just tough to get invested in the oh-so-sad tragic deaths of these people by this cult when they kill off characters so fast that it makes The Walking Dead look absolutely conservative in terms of that.

And alright, I might as well not mince words – they stab the pregnant lady in the belly and take out her unborn baby, laying it on top of its parents' dead bodies.

No, I'm not going to show the scene a few seconds later where they put the baby down. I have enough tact to avoid that.

I just can't even imagine the mental state you'd have to be in to write something like this. It's one thing to have a scary scene or something shocking in the way that you didn't expect it, but – this is just nasty and mean for no reason; there's really no artistic reason to do this. Yeah, you're fucking edgy, you're dark as shit...but so what? You want a medal for being fucking disgusting? Cause that's what it is; fucking disgusting.

For that matter, it's doubly awful because of the dialogue during this scene – the pregnant lady is just moaning and bitching to no end about how she's sinned and needs to be saved, etc – she's fucking nine months pregnant. You sure there was nothing she could have done BEFORE NOW? For that matter, why have sex and get pregnant at all if you're part of an Armageddon cult that explicitly hates sexuality and anything related to it AND plans to kill themselves at the doomsday? Did you just not read the fine print on that contract?

Oh, wait, why am I thinking so hard about this? The answer is simple – the movie is some of the worst crap ever thought up by humanity. It's complete horse shit shock-mongering made by people with the emotional maturity of 12-year-olds. There. Simple and concise – that sums it up quite nicely.

If you actually continued watching after that scene for some goddamn reason, we get a scene where this other girl is also revealed to be part of the cult. Worried because she had sex with that guy earlier, she goes in the bathroom and starts washing out her vagina with a bar of bathroom soap.

I'm just at a loss for words.

What she doesn't know is that the soap was unclean too, so that won't save her:

That soap has seen the hands of thousands of prostitutes and strippers taking the subway home, therefore it is unclean too and YOU MUST DIE!!!

There's a lot more whining about how the people love each other before they kill one another and blah, blah, blah – fuck off and die, movie. Doesn't this level of drama just blow you away? “Oh yeah, let's have all these characters kill their loved ones! That will show the harsh and gritty reality of their world and warped minds! It's so deep and edgy! Then throw in some lines about how much they love each other even though they're killing each other! That's a real moral gray area, right?”

No...no it isn't.

Oh, a scene where the one guy has to play dead while the cultists are stabbing a bunch of bodies, and he gets called away before he gets to the main character? What abominably clichéd writing! That's...exactly what I'm used to from you, End of the Line.

"Maybe if I keep my head down, they won't drag me in for the sequel!"

There are some more lame scenes, like where the one guy who's sort of been leading the group makes his way to the lobby of the subway station and sees that the city is burning down and everything is up in smoke.

Really, movie? These two-bit hack religious fanatic murderers managed to take down AN ENTIRE CITY?!?! THAT IS JUST...acceptable to me at this point.

Yes, really. I'm completely fine with it.

Then he gets killed off unceremoniously by the old lady, because old ladies in this universe are invincible of course. Then she cradles his head in her lap and sings to him, because I guess the movie is trying to pass that off as scary or creepy now. Fuck if I know why; it's as effective as a light tap on the shoulder, in the grand scheme of scares.

Meanwhile, Karen confronts weirdo rapist-psycho dude in this other part of the tunnels, where he says he isn't going to kill her if she has sex with him. Really now. THAT'S the final conflict here? We're still on the “have sex with me” tangent from this loser?

That's seriously like some shit I would have made up as a joke to put in a picture-caption in one of these reviews, but this movie did it for real. She kills him, I guess, and then sits down and has visions of these demon things surrounding her.

"Wipe that blood off your chin, don't you know that's rude?!"

I don't know, the movie's over; that's all I care about.

It may come as a surprise to you after all of this, but no, this movie isn't good. It's one of the most wretched and unpleasant things I've sat through this side of The Purge: Anarchy and Curse of the Zodiac – and if you follow my blog, those two reference points should tell you something about this manure pile of a movie.

There's really just nothing to hook you in. What are we supposed to like here? The way the women are all written as cardboard cut outs with great tits and no real character? The awful writing, riddled with cliché and boring, half-assed dialogue? The boring plot and even more boring kill scenes, which lacked any kind of creativity or scares to them? The one-dimensional characterization of the religious cult characters, who have no real motives or anything to get us into their heads and, you know, actually scare us?

Contrary to whatever bullshit you might believe about religion, people (and people in cults, specifically) are generally more complicated than simply 'THE WORLD IS ENDING, LET'S KILL PEOPLE FOR NO REASON AND LAUGH ABOUT IT!' And, amazingly, exploring peoples' beliefs and convictions, even the darkest sides of them, makes for better horror movies. But that takes actual work, so of course we didn't get that with this movie.

I mean, there were possibilities! Maybe we could have had a movie about one person who joined that apocalyptic cult and then started to have doubts after seeing what they intended to do. Maybe we could have a real study of the human psyche and its frailty. But nahhh. Serial killers on the subway are the real way to go!

But really even if the rest of the movie had redeeming factors, it would still be the lowest form of shit, simply for the scene where they kill the pregnant lady and take out the fetus. I've looked at some pretty damn sick, gruesome stuff on here, some of it being outwardly unpleasant and grotesque to extremes that ruined the movies. And none of them – count it; exactly zero of them – ever went this far, to the level of killing an unborn fetus on screen, particularly in the manner and style this movie chose. It's just a tasteless crap, is what it is. No mincing words, no grey area, no double standard – it's just awful.

I can think of so many better alternatives, too. If you want a movie about a cult, go watch The Sacrament. If you want a movie about people wandering around underground, The Descent is a good pick. There's just so little reason to watch this shit. So don't. Forget about it like the wretchedness that it is. Apparently it won at least two awards, a fact which I was shocked to learn. Were standards really that low in 2007?

Oh well. This is the end of the line for End of the Line, and the end of the line for 2014. Happy New Year!

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