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Bloodworx -
For the most part I watched this one because Tricia Helfer is in it. Also one of the girls from Hatchet is as well. I figured maybe it will be somewhat good even though the trailer wasn't that great. The annoying guy from the Friday the 13th remake is in it too. He plays the same sort of role and gets to see another blonde girl's fun area in what looks to be a mirrored shot of the one from Friday the 13th. But overall the movie feels like a movie that actors would make while they are waiting on a good role. So basically to pick up a check. Tricia Helfer does her best here though as I guess a scientist with good intentions. Even if she goes about them in the wrong way. Her character never becomes a crazy, dark, mad scientist though. Maybe you could call her a bit mad in the modern sense but not in the movie mad scientist way.
I've seen a few science movies gone bad and they always manage to get the feel right. Even video games get it right. Whether it's a dark science type, an overly sci-fi experiment type, or an underground government lab type. This movie feels like an experiment, maybe it's supposed to. But only near the end do they try to say it's a horror movie. Even complete with a government or other agency type cliffhanger which they can't possibly believe they would ever get to make a sequel.
The Forest -
I haven't seen a good Japanese horror movie in a while. And this isn't a real made in Japan horror movie but I thought it would be good. It kind of is and isn't. If you like Japan you'll love many of the shots and scenes throughout the movie. Although checking IMDB tells me that the actual forest scenes weren't shot in Japan. So that's disappointing but then so is what happens around the halfway point. The story is that a girl goes to look for twin sister in a Japan, a country foreign to her, alone. That doesn't make much sense in real life but it's a horror movie so we go with it. I posted I think here or on the Horrordvds forum that you can make a good horror movie with just a pretty girl and good location as long as it doesn't get too silly. The remake of When a Stranger Calls is proof of that. But at that halfway point, once she's in the forest, that's when we know the direction the movie is going in. And it's not a good one.
I don't want to spoil it but this movie has the sort of thing that Cabin in the Woods made fun of. You would think a movie that is released in 2016 wouldn't attempt something that another movie said was silly back in 2012. But here we are. And even more, it ends with something I thought was misplaced in The Ward. Overall, it ends up feeling like they had an idea for a horror movie and just added the usual Japanese horror tropes thinking it would be good enough. And I guess it was since the movie was profitable. But it's not anything worth revisiting once you see it.
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