Carver
Shawn: Never before has a movie EVER made me cover my eyes! Carver did, thanks to my fear of poo! The film was slow moving to start but was still entertaining from the get go. A nice and suspenseful build up to a satisfying gore-filled crescendo. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make a good, low-budget slasher film. Cliched story yes, but a perfect delivery. A Good for me!
Jason: A well made, no-budget slasher film with great gobs of gore and brutal violence. In fact, it's the underlying sense of nastiness that hurt the film for me. I didn't mind all over-the-top slasher goodness, but I don't need to see the killer pee on his victims or dump a full toilet on them. That said, Carver is well acted and directed and the special effects are great, especially for such a low budget. A Bad from this Basement Dweller.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Shawn: I don't know. I. Don't. Know. This is an interesting Christmas story that needed to make up its mind. Is it for kids? Adults? Some of it is pretty dark, but the film holds back. It doesn't go far enough for me. I was expecting a horror movie, but this isn't one. Not really anyway. If the makers had wanted to go for a kid's movie, I would have been fine with that. If they wanted to make a horror movie that would have been fine. But this is someplace in between, so it's a Bad.
Jason: It's nice to see filmmakers who want to go for something a little different and succeed. But the one big problem I had with Rare Exports is the tone. They go three-quarters of the way toward making a scary Christmas horror story and then hold back. I say if you've gone that far, go all the way. Instead, we've got a movie that's too tame for horror fans and too inappropriate for children. Who is the audience? Still, I liked Rare Exports enough to give it a Bad for effort.
