Dragon Hill (2010) Reviews

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I like dragons, I like animated movies, and I like the Spanish language, so the made-in-Spain "Dragon Hill" seemed like a natural fit for me. Disappointingly, not only is the North American release by Eagle One Media a pretty substandard treatment, the movie itself leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to storytelling and animation quality.

The storytelling flaws take a while to become apparent, but eventually they're the biggest problem the film has. The overlying plot involves an evil wizard from the dark ages attempting to return to the human world from his prison in Dragon Hill a mystical land populated by intelligent dragons, where humans sometimes end up for unexplained reasons by summoning an ambitious young kitchen boy through time and space to help him secure the key to the interdimensional gateway. Somehow, the movie manages to pad itself to the point that the actual meat of the conflict doesn't occur until the last twenty minutes of the movie. A lesser plot involves an adolescent dragon called Elfy testing out a flying machine built by an inventor from the 21st century; Elfy's more or less a supporting character, but he's shoved to the forefront of the movie (and the DVD cover) even though he doesn't gain genuine storyline importance until the final act of the picture. The movie feels extremely rushed towards the end, and I can't help but think that it's supposed to act as an immediate companion to its sequel, The Magic Cube.

The animation is a mixed bag. Director Angel Izquierdo had a storied career of many international cartoons behind him when he made this movie, and his experience and talent shows in the animation of the dragons: they're not at Don Bluth-level, but at least that of a higher-quality Land Before Time sequel. The human characters look a bit blander and wonkier, but the real disappointment here is the amount of computer animation that was shoved in alongside the 2D stuff. Although the sequel would make an even bigger mess of this, the computerized backgrounds and add-ins make the movie look cheap. In all, "Dragon Hill" would be a TV-quality production if it had been made in America, but I do my best to remember that European studios usually don't have the technological strength of US counterparts.

The DVD treatment doesn't help the movie's look. A relatively low-quality transfer results in a frequently static picture; and at least on my copy, the bottom right edge of the frame was constantly stuttering. Much to my dismay, there is no Spanish language track on this DVD. The English track, while not godawful, features at least a few annoying voices and, oddly, doesn't feature the American voice actors in the credits. On the other hand, the single musical number translated surprisingly well. There are no bonus features here to speak of.

I'm not a huge fan of How to Train Your Dragon, but now that that one has been released, there's really no need to investigate "Dragon Hill" unless you're a particular fan of the art style. Younger kids, naturally, might enjoy it a bit more, but since I couldn't even enjoy any of the characters, I'd say this one's age appeal stops before ten. Watch out.

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Silent Hill: Revelation (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy Review

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When the original Silent Hill movie was released, I was more than a little bit skeptical. I mean, how could you possibly capture the relentlessy terrifying atmosphere of the games and transfer it successfully over to film? Fair enough, the film wasn't nearly as scary or as engrossing as the games were, but for a movie based on a videogame, it was surprisingly good, great even.

The success of the original silent hill movie made me hopeful that the sequel would be just as good, if not better than the first film. And while Silent Hill Revelation never quite scales the heights reached by the original film, it's an enjoyable tale with some very impressive and spooky moments sprinkled throughout.

First thing I have to commend are some of the casting choices. The gorgeous Adelaide Clemens is perfectly cast as Heather and I can't think of anyone more fitting to play the silent hill 3 heroine. Sean Bean was criticised in the original movie for his poor american accent. However he performs much more admirably in Revelation and his British accent is almost impossible to detect. One cast member who didn't impress me however, was Kit Harington, better known as Jon Snow in HBO's stunning drama series, Game Of Thrones. While Kit is excellent in GOT, he basically sleepwalks through this movie, with poor line delivery and some scenes where he just seems to not be putting any effort into his role. But overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the acting quality in the film.

A lot of the plot will be familiar to anyone who has played silent hill 3 but there are enough differences to keep the story interesting to even those who have completed the game multiple times. Without spoiling anything, Heather Mason and her father Harry(not their real names.) are on the run from a strange cult who want Heather to return to silent hill for unknown reasons. For the most part I enjoyed the story in Silent Hill Revelation. The pacing is a bit all over the place at times and the ending was dissapointing in my opinion, but overall the films plot had enough to keep me interested to the end. Whereas the original is often criticised for being too long, this film suffers from the exact opposite problem. At just over 90 minutes, SHR just doesn't have enough time to effectively develop it characters and story. In my opinion, another half hour of run time would have made a world of difference.

An important aspect of the games are the terrifying environments and creatures you meet while playing. SHR pretty much nails these very important points. The environments are beautiful and disgusting at the same time and the creatures are just as freaky and abnormal as you'd expect..

I've been thinking long and hard about what rating I should award this film. I was considering awarding it four stars for a time, but four stars generally signifies an excellent film which Silent Hill Revelation certainly isn't. However, I also don't think it's deserved the critical mauling it has received. I enjoyed it and I certainly wouldn't mind viewing it a second or even third time. If that doesn't deserve at least three stars, I don't know what does.

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Story takes a complete 360 degree flip from the first movie. To put it simply who is the good guys and who are the bad guy's. If you ask me the writer was sniffing glue on this one. In the first movie the crazy cult church people were the bad guys, and this one was the little girl. The writer was just trying to drag out a second movie from what was a decent story and botched it all up. I know he was trying to answer questions from the first movie, but sometimes it's better to leave it to the imagination. This movie was boring and drug out, rent it but I wouldn't buy it.

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Except for a handful of gruesome, excellent special effects, Silent Hill: Revelation, the sequel to Silent Hill, does not offer much in storytelling and variety in the popular video game series.

Heather Mason goes in search of her father at Silent Hill, after he clearly and urgently forbids her to stay far away from the dangerous, bloody otherworld. While there, she must also find Vincent, a boy she met at All Hallow's High. But soon the inevitable darkness permeates, the air raining in flakes of ash, and weird things start to happen. Mannequins come to life, faceless entities jump out of the dark, and spider-like skitters cross Heather's path, deterring her from finding her father.

Silent Hill is atmospheric, gory, and offers enough action-packed sequences to keep the viewer tuned in to see what will happen next. But for the most, amid the stilted acting, bad dialogue and far-reaching plot, Silent Hill is nothing more than an hour thirty-five minutes of junk food for the brain.

T.B. Grant

3.2.13

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I liked it, I don't regret rending it for 5.45, I only do HD. The big fight was a chalenge to resident evil, and I enjoyed it. That's the stuff we look for in movies today, the big fight. What I didn't like was the story line, bad, bad, bad.

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It was not as good as the first one. It was just okay. However I have friends who really like it. I guess I just was expecting more.

Cheap House on Haunted Hill 3D (1959)

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The 3D conversion for this DVD sucks. I got as much 3D effects out of the film without the glasses as I did with them on. I believe I wasted my money. Anyone wishing to buy this, beware. You'll be throwing your money away.

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The anaglyphic two-color 3-D is very poor . It hardly shows up on my T.V. screen . Not even worth the disappointment of trying to watch . Don't waste your money !

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I really like this film, but it wasn't filmed in 3d, and this conversion isn't worth owning. It is pretty flat, so why have to wear glasses?

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Here is the first and maybe only review for "House on Haunted Hill"--the 3-D version. I am not all that crazy about movies being in 3-D, but I wanted to include another release version of "The House on Haunted Hill" to my collection (B/W, Color, RiffTrax commentaries, as well as the 50th Anniversary Edition). Since this classic horror movie was not shot in 3-D, there really are no scenes that jump out at you...The characters are some-what in-depth. I did enjoy watching Vincent Price at the very end operating the skeleton in 3-D! Figured this would be a fun movie to show if you were having a party yourself! Plus, while your guests are watching in this 3-D, think like William Castle and do your 'Emergo' version by releasing a skeleton above your TV to scare them!!!!!!