First Trailer for RESIDENT EVIL: THE FINAL CHAPTER

The Resident Evil film franchise has been around for fourteen years now and while it feels like an abundance of sequels have spawned from that 2002 original there have been only four, but as of early next year that will change when Milla Jovovich and her director husband Paul W. S. Anderson who has directed the actress in what will end up being four of the six-film series. At least, I assume this is the last one as it is subtitled The Final Chapter, but being as I haven't seen a single one of these movies I have no idea what this latest entry has in store. Given star Jovovich is turning forty-one this year I have to assume she's hoping to take her career in a fresher, maybe more interesting direction as, given the contained universe of the film, I have to wonder how much more story and territory there is for this character to explore. I know very little about the movies and even less about the games, but I understand they have something to do with an apocalyptic setting and the undead. I don't know that I'll be changing my tune with the Resident Evil movies come this January, but if I have the time it could be fun to play catch-up on the series of films and cap it off with the theatrical experience of the final film in the series-who knows, it all depends on what's going on at the time, but for now I'll stop my rambling and report to you that the story apparently picks up right after the events of the 2012 film, Retribution, as Jovovich's Alice continues her quest to stop the Red Queen from eliminating the few human survivors. To do this, Alice must return to where the nightmare began – Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse. Yeah, I have no idea what any of that means, but Resident Evil: The Final Chapter also stars Ali Larter, Shawn Roberts, Ruby Rose, Eoin Macken, William Levy, Fraser James, Japanese model and personality Rola, and will open on January 27th, 2017.

THE FOREST Review

I've never seen an episode of Game of Thrones. I'm not even sure I could tell you why so many people love it or what the basic premise is. The reason I tell you I'm not familiar with this pop culture phenomenon is because it's inevitable the star of The Forest will garner much good will for her leading lady debut due simply to the fact she's a seemingly well-respected character on that hit TV show. Because I only recognize Natalie Dormer from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay films I have no frame of reference with which to know what I should or shouldn't have been expecting from this January horror release. Of course, that is the other major factor in how one will perceive The Forest before seeing it: it's a January horror release. Generally, studios tend to dump their scrap pile on audiences in the month following the barrage of Oscar hopefuls that they (the studios) hope will continue to earn money throughout awards season while simultaneously clearing their shelves of any long-gestating projects that simply need somewhere to die. In this sense, January is more or less a graveyard of long lost B-movies that will make a few bucks and then disappear after a single weekend never to be heard from again. Once again, in this sense, it seems pointless to even write a review for something like The Forest which will so clearly be dismissed and then buried beneath the rest of January's dull releases to the point by the time this thing comes out on DVD and Blu-ray three and a half months from now most people won't even remember it came out in 2016. Still, I was hopeful that the seemingly buzzy Dormer would make good on her promise of being a performer of integrity and buck the trend of January horror films to deliver something both psychologically disturbing and legitimately scary at the same time. Instead, The Forest is one of those horror movies that feels as if it was pieced together by a creative team that's only watched a few bad horror flicks and still decided they knew well enough what they were doing to take their own crack at it. Relying solely on cheap jump scares and a supposed twist ending that were clearly meant to have audiences reeling, The Forest will instead only leave most dumbfounded that we're expected to be impressed.