Mr. Brooks

 Released Year: 2007

Directed by Bruce A. Evans

Casted by:

Kevin Costner as Mr. Earl Brooks
William Hurt as Marshall
Demi Moore as Detective Tracy Atwood
Dane Cook as "Mr. Smith"

Story:

Earl Brooks is a wealthy, successful businessman recently honored by the Portland, Oregon Chamber of Commerce as "Man of the Year." In his secret life, Brooks is a serial killer, known as the "Thumbprint Killer." Brooks has abstained from murder for the past two years by attending meetings for addicts to cope with his killing addiction. He feels the compulsion to kill rising again, however, as his alter ego, Marshall becomes more insistent. Brooks, to satisfy his addiction, kills a couple while they are having sex in their apartment and, as part of his pathology, leaves each of the victims' bloody thumbprints on a lampshade. Brooks follows his meticulous modus operandi, including fastidious preparation and cleaning up the crime scene, even locking the doors. before departing. Marshall then notices that the couple's curtains were open.

Brooks' daughter Jane unexpectedly arrives home, having dropped out of college in Palo Alto, California. She visits Brooks at work and mentions that she would like to get a job with his company. The same day, “Mr. Smith” turns up at Brooks' work and blackmails him with photographs of Brooks at the most recent murder. He demands that Brooks take him along on a murder; reluctantly, Brooks agrees. Mrs. Brooks reveals that Jane dropped out of college because she is pregnant. The Brookses are then visited by detectives from Palo Alto who want to interview Jane about a hatchet murder committed in her former dorm building. Marshall and Brooks realize that Jane committed the murder and consider letting her go to jail to "save her" from becoming like them. Eventually, however, Brooks uses an alternate identity, flies to Palo Alto, and commits a similar murder to make it appear as if a serial killer is loose, thereby exonerating Jane.

Brooks decides that he no longer wants to kill, but knows that he cannot stop himself. Not wanting to be caught and shame his family, Brooks concocts a plan where he will write a note to his family claiming to be terminally ill, and leave, never to return. Brooks researches the background of the police officer chasing the Thumbprint Killer, Detective Tracy Atwood, and discovers she's in the middle of a messy divorce from Jesse Vialo. Brooks decides that Vialo and his lawyer will be Smith's first "victims". At the scene of the Vialo murder, Smith urinates in a fit of panic, leaving his DNA for the police to discover later. While driving away from the scene, Smith pulls a gun on Brooks, which Brooks and Marshall had predicted would happen. Brooks explains his plan to Smith, who agrees to kill Brooks. Brooks takes Smith to a cemetery he owns, and explains that they will find an open grave; Smith will shoot Brooks and then cover him with just enough dirt to mask the body. The next day, a casket will be lowered into the grave and covered, and Brooks' body will never be discovered.

Smith attempts to shoot Brooks, but Brooks reveals that, at some point prior, he had broken into Smith's apartment and bent the firing pin on Smith's pistol, rendering it inoperable on the off-chance that Brooks would change his mind. Brooks' brush with death makes him realize he wants to see his grandchild, and he turns on his would-be murderer, slitting Smith's throat with a shovel. With Smith's urine providing the only DNA evidence of the Thumbprint Killer at a murder scene, Brooks will remain undetected.

Mr. Smith is named as the Thumbprint Killer and Brooks returns to his normal life. Knowing he is in the clear, Brooks calls Detective Atwood, whom he has come to admire, to ask her why she is a police officer. She replies that her wealthy father had wanted a boy, and she wanted to succeed in spite of him. Atwood is unable to trace the call before Brooks hangs up, but she realizes that the Thumbprint Killer is still at large. That night Brooks has a nightmare in which Jane kills him, suggesting that he fears Jane will become like him.

 L² Scored: 1.5/10

L² Comment: 

I watched this movie continuously 2 times (back-to-back)... but ~ i really don't understand why it tried to brought out in the movie... The second time i even fell asleep on the mid way, but i try my best... too bad~ maybe its not up to my level to watch this movie yet :P

The New Daughter

Released Year: 2009
Directed by Luis Berdejo

Casted by:
Kevin Costner as John James
Ivana Baquero as Louisa James
Gattlin Griffith as Sam James
Samantha Mathis as Cassandra Parker
Story:

John James, a recently divorced novelist, moves into an old house in the country with his teenage daughter, Louisa, and young son, Sam. John and Louisa's relationship is strained and she accuses him of never loving her mother, and ruining everything. While exploring the surrounding fields and forest they come across a large burial mound. Louisa is instantly attracted to it, whereas Sam is reluctant to go near it. On their first night in the house Louisa hears strange noises outside her bedroom window.

She does not see the humanoid creature lurking close-by on the roof. The next day Sam finds a loaded shotgun hidden inside the piano in the living room, Sam begins to point it at Louisa and his father, later John buries it in the garden. In town, John learns that his house is locally famous for the disappearance of a woman who lived there. Later, he finds Louisa's pet cat torn apart near the house. Louisa returns to the mound after school and, while relaxing in the sunshine, hears strange noises and cuts away as we hear what sounds like something pouncing towards Louisa.

That night John finds a trail of muddy footprints leading from the open front door to the bathroom. Louisa is inside with the door locked, sitting in the tub, washing mud from her body and hair. The muddy water draining away turns red with blood (Later we find out in the film, this may be caused by the "mating ritual" by the creatures). Later that night, John finds Louisa sleepwalking in her room. When he takes her back to bed he finds a strange doll made from straw which Louisa knows nothing about, inside of which is a dark ball containing a live spider.

The next morning Louisa comes down for breakfast wearing a short dress and make-up. When John asks her about the doll she claims not to have seen it before. When Louisa and Sam are at school Louisa is bullied by a preppy girl, and, once she gets home she rips the head off her doll, John finds a pile of muddy clothes in her room and, at the burial mound, the head of Louisa's toy doll along with the bloody remains of a blackbird and a nest of spiders in the drawer where Lousia's straw doll was kept.

Louisa is confronted and bullied by a preppy girl and Louisa starts eyeing the stairs directly behind the girl. He's called in to pick Louisa up from school when she complains of stomach pain and on the way in he sees the preppy girl who's arm is in a brace, which Cassandra says that the girl said "She fell down the stairs". When Sam's teacher, Cassandra, gives John her phone number, Louisa becomes territorial. That night, John sees Louisa emerging from the woods after having forbidden her to return to the mound. She has a rash and what looks like bite marks on the skin around her neck, and at dinner she eats in a animal manner and as though starved.

John finds an article about burial mounds on the internet and telephones an expert on the subject, Professor White, but is ignored. He then reads about the previous owner of the house, Sarah Wayne: she disappeared one day without a trace, after having locked her teenage daughter in her bedroom from the outside. The daughter was eventually found alive and went to live with her grandfather, Roger Wayne. John leaves the children with a babysitter and goes to see Roger Wayne and discovers that he burned down his house with his granddaughter inside. Roger tells John that she wasn't his granddaughter anymore. In the girl's room, John finds a strange nest made from twigs and straw and a depiction of the burial mound scrawled on her wall.

While John is away, the babysitter is locked out of the house and killed by the creatures While Sam hides in his room as a mound-walker tries to get into his room. John arrives home discovers Louisa and asks what happened to the babysitter but she says she does not know. After the police have left; Louisa vomits on the hallway floor. John takes her to bed and she tearfully asks him if he's going to leave her like her mother did. He tells her he never will. John dreams of a doorway on top of the burial mound and Louisa transforming into a creature. The next day he finds the same kind of nest in Louisa's room. He decides to take action, digs up the shotgun and hires a contractor to destroy the burial mound.

Before the demolition takes place, Professor White arrives and pleads with John to wait. He tells him of an ancient civilization who worshiped the burial mounds, believing them to be the homes of ancient Gods, or "mound-walkers". He mentions a ritual involving the exchange of gifts, including small straw dolls, and the mound-walkers search for a young girl to mate with who could give birth to a new generation of deities and help them reclaim the earth. Horrified by this, John instructs the bulldozer to start its work. When it cuts into the mound, the body of the babysitter is discovered. John is taken to the police station for questioning while Cassandra the teacher looks after the kids.

That night, when a Officer Ed Lowry drives John home, they are attacked and the officer is dragged out of the car screaming. John returns home to discover the house in disarray and finds Cassandra with her throat slit open. Before she dies she reaches for Louisa. Mound-walkers attack the house and John shoots and kills them. After the attack, Louisa is missing, and her screams can be heard coming from the mound. John takes Sam up to his room and tells him to wait for the police, before kissing him goodbye. He goes to the mound to rescue Louisa and finds a tunnel leading into it. He sets a can of gasoline and the explosives from the postponed demolition by the entrance and crawls inside. He finds himself in a deep network of tunnels.

He finds Louisa in a pit, unconscious and covered in mud. When he carries her out the creatures start to howl and give chase. In the meantime, Sam comes out of the house, clutching a family portrait, and looks towards the mound. John and Louisa escape the mound and block the entrance with a canister of gasoline, but there is another mound-walker waiting for them. Louisa collapses and begs her daddy not to leave her. John looks down at her and sees her beginning to transform into one of the creatures. John drops a flare into the gasoline and the mound goes up in a huge explosion.

After a while, in reflection on the family portrait that Sam is holding, we see a figure emerging slowly from the flames. Sam asks "Daddy?", although the figures identity is unclear. In the background several mound-walkers crawl down the walls of the house and the tree in the yard. Directly behind Sam a creature emerges from the side of the screen. Before it growls a sound is heard that may either be a gun loading or the creature moving.

L² Scored: 3.5/10

L² Comment:

This is the normal horror movie which you have already know how the storyline gonna goes. It started with the daughter gone weird, the father search from internet and found out what happened. YAWN~

I was in the thought of scoring it to a 5, but watching the ending, it really doesn't really go well at all~ the creature never appear in an attack mode before, and all it does was crawl slow... i mean, come on... either you don't show the creature, or else, show how powerful it is to kill.

Well, using ants as the creature is quite a new idea, maybe this should be a credit for this film~