Vacancy: 4.0 Stars

Let’s talk houseplants.  I’ve just spent 20 minutes looking for a plastic container that I use to water my houseplants.  It’s quite large and bright yellow.  My flat isn’t exactly what you’d describe as huge, so a 20 minutes search for something so big and brightly coloured should have been about as difficult as locating a computer that has Google set up at its homepage, in Google’s headquarters.  I was about to go into an explanation that part of my flat had probably passed through some sort of distortion in the space-time continuum recently and that my watering container had somehow fallen into a rip in continuum; but then I found it; (by which I mean the watering container, not a distortion in the space-time continuum).  How it stupidly got itself wedged nearly behind the hot-water tank I’ll never know; perhaps there is some ‘new physics’ at work here after all?  Anyway, I’ve watered all of my modest collection of houseplants now.  One of my plants is an Easter Cactus.  I’ve had this for more years than I can remember and it’s followed me about from place to place as I’ve moved homes over the years.  It’s not that big but it does grow some new leaves (well technically I think their part of its stem) each year, as it quietly passes the time in a pot hanging from the ceiling.  In all this time the ungrateful so-and-so has never so much as offered me a single flower.  However, the BIG NEWS is that when I was watering just now, I noticed two, big, vivid red, flower buds on it!  A discovery of this magnitude seriously rates alongside that of penicillin and fire.  If an alien walked into my flat now and ask me to take (him?/her?/it?) to my leader, I’d be less interested in that than in the flowers-to-be on my plant.  The level of excitement and anticipation in my life has just increased by a magnitude of, em, something really, really big; like the universe for example.  After what’s been a pretty miserable start to the year in Cactus World, when news of this leaks out onto the streets there’s going to be some serious partying going on.  Oh no, I’ve wet myself…again.  By the way, this film didn’t feature any houseplants whatsoever.  (Well okay, there was a pot on the motel front desk that looked like it might have some sort of plant growing in it, but it didn’t look very healthy.  There was also a bigger plant in the room elsewhere, but I have a feeling that wasn’t real.  The motel’s owner didn’t come across as the sort of person that would be that good with plants.)

2007  –  Certificate: 15  –  USA
Rating Details: Sustained terrorisation and strong violence

This is actually a very good movie.  In fact I’d go as far as to say that in the crowded ‘group trapped somewhere and being stalked by a mad killer’ genera, it’s one of the best.  Much of it is pretty generic, (broken down car, no mobile signal, spooky motel in the middle of nowhere, etc), but what makes it different is that its two main characters actually behave in a generally sensible, consistent and logical way; (I’d definitely have trashed all the ‘hidden’ cameras though, if it was me).  This in turn makes it feel a much more realistic film and consequently a lot more scary than it might otherwise have been. It made me jump several times; all that banging on the doors! It’s got Kate Beckinsale in it too, looking lovely as ever.  However much she kicks Lycan (or whoever’s it is) ass in the “Underworld” films, she’ll always be that nice, girl-next-door in “Shooting Fish” to me; the latter is also the only film I’ve ever been kicked out of a cinema while watching, although I have to say this was less to do with my behaviour and more to do with the fire alarm going off; it was quite a while before I bought it on DVD and saw the ending.

No cats and no decapitations.

Recommend for scary film fans.  Not recommend for houseplant fans.

Top badass moment?  When you’re being chased by thugs making a snuff movie, starring you, pretty well any excuse you use to turn the role down is going to be badass.  They’re plenty of examples here, but when a director wants you it’s pretty hard to get across that “no” means no.

Vacancy at IMDB