Death Note Movie Review

The latest offering from Adam Wingard has been released on Netflix and it’s safe to say he’s done it again. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve seen so far from Adam Wingard and just like You’re Next, The Guest and last year’s sequel to The Blair Witch Project, Death Note is a fun movie to watch.

It’s probably worth noting that I’m not familiar with the Japanese Magna that the film is based on but that puts me in a better position to judge the film on its own without any emotional connection to the source material.

The movie follows a high school student named Light who discovers a mysterious notebook called Death Note. He is then visited by a Death God named Ryuk who goes over the rules of the notebook and tells him that he can cause the death of anyone he writes in the pages. All he needs is the name, be able to picture their face in his mind and the way he wants them to die. Along with his girlfriend he then proceeds to rid the world of criminals under the guise of Kira. This starts a cat and mouse chase between Light and a super detective known as L who tries to track down Kira.

It’s not the best movie in the world but it serves its purpose of entertaining you. The story is good, all the effects are spot on and the cast all play good roles. Adam Wingard was a perfect choice to direct this as he is very capable of killing of his characters in imaginative ways and I look forward to more movies from him.

I would have been happy to watch this in the cinema but Netflix are cutting out the middle men and are making some really good content and delivering it right to you wherever you are and however you want to watch it.

3.5 / 5

Blair Witch 2016 Spoiler Free Movie Review

Set 20 years after the events of the first film, Lisa; a film maker, is making a documentary on ambiguous loss where one of her subjects is James whos older sister Heather went missing along with two of her friends while camping in the woods. James comes across some footage on YouTube that has been recently found in the woods which he believes shows his sister. Lisa and James along with two other friends go into the woods hoping to find more clues related to what happened to Heather...

The announcement of Blair Witch came as a shock to many horror fans, especially the ones who had been following the developments of Adam Wingard's new film The Woods which was revealed as Blair Witch at it's first screening at Comic Con. This is a direct sequel to the first movie and rightfully ignores The Book of Shadows.
I got to see this as a mystery movie at the cinema. I was so happy when I saw the title as you may know I loved the first film and been looking forward to seeing this since it's announcement. I have to say I wasn't disappointed with this sequel however I wasn't blown away either.

The movie has some faults and the biggest problem I had was with the acting at the beginning of the movie. It felt like the actors was acting and not giving a natural improvised performance which was done so well in the first movie. I will point out that the acting got better as the film went on but I would have liked the characters to be believable from the start.
My other problem was that there was also a large amount of unnecessary jump scares. I'm a sucker for jump scares, they get me every time and I don't mind them but this movie had many of times when it was just the main characters coming out of a bush or just standing there when a swinging camera locks on to them.

There are many positives about the film which I won't go into to keep it spoiler free but I will say where this film succeeds and will be remembered for is the final 30 minutes. You will witness one of the most intense sequences that lasts for half an hour without a break for a breather. You will be begging for the movie to end just to get your heart rate down to an acceptable rhythm again.

If you are a fan of the first movie then you should enjoy this. It goes over territory which you will be familiar with from the first film and expands on the myths. If you didn't like the first film and I appreciate The Blair Witch Project is the Marmite of horror movies then there is nothing here for you.

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