The Afflicted (2010)
I usually find that it's not a good idea to watch a movie purely for the actors in it. I checked this one out a little bit and was all, "Leslie Easterbrook and Kane Hodder? Sure, I'll watch that one." Bad, bad idea. It's about a mother who basically goes insane after her husband "leaves" her (I put that in quotes for a reason... read my spoiler after the break and you'll get it) and she starts spouting off religious baloney while beating the snot out of her kids. Sure, Easterbrook does a great job of being a psycho like always,  but the whole movie was nothing more than escalating the scenes of abuse and humiliation until by the end you have absolutely no faith in humanity anymore. And that is not a good feeling.

As for Kane Hodder getting top billing... Total bullshit. He dies in the first ten minutes. Sorry about the spoiler, but the movie is not really worth watching anyway.

Well now, this movie should not have been as good as it was. Directed by Joe Dante, The Hole turned out to be a cute little thriller comedy thing that is more geared toward teens, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Two brothers discover a seemingly bottomless hole in their basement and when they look into it, it starts to haunt them with images of their deepest, darkest fears. There's actually some really good creepy moments in The Hole - for one, because the littlest brother's biggest fear is clowns. It's scary without being too terrifying for even very young kids to watch and there's plenty of cute humor throughout to keep things light as well. The ending is a little bit hokey with the special effects but not overly so, and I'm surprised at how mature they went with the subject matter on this part. Overall, this movie was a big surprise. Very entertaining, with some great acting by the three main kids.

Michael (2011)
Gosh dang you, Maynard. I know I said I sort of liked these kinds of dark, depressing movies but I did not need to see this fucked up pedophile shit. Michael is an Austrian film about a boring insurance agent named Michael who has a young boy, Wolfgang, locked in his basement. In case there is any confusion about the "relationship" between these two, one of the first scenes shows Michael walking into the boy's room, and then the next shot is Michael washing his penis in the sink. OMFG. The movie never actually shows any of the abuse but scenes like this are enough to put your imagination into overdrive. Michael is very reminiscent of Michael Haneke's Funny Games in the almost boring way it is shot and the scenes that seem meaningless and mundane, but that's what makes the movie so good and hard-hitting. There is some heavily implied fucked up pedophile shit; however, don't let that shy you away from seeing this.

Weekly Movie Roundup: 12-23-12 to 12-29-12. There are any Weekly Movie Roundup: 12-23-12 to 12-29-12 in here.