Daniel Radcliffe Devilishly Moves Beyond His Wizard Past: Our Review of "Horns" (2014)

Directed By: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson James Remar, David Morse

Rating: R for sexual content, some graphic nudity, disturbing violence including a sexual assault, language and drug use

Run Time: 2 hours

Synopsis: Ig Perrish (Radcliffe) is the prime suspect in the murder of his girlfriend, Merrin (Temple), though he proclaims his innocence. After a night of hitting rock-bottom, Ig wakes up with a growing pair of Devil's horns that spur everyone he talks to to disclose their deepest secrets and imbues him with some devilish powers, which he uses to solve his girlfriend's death.

REVIEW 

Andrew: Hello dear readers! We know we've been bad again at posting our reviews, as we actually have two recorded reviews done that just need to be transcribed and posted, but we're here today with a quick review on a perfect Halloween season film that Sarah and I watched On Demand last night - Alexandre Aja's Horns, starring Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe. 

Horns is an adaptation of the book of the same name written by one of my favorite current authors, Joe Hill. Hill is a well-known and popular writer in the horror genre and comic book community for his comic series "Locke & Key", but he's not quite on the general public's radar just yet which is a damn shame because his 3 novels - Horns, 2007's ghost story Heart-Shaped Box, and last year's vampire yarn NOS4A2 - are all fantastic and definitely up-to-par with his father's work. It's probably worth mentioning that Hill's father is Stephen King, and that Hill made a name for himself with Heart-Shaped Box and his short story collection 20th Century Ghosts before people discovered his lineage.

Back to Horns, in which Radcliffe stars as Ig Parrish, a young man whom everyone in town believes recently killed the love of his life, Merrin (The Dark Knight Rises' Juno Temple). Ig is the only suspect and even his family is skeptical of his proclaimed innocence. One night Ig gets wasted and wakes up the following morning sprouting a pair of horns, and his horns seem to have an effect on people wherein they can't help but tell him their deepest, darkest secrets, desires or just the straight effed-up truth, while giving Ig a bit of influential power to make people do what they're already inclined to do. Using his new powers, Ig goes on the hunt to discover who really killed his love.

Sarah, while this was a book I absolutely loved and was excited to see the film for, this is one I kind of had to talk you into renting since you thought it might be scary. Now that we've seen it, what did you think of Horns?

A Crowd-Pleasing Tear-Jerker for the Millenial Generation: Our Review of "The Fault in Our Stars" (2014)

Directed By: Josh Boone (Stuck in Love) 

Starring: Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern

Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements, some sexuality and brief strong language

Run Time: 2 hours, 5 minutes

Synopsis: Based on the hit novel by John Green, about a teenage girl named Hazel (Woodley), suffering from terminal lung cancer, who finds a kindred spirit and first love in another cancer fighter, the outgoing and unconventional Augustus Waters (Elgort). Together they make the most of the limited and precious time they know they have left together.

REVIEW

Sarah: Hello readers! This past Friday night we decided to hit the movies to check out the newest book-to-chick flick to hit the big screen, The Fault in Our Stars, starring Shailene Woodley (The Descendents) and relative Hollywood newbie Ansel Elgort (Divergent). 

We neglected to remember that it was a Friday night…in the summer. So the theater was PACKED with teenage girls. This movie has been touted as being The Notebook of this decade. These are bold words, so we had to find out for ourselves. That, and this also happens to be based on my younger sister's favorite book. 

So Andrew, now that we've seen it and have lost about half our body weight in tears, what did you think?

A: Let me first say that I was surprised by the number of men that were in the theatre. It was one of the smaller theatres at our cineplex and was PACKED to the gills. But as we left I counted at least six other guys that were in there. More than I would've have guessed, really.

So as one of the at least seven guys that saw the movie in that theatre last night, I have to admit that I was a big fan of it. Did I shed a few tears? Absolutely, and it wasn't necessarily because of the star-crossed relationship between Woodley's Hazel Green Lancaster and Elgort's Augustus Waters, but because I found ALL of the relationships in the film to be quite touching in their portrayal and how the actors handled them.

Most of all I thought Woodley was phenomenal here and deserves to be in the discussion come Oscar time. What did you think of The Fault in Our Stars?