Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Stephen Abell This is another "Be Careful What You Wish For..." movie. When Gillespie (Kelly) is fired from his job at the packing plant he besides to have his revenge on those he thought responsible. So, that night at the bar, he entices Jake (Thomason) over and proceeds to tell him the story of the monkey's paw, which is sitting on the table. Thinking it all to be a joke, he makes a wish to have the car in front of the bar. Gillespie hands over the withered paw and says it now belongs to him. When Jake and Cobb (Lang) leave at the end of the night the car is in the parking lot... alone... unlocked... keys in the ignition... On the joyride, Jake swerves to miss a crocodile in the road and crashes into a tree. Cobb is thrown through the windscreen and dies minutes later. Shocked and afraid, Jake quickly wishes that Cobb wasn't dead... and this is where the fun starts.Of course, there are only three wishes so with only one left Jake will have to be very careful about how he words his last wish.I admit to hoping this would be along The Wishmaster lines but sadly it wasn't... and it wasn't as good either. Though what this story had was lashings of realism, which created an environment for the curse to run riot in. You have a business that's not doing so well. A boss and husband who sleeps around. A wife who knows something is wrong and wishes for her younger years and her love of that time. A man complacent with his life, though he believes there's no prospects or advancement, life will be like this until he dies. A man who's been through a lot and is in love with a woman who hates him and won't let him see his son. All of this anchors the viewer in the here and now and gives them enough drama to keep them interested.Add to this the element of horror, the supernatural, and murder and you have a good film. Simmons does an admirable job with the direction and has a surprisingly subtle hand with using light to create the right atmosphere at the right time. There are some really nice iconic and powerful part silhouettes, which he uses to create tension and suspense. The pace, on the whole, is brilliant. He keeps it at a slow crawl, which allows him to create a shiver of anticipation under your skin... though, at times it can be too slow. For example, the beginning sequence at the plant. Most of this isn't required. I know it's there so the audience can meet the characters, however, it felt overstretched. There's also a few scenes which are kind of superfluous, like the opening scene. This is then retold in greater detail by Gillespie at the bar. To be honest, it's not even a hook to draw viewers into the film. However, I did like the fact that Simmons cut away from some of the goriest parts of the film, letting the viewers imagination fill in the messy bits.The acting is above average, though there are times when things get a little messy. The worst being the ambulance scene at the climax of the film. Thomason just can't seem to get afraid, anxious, and scared quite right and opts to shout and thrash about. It's both Kelly and Lang who add power to the cast and film. Lang is so good as the resurrected and murderous Cobb. While Kelly does an ordinary Joe so well. There's not one scene these two are in that even comes close to bad. It's a shame that Dutton, who plays detective Margolis, isn't around a little more either.I'd recommend this to horror lovers who like their macabre curses and evil manipulated wishes gone awry. I will only be too happy to watch this film again, though it might take me a couple of years.

GL84 After receiving a mystical paw from a friend, a man's life is turned upside down finally culminating in his best friends' resurrection from death and his continual stalking of his friends to get the powerful object.On the whole this one was quite a decent enough effort without too much really affecting it. One of the few positives on display here is the rather demented manner in which this one goes about the resurrection of the friend, slowly but surely turning him away from the calm and level- headed friend into a gleeful and inhuman slasher that takes advantage of numerous opportunities to really get some great suspense in this. Not only is the behavior change here responsible for that but also the rather obvious physical changes abound as there's plenty of different marks and scars that give away his appearance quite readily that makes the slow transition all the more obvious and creepy to match that newfound psychotic behavior. The scenes where he gets to show that off, mainly the stalking scene in the grocery store, the freeway chase after his friends and the final brawl in the house all manage to get some nice action in here as well as allowing for the performance of superhuman feats which is quite a bit of fun and really manages to get that transformation across as best it can here with a lot to like. Finish it off with some solid gore and it manages to come off nicely, but still flawed as there's a few rather distressing elements present. The biggest issue here is easily the fact that there's just no way to take the plot seriously or even find a great deal of creepiness from it as the majority of the time here is spent on doing nothing but the two arguing over whether or not the resurrected friend should have the paw in question, resorting to bullying and tormenting tactics to get it but never showing anything that deserves why he should have it. That really tends to force him into being far more psychotic than he really should've been and tends to render a vast majority of the scenes here into a repetitive manner of requesting it, denial and then a vicious murder only for it to start back up again which gets very old very quickly. It doesn't do anything for the pace of the film and none of these scenes are different from the previous ones only the location has changed and the people still alive in that world. The last problematic effort here is the fact that there's never any real back-story on the paw as for how it got it's powers from in the first place, really tending to just be around and never really offering anything on what it is or how it got that way which was all given in the original story but dropped here which is quite confusing. Otherwise, this one wasn't all that bad.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, sexual content and children-in- jeopardy.

ersinkdotcom Although I can't remember a Chiller movie I couldn't stand, their entertainment value and production qualities do vary. I always try to go into a film without any sort of pre-conceived notions, but let's be honest. That's nearly impossible to do once you've read any type of publicity material on a movie. As many of you may know, "The Monkey's Paw" is an updated version of W.W. Jacobs' supernatural short story from 1902. Three wishes are granted to the owner of the title object. Unfortunately, the wishes come with a terrible price.Director Brett Simmons and Writer Macon Blair did a great job of establishing a group of engaging personalities through quick character development. It's a simple and entertaining tale that keeps your attention as it plays out. The solid camera-work for this independent genre piece also came as a surprise."The Monkey's Paw" boasts an ensemble cast of stars to help draw in their individual fans. Some of them fully committed to the movie, while others appear to have been paid as much as the budget would allow to get them for a day's work for name recognition. Charles S. Dutton plays a detective who pops up a few times before making his dramatic exit. He might be in the movie for a sum total of ten minutes at the most.Corbin Bleu continues to shake his Disney stigma by taking on a more mature role for "The Monkey's Paw." He plays a blue-collar factory worker named Catfish. It's much different than his roles in "High School Musical" and "Free Style." He also looks like he's bulked up a bit over the years. This isn't Bleu's first genre film, as he was also in "Nurse 3D" and "Scary or Die.""The Monkey's Paw" is unrated, although I would consider it PG-13. You won't find anything out of the ordinary for supernatural horror films. There's some violence, gore, adult situations, and language. The one thing we don't get surprisingly is any nudity.If you like supernatural thrillers, "The Monkey's Paw" will provide some entertainment for horror hounds looking for an old-fashioned tale in a new package. Some might find vague comparisons to "Pet Semetary" are in order. I found it to be satisfying and was pleased by its overall quality and level of suspense.

couchfrenchfry Remains true to the original story, which is truly horrific. It's an old idea, you get three wishes but the granting of those wishes makes you wish you were dead. The victim usually ends up wishing that his first two wishes be reversed. This film has a different twist at the end. What's also good about this version is the very realistic slice of life of some factory workers living somewhere near New Orleans. You feel that these are real people. To me this is better than a lot of special effects and some hard to believe monster. There is a nicely creepy aura to that part of the world. Anyway, this film keeps you going with action and surprise twists. In a word, it will haunt you.