Long Weekend

I loved the original Long Weekend....Very underrated movie.

This remake was literally a scene for scene remake, no new ideas, so I suppose if you have seen the original and remember it fairly well, you are going to no what happens next! But I remember the original fairly well (I have the SYNAPSE DVD) but I still enjoyed Natures Grave. Jim Caviezel and Claudia Cavan play the unhappy couple well.

The film basically is a married couple who are having a rough time go away for a long weekend, and find themselves on an isolated beach. They treat the place with total disrespect (chucking away cigarette butts, litter, shooting bottles)) and shooting the animals...then nature turns on them! Pretty slow but always interesting. Solid acting. Little gore, so not much to offend here.

Tidy little movie. Surprised about the negative reviews really.

7.5/10.

When I watched this movie at a festival in Germany (Fantasy Filmfest Nights) I wasn't aware of the fact, that this was a Remake. Unfortunately I haven't watched the Original up to this point, but really want to do so. Especially after being told by many viewers, that the original movie is a subtler option to this version of the subject matter.

Jim Caviezel is a really good actor and he plays it pretty straight here. While he has to do some pretty disgusting and despicable things, you still feel for him (most of the time). And that's why I quite liked the movie (plus it's premise of course, which some people might find more suitable than M. Nights Happening).

While the title might be irritating to some (you could suspect a teen comedy after all), this dark thriller has quit some punches (also visually), that try to hammer the message into your head ... When I get to watch the original, I will know if is a decent approach or not.

The best actor in this movie and most rational character was the dog. You would never know by watching this movie that Jim Caveizel is an established actor. There is no real logic as to why the couple decided to stay and camp except for the Peters' stupidity. I would not call this a movie where nature strikes back, I would call it a movie where a moron angry at his wife makes a lot of boneheaded decisions. Nothing about the other campers is explained. All we know about them is that the parents seem to quarrel. So is this nature striking back at unhappy couples, or people that disrespect nature. The explanation of what this movie is about really stretches logic. The only parts of it that ring true are that there are people and they are out in nature. I found this movie extremely boring and a grand waste of time.

An unhappy couple in Australia--Peter (Jim Caviezl) and Carla (Claudia Karvan)--decide to go camping one long weekend in a remote wooded area near the ocean. Along the way Peter (accidentally) hits a kangaroo and casually shoots at birds within range. They argue and he wanders around a lot with his shirt off. That's about it until an abrupt change of events during the last 30 minutes.

This film has goos acting by the leads, Caviezl looks good with his shirt off, has some gorgeous cinematography, nice music...but that's it. This is pushed as being a horror film but it's really just a domestic drama with horror kicking in during the last 30 minutes. The horror itself isn't particularly scary and doesn't make much sense. All this has going for it is acting, scenery and music--nothing else. I give it a 4 just for that.

There are very few things in life that are more annoying than feeling like you've gotten the old bait and switch. That's kind of what this movie delivers. I realize it's not the movie's fault that IMDb has "horror" as a tag for this movie, but still...no. No to this being in any way a horror movie. I think calling it a thriller is even a bit of a stretch. There's a few tense moments, but on the whole it's just a drama about two people who can't stand each other.

The premise of the movie follows a husband and wife over a long weekend getaway to the beach in Australia. The problem is that the friends they are trying to meet up with never arrive. Oh...and they hate each other. That too. The whole running thread of them constantly pissing off nature is hardly even a subplot, but somehow manages to be the impetus of all the bad things that happen. I get it...it's bad to litter and be a general prick towards nature. I wholeheartedly agree. But then again I seriously doubt nature has time to waste being a vengeful jackass to two small time folks when there are...say...millions of other people harming the environment in much more serious ways. But I guess that's the point (maybe); if John Everyman isn't kind to nature, nature will quite literally kill him. Or something. Regardless, Long Weekend manages to be middle of the road at best in just about every aspect. There's nothing here I'd even remotely call horror, it fails to foster any sort of paranoia or even cheap jumpy thrills like a good thrill, and pretty much everyone involved is thoroughly unlikeable.

That's pretty much how I would sum up the whole movie...thoroughly unlikeable. Which is really a shame since I really like some of Jim Caveizel's (or however you spell his last name) other work. I wouldn't say you should avoid this movie, but there's certainly better movies with similar themes.