Nine Lives (2002) Reviews

• Not Bad Enough to be Enjoyable

  nikmaack2008-07-30

  It's bad. But it takes itself very seriously, and it's not bad enough to be enjoyably bad. When will someone let Paris Hilton completely loose, so she can make a truly abominable film? I'm talking something of "Glen or Glenda" caliber. That's why I rented the flick -- I was hoping for a true abortion of cinema. Instead, this film is merely born brain damaged, Things get close to deliciously terrible when one of the characters begins to piece together parts of the puzzle. Without spoiling the plot, it goes a little like this: "Wait a minute! Maybe the Titanic didn't sink! Maybe it was a ship from outer space! That would mean the iceberg is still out there, trying to get revenge!" "It's crazy! But it's the only thing that makes sense!" And then it turns out that this really is the plot of the movie. You get that here, only the premise of the film is so incredibly bland, you couldn't care less. People wandering around in a mansion, being chased. Whoopee. If only they would die faster.

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• The worst film I've seen in years.

  cbarclay992005-03-11

  Stereotypic characters which made me ashamed to be British (I was watching the film abroad), hackneyed premise, unbelievable plot. Horror films work when you want people to survive. My final regret, therefore, was that they didn't all die. Only good news was that Paris Hilton gets killed off quickly, not I hope because she had another film set to go to. By the time she dies, Paris has stripped to her knickers, (shot from the back), and therefore exhausted her acting ability. As for comments such as those of the guy, who wrote 'the return of British horror?' all I can say is 'don't agents ever feel shame'? Sure 'Nine lives' was a horror, but only to those people who still dream of a British film industry that makes good films. When will the people who finance British films realise that we don't all want to see films made by public school boys about their old school mates?

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• I've seen worse, but how do films like this even get made?

  tenten762002-08-26

  I saw this at a film festival, with the director (and apparently, the cast) in attendance - and I can't have been the only person who wondered how they felt, having the entire audience laughing their heads off at the acting and the dialogue! So, nine mostly upper-crust school friends reunite at a Scottish estate, and before you know it they're all being killed off (which is no great loss, unfortunately). If you've seen Shocker (1989) or Fallen (1998) you'll already know what sort of thing I'm alluding to. And now, some thoughts: The story is not particularly original, and the dialogue (above all else) is, occasionally, the most appallingly fake I have ever come across. I don't like to single people out, but (here I go, obviously) Paris Hilton somehow fails at playing a ludicrously wealthy and vain socialite WHICH IS WHAT SHE IS IN REAL LIFE! Astounding. All of the characters get their fair share of atrocious lines, but only one person figures out what's going on - and then (out of nowhere!?) comes up with a set of 'rules' of what's going on, and spends the rest of the movie explaining them to the others.. It's as clumsy as as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. I could go through what's wrong with almost every scene, but the one that really sticks out (and had everyone screaming with laughter) was.. *SPOILER* ..when the trainee doctor hears the bad guy trying to break into the drawing room, picks up a poker from the fireplace (as a weapon) and hands it to the girl dying on the couch!! It's much funnier than it sounds. And while I'm here - how come nobody remarked on the book pages changing from all saying 'I am returned' to having a burned hole through the middle (?) and being full of illustration? And where did the staff go!? And was there a single person in the audience who didn't know (after the first five minutes) who was going to survive? *END OF SPOILER* Was there anything I did like? Well, to be honest - the special effects were fine (although the fake snow was awful). I liked the decor in the house. The cast are quite attractive. And the opening credits are quite cool (although most thriller opening credits are starting to look the same to me - with the notable exception of Panic Room). The climax was fairly run-of-the-mill, but the terrible Epilogue (on the porch) had us all in fits of laughter again. Stepping out of the cinema just afterwards, I heard one of the Festival guys chatting to a small group of people say "..but I promise, all the other movies are better". And finally, to revisit my summary - how does a terrible script and a poorly contrived plot ever get to this stage without someone saying "you know what, we really need to re-write this rubbish before we can shoot it." - before the entire audience says it for you? There are all sorts of reasons for terrible acting to sneak through (budget, nepotism, that sort of thing) - but no excuse for such an awful screenplay to begin with. Horror/Thriller fans who can get this on cheap rental - there's a good chance you'll find it hilariously bad. Non-Horror/Thriller fans - stay away, because you won't see the irony and you'll think they're all this bad.

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• Even Lions Gate Has Some Flaws

  gavin69422006-11-20

  Nine friends celebrate at a mansion in Scotland. After a little dinner and drinking and too much conversation, one friend stumbles upon a curse and one by one the guests are faced with the threat of death. This film has so many problems with it, I don't know where to begin. First, the film "stars" Paris Hilton, even though she has the smallest role in the movie. I suspect her presence is the only reason the film was picked up at all, even though she serves no purpose and cannot act in this movie to save her life (she's worse in this than in "House of Wax"). When the Lions Gate logo came on, my friend and I thought we might be safe. Lions Gate makes some great films. Well, they make bad films, too, it seems. What possessed them to put their name on here, I don't know. With all due respect, I hope they lost money. The first half of the film is a dinner scene with people sitting and talking about literally nothing. Nothing of interest, nothing related to the plot, nothing. A brief philosophical debate arises, but goes nowhere. As my friend says, this film was very innovative for a horror film: it might have been the first one that tried to kill the audience. The death scenes are horrible. Basically, all deaths consist of a stabbing in the stomach: a magic stabbing! Shirts are never torn, but somehow a small blood stain appears and the victim becomes quite dead at a rapid pace. None of the actors are worth caring about and the whole film is in shambles. Most annoying for me (besides the utter boredom) was the tendency to remind us we were in Scotland (the words "Scotland" or "Scotish" were repeated many times... for no reason. And there was a golf club). This film is even too slow and pointless for "Mystery Science Theater 3000", so if there is a way to make something blink out of existence (like a memory hole), someone please make this your first target.

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• I'm not sure what I can say is good about it

  shattenjager7772004-07-14

  As I begin to write this comment, I have nothing jumping to mind as being good about this movie. Perhaps something will come to me, but at the moment I have only negative comments. This movie has a TV-movie opening followed by a long, slow, drawn-out attempt to show us the characters--who are not interesting in the slightest and most of whom are not even likeable. The first fifteen minutes, which are the most important part of a script, are this stupid, too-fast beginning followed by absolutely nothing interesting, which makes me wonder how on earth this script was sold. And as the plot unfolds, I wonder even more! It's a tired, boring plot of *SPOILER ALERT* a group of people trapped inside a house with a centuries-old evil spirit killing them off by taking over their bodies--it's been used a thousand times and the only time it's really been pulled off was with "Fallen" (1998). *SPOILER OVER* Now, the acting was hampered by a lack of character, yes, but was still inadequate. These people absolutely could not decide who they were, it seems. The awesomely talentless Paris Hilton didn't even stand out as bad (and I frankly found her the least attractive woman in the movie) next to the other "actors." Next up: the music. The music was absolutely terrible. After the shameless pilfering of the "Halloween" theme in the opening, the music was constantly overdone and/or the wrong emotion (for example, many times, it takes on a heroic sounding trumpet theme when there is nothing heroic happening or about to happen). If the music can't heighten the experience, the least it can do is stay out of the way, but it didn't do that here. For the second time in my life (the first being with "Vanilla Sky" (2001)), I found myself being distracted from the movie by how bad the score was. I do have one almost positive comment now: the direction was not spectacularly bad. It wasn't good, certainly, but it was better than the movie's other elements. The director cannot be blamed fully for terrible actors and a terrible script. All in all, "Nine Lives" was an absolutely pathetic attempt at a movie--boring and slow despite clocking in under an hour and a half; badly acted; with terrible dialogue; with worthless, unlikeable characters; and one of the worst scores I have ever heard. Don't waste your time with this--you'll need nine lives to survive all the deaths of boredom that you'll suffer.

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