#220 -- Nine Lives (2002)

Rating: 2 / 5
Director: Rodrigo Garcia

I've known about this movie for a long time, but I was never interested in seeing it. I'm not sure why, but it just didn't seem like something I'd enjoy. Now that I have seen it, I definitely understand. It's not a bad story, that part is actually pretty good, the problem was...Well, I'm not really sure what the problem was; I just didn't dig it. I think it was the fact that there was only one character I gave a shit about, and he ended up annoying me in the end anyway. But honestly, it was just kind of boring.

It was about a group of friends who go to a nice, big house in Scotland for a birthday party. One of them found an old book, telling the story of the man who used to own the house. His name was Murray, I think, and he was involved in a war between Scotland and Europe. Europe wanted to steal Scotland's land, or something. During the war, Murray was tortured, and he had his eyes cut out and fed to him. When the book was opened, his soul was unleashed. The guy who opened the book was possessed. His eyes turned black, and he tried to kill the guy that was in the room with him. That guy killed him, though, and then Murray possessed him. So, if someone killed whoever was currently possessed, then that person became possessed. It's an interesting idea, I'll give it that. It made things really hard on the characters. They didn't know who to trust. And when one of their friends tried to kill them, they knew that they'd become possessed afterwards. But they couldn't resist the urge to kill them. Kill or be killed, and let's face it, all of us would do the same thing.

In the end, they figured that, if they killed themselves before the person they killed died, the chain would be broken. Fucking genius. Why didn't anyone think of it sooner? Could've saved a couple of lives, dont'cha think?

The characters were completely forgettable. Notice that the only name I've stated is Murray. That's because I can't really remember the rest of them. I remember Laura, the main character, and Jo (played by Paris Hilton, who thankfully was the first to go). But the rest could be anything from Pedro to Ramma-lamma-ding-dong, for all I know. I do remember that the main character, Laura, got on my nerves. She elected herself leader of the group when people started dying. She bossed everyone around, and they had to do exactly what she said at all times. Personally, I would've taken her out just to shut her up. But anyways, when I can't remember the characters' names, that's a sign to me that the movie wasn't doing its job. I just didn't give a shit, honestly. I wasn't interested, even though the story was good, like I said. There wasn't anything about it scary or remotely creepy. Yeah, when they became possessed, their eyes turned black, but it wasn't anything amazing. The kills were boring, the characters were boring, and I couldn't even give it my full attention. It became background noise while I played the Sims on my Kindle. I was more interested in characters I created than the ones on the screen.