9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Wild Ride of a Horror Film--Silly, but Occasionally Scary, April 5, 2000
This review is from: The Johnsons (DVD)
_The Johnsons_ is a very well-made film. I tried to imagine how this material might look in a low-budget American film--we're just lucky that a Dutch film company and crew put this together. The plot is a very strange one, and ultimately a bit silly, but there are many very effectively horrific moments. To be honest, the basic story reminded me quite a bit of _The Relic_, with primitive jungle tribes and superstitions manifesting themselves in a modern, urban setting. The DVD has informative commentary tracks by the director and the co-writers and you can choose to watch it in Dutch or English (I'd recommend Dutch with English subtitles). This really is a pretty fun film and if you watch with the right frame of mind, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Are they serious???, July 17, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Johnsons (DVD)
Are you ready for this? The plot: seven seven-year-old boys brutally slaughter sixteen people and are incarcerated. A young girl laments the long wait for her to have a peiod. A young anthropology teacher stumbles across a long forgotten, but very active demon fetus. Young girl and her mom go on a camping trip. The teacher is contacted by a "secret government organization" to explain the bizarre symbols the seven boys left at the scene of their crime. The young girl has dreams about being raped by seven men and has her period. The seven, now grown up men escape from their prison. The young girl and her mom just happen to be camping next to the prison. The teacher discovers that if they impregnate the girl, the demon fetus will rule the world. Then, all sorts of other stuff happens. The Johnsons is an amazingly ridiculous film that deserves high marks for its apparent LSD influenced storyline. It is a mish-mash of numerous other horror films that never really comes together. Their is some graphic gore during the last half of the film that helps a little, but on the whole, the film is a bore. The DVD transfer is excellent and the inclusion of the original Dutch language soundtrack, (with subtitles), is welcome. Purchase at your own risk.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"De Johnsons" isn't that bad, it just isn't that good, July 9, 2006
This review is from: The Johnsons (DVD)
Being Dutch myself, I am very curious how a horror movie from the motherland is "seen" in America. Not that Holland produces much horror flicks, but hey, we Dutch people are too sober for that, most of the time.
"The Johnsons" is directed by Rudolf van den Berg who has made some wel-crafted drama's like "De Avonden" and "Zoeken naar Eileen". Have these two been released in The States? I really don't know.
I know that "The Johnsons" is and I have a feeling that it won't please too much people, because in America, it has been done all before, and much better.
"The Johnsons" is about a murdering embryo who will bring darkness over the world, through the hands of seven psychopatic brothers. Only a university teacher and a teenage girl seem to know more and as the movie progresses, their paths intertwine.
The ending is as proposterous as bombastic, but because it is pulp, it's in its essence all about that specific law of "suspension of disbelieve".
That "The Johnsons" asks a lot of this suspension shows that it is a whole lotta pulp and crap. But there is something appealing about pulp-movies and their accumulation of disbelieves. The wacko-wacky plottwists, the far fetched stories about dark entities and omnipresent evil lurking in the dark, always some outcast people who know more than the ignorant mass, the final obligatory battle against good and evil.. if it is taken not all that seriously, it might actually be fun.
And hey, even if the movie makers took themselves and the movie very seriously, even then it can be fun - even more so sometimes, as in this case, I might say, in the case of "The Johnsons".
Loose all perseptive on reallity, loose all sense of logic, loose all longing for reason and punctuallity.
Just put in the dvd and loose it all good...
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