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SirenKnight
Reviews
Nefarious (2023)
Great acting! Good Movie! I loved it. YMMV
It was largely predictable to me after the opening conversation, though there were unexpected moments. Sean Patrick Flannery did a fantastic job in this role. The subtlety, nuances, tics, changes between personalities of the character/s... just incredibly done. By the end I truly felt invested and had feelings for the character. The dynamic between the leads was also a delight. Engaging, thought provoking, and great acting between them throughout. It's difficult for one or two people to fill up the screen and script and keep you entertained, and they did it with apparent ease. All that said, I imagine there are a lot of reviews about it being some statement about ideas:politics and/or ideology. I didn't see it that way, but as a reminder that morals and religion are not the same, are personal, and that good/evil is always on a slide scale "compared to x" and we should keep that in mind. I also appreciated it was done from the Atheist perspective, but that's just me and YMMV.
Justified: City Primeval (2023)
Pacified!
I love Timothy Olyphant, I loved the original Justified, it was the best Timothy since Hitman (though I do love him in some other roles). This, this was just disappointing. This was nothing like the original. It had no grit, no soul, no good characters for him to interact with. (The only interesting character was the bartender). None of the other supporting cast was on par with Olyphant. And zero chemistry between characters let alone the lawyer he's sleeping with for what reason, she's hot? No. Interesting? Nope? Broken? Not quite but not a strong character either. (Sigh).
Seriously, Skip the first 7 episodes and just watch the last one, you'll be happier for it. I'm willing to give it another season, but spare us the social commentary and get back to what we love.... The rule bending, gun toting lawman that fights for what is right instead of legal. I also didn't care for the daughter's voice/tone, she was too timid to be Raylan and Wynona's daughter until, like the rest of the season, was redeemed in the last episode.
The Dead Girl in Apartment 03 (2022)
Several issues right from the start
Okay, I'm 10 minutes in and I have issues. This movie is very short, and part of that time is a long opening credits without storyline.
The movie starts with a girl finding out her roommate is dead and has been for "a day or two" - most people may not realize this and I'm sorry to ruin it for you, but trust me, as soon as a body dies, it begins to decay and soon after it starts to SMELL. After "at least a day" unless the room had zero air flow into the apartment she would have noticed. There might even already be flies. Add the annoying sounds of car horns outside during the otherwise soft spoken short police interview and JT appears the windows are open, which means the AC is NOT running (at least it's not heat on?) but I just wish if you're going to do a B- Horror movie which typically appeals to a certain crowd, do some minimal research please.
Also, once the roommate says "I don't know, I didn't know her that well" they ask an even more personal question. That's just lazy writing.
The acting is flat. Everyone is deadpan in an emotional situation. One scene with some hysterical hyperventilation is it. I was annoyed long before the by the expressway that must run in front of this apartment based on the horns that go all night long.
Sadly, it had potential. It's why I gave it two stars. The actual plot of the movie which ends in the middle with its mediocre twist (which to not spoil it, I'll just say, maybe it will give her more personality?) and unfinished cliffhanger are just not worth the 73 minutes of flatline phone conversations and horns honking. I'm fine with minimalism when done well... This was just DOA.
#Captured (2017)
Sorry I watched the whole thing
I don't think it's possible to spoil the plot, there isn't one. I didn't mind the cheesy acting, the cliche characters or the filming style. Those were the redeeming qualities of the film. I didn't even mind the low budget for (but knives used to cut someone usually have blood on them...)
(Sigh) The plot, a religious fanatic, who holds sexed up teens accountable without holding a single adult (coach, absent parents, teachers etc).... Nope.
His big manifesto is to kill 7 slutty teens, record it and THEN rat them out to the school? The school?
No lessons here, no overarching "evils of social media" narrative... nope. Just another stupid hot chick slasher without the sex.... And that first person killer video and ultra zealot villain voice. Ugh. Just ugh.
Oh and I almost forgot... He kidnaps them just to lecture them for 5 minutes and kill them later?? In what world? But hey, nice coffee grinder.... Thanks for the filler.
And then the almighty righteous man with a teen of his own commits suicide?
Seriously?
SERIOUSLY?
At 1 hour and 21 minutes this movie was at least 30 minutes too long.
The Meg (2018)
I wait with baited breath for this kind of movie.
I'm old, I saw Jaws in the theater, and I've been hooked ever since! I love a good shark movie. A bad shark movie is a pitiful CGI 15 ft great white shark that leaps from 2feet of murky fresh water to get the giggling half naked bimbo, and the Bureaucrat that won't back down. If your lucky in a bad movie they sometimes have a few stock images of actual great white in deep water for those "realism" shots. Yes some of the Meg CGI is mediocre. At least it didn't growl. Ugh that always drives me crazy.
This is not that. Yeah, the kid is more cutesie than a good actor. The characters are a bit cliche, stereotypical.
But it's a shark movie. Every creature feature works off the same few rules. This doesn't really deviate from that. Is the science off? Yep, you betcha, but at least they tried to come up with something more plausible than zombies, toxic waste, ecological push back, or simple mindless revenge with no real plot or story to go with. Some of the shark discrepancies low rated reviewers noted are potentially due to different sharks... I didn't notice it so much.
There are also some hysterical one liners.
Statham is fantastic. Car, boat, oil, water, he always brings energy to his character. "Just keep swimming, swimming swimming..."
And Lori (his ex wife) "did you really come all the way down here just to say I told you so?". Jonas: "Yes"
There are your gratuitous nail biter moments. And I always love the moments when arrogant humans assume they are smarter than the films creature and are surprised when the plan goes awry due to something simple they overlooked. (Shark cages, flimsy boats,)
(Mild spoilers- but not really)
If I had a beef it would be that 5.56 rounds wouldn't go through it's tough hide, but some aforementioned flimsy boat metal?
I also completely forgot that you can actually see a shark get blown up in the opening rescue sequence.
There's a lot of random little things I just love. The busy beach scene is gratuitous but amusing. (Brine shrimp to a whale, humans to a meg? Maybe.) the Billionaire staying true to form. Comeuppance is definitely a thing I love in monster movies over the 'everybody dies at random except the designated survivor.
Anyway...
If you love a good shark movie, (Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, The Shallows, and 47 Meters Down, even though that barely qualifies as a shark movie) you'll like this one too. I also recommend Bait, Shark Lake, Santa Jaws, swamp sharks, and Sand Sharks for decent B shark movies. If you're expecting National Geographic, this is not your movie. It beat The Requin, Maneater, and many others hands down in my opinion. YMMV.
Smile (2022)
Could have been better.
I say that about a lot of movies, that they could be better. I always seem think of wasted potential.
The acting was fantastic. It has some truly redeeming moments... The tense moments, where the jump scares actually feel natural to the moment of the film and not expected or contrived. As others have stated the interwoven reality with hallucinations, that you aren't sure if they are happening inside or outside of her mind. The necessity to "not be crazy", or go against the grain, be difficult.
--spoilers-ish--
I loved the moment when she starts to own her truth and tell people how she really feels rather than hiding behind a smile/lie. I loved the moment when she starts to own her real history and why she hides behind a smile/lie. I wondered if her hiding behind a smile was because she was afraid of becoming her mother, which is somewhat revealed to her ex, but not entirely. Was mom really crazy, mean drunk, or something else. I hated the ending for the predictable parts. I didn't like the idea that we are all so narcissistic that not one in twenty people would choose to kill themselves while they were alone to prevent the curse from continuing - I liked what that reveals- that the character, even until the very end isn't entirely sure what is real and what isn't. I thought the ending other than that to be fairly predictable.
The Haunting of the Tower of London (2022)
The good, the horrible and the mediocre.
So yep-the costumes are renaissance faire bargain bin rentals. Most of the actors are mediocre at best. Yes the torture chamber was more torture porn (though only male backside nudity- fyi), and largely unnecessary to the overall story other than to provide additional mediocre acting and effects for horror that in those moments border more on comical. On top of a lot of cheap costumes there were also a lot of really cheap sets (the dungeon bars appear to be made of painted strips of wood).
Then there are the anachronisms, and there are lots. Lack of court wandering the halls, the kings chambers have a rough cut wood door, inside a palace where other rooms are opulent, Bobby pins, fake candles, shiny manacles.. things like that. I'm not an expert and didn't look all those up but that's what stood out the most to me.
But you don't go into a bargain bin B movie and not expect all of that. The sound was actually not terrible which is something that I appreciate. Super low budget films don't record it separately so the sound effects and/or voices are usually horrible. There is also some unnecessary things, like people trying to row a boat that don't know how and are completely unnecessary to the story as anything other than, yes, we're trying to legit appear to be the Tower of London.
The story of the two princes is true and unsolved as of today because Queen Elizabeth II didn't want to dig up the (one of the two sets of two) children found in the tower that were buried as the two princes for dna testing. So we'll have to wait and see if Charles wants to do it. They were also found long after the period the movie is set. In fact their disappearance played a strong role in changing the future trajectory of the ruling royals and is alluded to in the movie by Richard. However other than that and the primary character names the rest veers far off actual history.
Anyway....
-- here there be spoilers---
All that said, there were some twists I enjoyed which included the poetic comeuppance of many of the characters that others mentioned. I like karma and good endings so that is always with a rating bump to me. So yeah, everybody dies, and I do have to mention that you reach a point in the movie when just about everyone starts seeing ghosts of some sort, and about the time you start to wonder why they need Henry is when the end starts to reveal its few twists and turns.
I'm only noting them in case you got too annoyed or were multitasking and missed them because they're fairly obvious. The villagers (Fairpoint) that set up Henry gets (one) tortured and (both) killed anyway. (14 pieces of silver anyone?) The treacherous Queen gets her insides eaten by the children that she killed. Richard gets killed by the Father that Henry mentions when he first arrives telling the young priest how he died at Richards (and the priest realizes later, also the torturers) hands.
The priest is taken by a demon - pride goeth before the fall, considering he CHOSE where the pear of anguish was going to go, (not the face!) and considering what brought the Demon there?. Also Random annoying thing, why on earth was the pear the part that finally cracked the torturer? Idk! But also the Priest had it coming by then for asking Henry to do what he did in the end. The torturer they leave to the imagination.
Finally you think Henry escapes only to find it's his own family reaching out to talk to him after his death... I actually loved that part considering their relationship as a result of that gift/curse.
Last if you read this far - I don't apologize for being prolific. ;)
Things Heard & Seen (2021)
Disappointed.
Amanda Seyfried and some of the cast, are the only real saving grace of this movie. I gave it one star for that. And no, I haven't read the book.
It's a long slow build that draws a lot of little parallels, and connections that dissipate without any real fulfillment. I liked that the clues were not blatant and obvious, so I added a star for that.
There are also a lot of portents, that in a 2 hour movie barely scratch the surface of what could have been a fantastic story. As someone else noted it's very cliche, and was little more than Amityville remake with art thrown in. I also thought it strange that so many characters were some form of artist.
I gave it one more star because I'm not going to say I wasted two hours watching it, but I will say that I didn't get a reasonable return in that lengthy investment.
As an aside-
I was also ticked off that a college administrator said "irregardless" which is not a word by most standards.
Lastly I don't usually catch editing goofs and there is a fairly obvious one.
Eli (2019)
Unpredictable twists - I loved it!
There are no spoilers in this review!
So, I watch a lot of horror, including a lot of B horror and creature features. (So much so that I've started a spreadsheet so I don't try to re-watch a stinker, even though I stick out most movies ever optimistic that the ending will make it worth it.) Because of this I'm easily amused, and often disappointed, but not so easily surprised! In Eli, they give you enough to go on to make guesses. So you start thinking "oh, I see where this is going!" then just when you are sure that the next reveal is going to affirm your prediction, nope, it goes down a different path. I was enamored the first time that happened, and even more so with each passing twist.
I thought he actors were good, but knowing what happens, I want to watch it again to see just HOW good!
I took off one star for where it ended just because I wanted more. I know. Selfish. Hope there is a decent sequel.
American Horror Story (2011)
Rating only for season 11
Spoilers? There really isn't anything TO spoil in this season. You can read everything wrong with it in everyone else's review...but I'll echo- it's a little more than an AIDS docu-drama with some MA rated /dark side allusions to deviant sexual scenes and a few origin story conspiracies thrown in to try to hook you... that's it. I watched every episode with baited breath waiting for the twist- (they at least had the decency to throw a few plot twists and human depravity into the "Cult" season centered around 2016 politics, making it worth the watch - so even though I expected to be disappointed in that season, I wasn't...) But here? Nope none of that.
What you see in the first episode is what you will see in every episode. Any allusions to anything else, is just that. Take a cold shower and change the channel. Now we know why none of the good actors of the early seasons joined. I love Quintos and O'Hare, I don't blame them for what was clearly bad script. I was disappointed with last season (10/Double Feature) for some of the main reasons as others, mostly for the untapped potential, and I expected to see the two tie in together at the end. This one? It's SO bad that I'm SO irritated after I wasted 9.5 hours watching it, that even after liking 20 reviews that talk about how this disgustingly awful NYC is that I made an IMDb account JUST to write this bad review. Like the others, the reason it makes me so butt sore (harhar) is because there are so many FABULOUS seasons- sadly for us, this just wasn't one of them. (And let me add, I turned 18 in 1985, and was excited to be OF age, but was terrified of AIDS even as a straight person in the military. You could have at least included a better soundtrack or been less stereotypical! Ugh.)
(For the other seasons~ which part of what I loved about them was the occasional cross season tie ins - but the rest, I rank them as : Hotel (5) Asylum (2), Freak Show (4) 10/10*
Coven (3), Murder House (1) 9/10* -
1984 (9), Apocalypse (8), Cult (9) 7/10* -
Roanoke (6), Double Feature (10) 5/10* -
and then NYC (11)-ZERO/10* bad enough I wont be invested in season 12.)