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The Harbinger (2022)
Turn a bloody light on!
This film had the potential to be quite good.
Blatant Covid subtext aside (because that's what this whole film centres around) the idea of a monster that stalks its prey through dreams and actively erases them from history is a nice take on a standard formula.
It's acted out well (Beans plays her role well, although if I were her I'd choose a more 'Hollywood' surname), the dialogue isn't terrible and at some points can be quite intriguing, but any time there's anything exciting happening... it's filmed in practically total darkness.
There's just no need for it. Even if the scene has to be in a dark location, there's no excuse for having lighting so poor you can't even see what is happening, and that's about 45-50% of this movie.
I've seen people complain about the ending but I quite liked it, so no complaints there, I just wish u could have SEEN more of the film.
Erax (2022)
Kind of Pointless
Erax is definitely a horror short designed for kids, right?
It has that 'Nickelodeon' or 'Disney' style cover image, and it's about a young girl reading a new storybook.
The monsters (the best thing about this whole thing) are creepy and could be scary for some children, but they don't provide too much menace and almost come across as endearing. One of them chooses to eat a big bucket of popcorn rather than attacking the two protagonists, for example.
But then as someone else has already mentioned the only music listed for the whole thing has a rather interesting name, shall we say. And someone mentioned use of the F Word but I didn't hear that so maybe it's been cut.
The writing is terrible in places (You want to get fictional? Let's get fictional!) and trite in others (some nonsense gets crowbarred in about the auntie not having time for her niece when there really isn't the time to flesh it out) and the acting isn't much better, although Genesis White does what she can with it and comes across more believable than her on screen aunt.
Definitely one to miss.
Quicksand (2023)
It isn't quick, and there isn't any sand...
I've seen quite a few Shudder-produced films and for the most part, without sugar coating it, they've been a load of old tripe.
This one seemed like an interesting concept, if only to see how they could make quicksand seem like a credible and entertaining threat. As it transpires... they didn't.
The plot surrounding the titular quicksand isn't anywhere near as thick as the mud the couple inevitably get stuck in (that's right, in a film called quicksand, it isn't even quicksand they get stuck in, but mud) with them on the verge of divorce.
The pair go on a hiking trip, get robbed, bolt headfirst into a bog and get stuck. Well, the wife does and the husband has to dive in to save her when she goes under, something that doesn't happen again in the film, even when they pass out or panic, begging the question why it happened in the first place.
The couple end up having deep and meaningful conversations while up to their neck in mud and corpses, in between fighting off threats like ants and snakes.
It's the snake that creates the most bizarre moment of the picture though. Despite being petrified of them, AND it already biting her husband, the wife decides she needs the snakes body to escape. Now, in order to lure it closer to her... she throws various objects at it.
Rather than flee in the opposite direction, as nearly all animals would do when a random flashlight smashes down just next to them, the snake takes it upon itself to find out who threw it and even has the wherewithal to sneak up on her when doing so.
It was at this point I zoned out, and nothing I saw after it could convince me this film was worth watching.
Another shudder 'classic'.
Mister Creep (2022)
Decent Creepypasta Style Horror
I went into Mister Creep with the expectation that it would be, much like most low budget horror films of late, a load of garbage.
So I'm quite pleased to say it surprised me. Yes it has its faults, but it's a perfectly competent film that largely ties up its loose ends and doesn't outstay its welcome at just over an hour.
The acting is decent save for a few screamy, shouty, out of breath found footage staples, and the concept is interesting enough to keep most people engaged for the full run time.
The main negative is that it's yet another found footage adventure, which writers/directors/producers seem to think means that it's free reign to put in a load of shuddery, dark, unintelligible, nonsense shots where the viewers are just expected to stare vacantly until the camera eventually focuses and reveals more of the plot.
The other issue is that for the majority of the film it seems to be set in reality, with the fear coming from a covered up serial killer that could easily exist in the real world... until a crazy old woman randomly manages to survive being stabbed in the chest with no ill effects what so ever. In fact she seems quite pleased about it.
There's also some other nonsense about the killer being immortal despite having been bumped off 20 years prior, but I just put that down to the cover up that is intimated toward rather than anything supernatural.
The hardest part to believe is that said killer had a clown mask fused to his face when he was a child, and yet apparently went on to live a relatively normal life until turning to mass murder in adulthood.
All in all better than expected, but hardly a classic by any means. It feels a lot like it was expanded out from a Creepypasta or something like that.
You People (2023)
Comedy is a stretch
I landed on this after scrolling through Netflix for far too long trying to find something that jumped out. Described as a comedy and starring Eddie Murphy, one of my all time favourite comic actors, I thought I might get a few laughs out of it.
Sadly I didn't, not even once I don't think. Murphy is completely miscast as a serious over-protective father that doesn't play to his usual over the top delivery at all.
I'm indifferent to Jonah Hill, and his performance fell right down the middle. He's playing standard Jonah Hill, think The Sitter but with none stop references to how white and Jewish he is.
Most of the complaints I saw about this film were about the constant references to racial differences, like a modern day race-themed Romeo and Juliet, but honestly I didn't really mind that. If you didn't get that was going to be the concept of the film from the title then there's no helping you.
The problem I had, other than it not really being funny, was just how dated it already felt... the same month it came out.
There's a solid two minutes of dialogue between Hill and his Co-podcast host where they talk about Drake. Is Drake even still relevant? Think about how that's going to age in 5 years or so.
The performances are good (David Duchovny in particular given how one-dimensional his character is) the storyline isn't even that bad, but it's not really a comedy. It's a romantic... drama I guess? With a message it hamfistedly tries to hammer home.
If you like the people in it you might enjoy this more than most, but not one I can recommend.
The Bunker Game (2022)
Nuclear Armageddon would be preferable
This was a real slog to get through. I considered turning it off a few times and in retrospect I really wish I had done.
The synopsis I read before watching sounded quite intriguing. A collection of hardcore LARPers are role playing a scenario where nuclear bombs reigned down to end World War 2.
The gamesmaster goes missing and a ragtag bunch end up locked in a huge series of tunnels with seemingly no means of escape.
While this description does very loosely fit the plot of the film, it transpires not to be very interesting or entertaining at all.
The cast are so forgettable that the only ones I remember are the films protagonist, who keeps seeing a ghost, and a guy in a wheelchair... and that's only because he meets a particularly gruesome demise.
You'll notice I mentioned a ghost there... that's because this film has a paranormal element to it. Not a very good one truth be told, and it's often purposefully ambiguous as to whether the events that are happening are paranormal or a situation of the demented games master's making.
But it's definitely there. The problem is that it's so poorly written, badly strung together and terribly explained that you'll be wishing it wasn't.
Unfortunately those traits aren't limited to the spookier aspects of the picture.
There's a paint-by-numbers big twist at the end, which even Stevie Wonder would have seen coming, and it even has the audacity to leave things unresolved as if they thought anyone would bother filming a sequel.
It makes absolutely no sense, but then after an hour and a half of total nonsense I don't know why I expected anything different.
Nothing in this film is done well, and you'd be better off if you found an old bunker yourself and just spent a couple of hours locked in there in the dark.
If you're wondering how this dreck managed to score a lofty 3.5 stars take a look at the 8, 9 and 10 star reviews. They are so generic it's hard to tell if they have been written by spambots or the people responsible for the dialogue in the movie itself.
Either way they are responsible for inflating the rating for this 'film' higher than it ever deserved to be. One star is generous.
Last Train to Christmas (2021)
Stick to the Polar Express
Before I start let me just get this out of the way early in the hopes it helps someone more fortunate than myself.
If you're thinking about watching this over the festive period because it has the word 'Christmas' in the title, or because Sky Cinema have it on the Christmas channel... don't.
It isn't a Christmas film in any way, shape or form. In fact aside from the odd mention of presents, a few blasts of Slade and Wizzard, and a bit of snow, it could have been set at any time of the year without changing much at all.
The working title was The Age of Tony, and personally I'd have left it that way, but I suspect that wouldn't have duped enough people into watching it for Sky's liking.
Speaking of being duped, Sky also have it listed as 90 minutes long. Don't fall for that either, it's actually over 2 hours you'll have to endure.
I mean sky only MADE the thing, why should they know what the runtime actually is?
Anyway, the film itself...
It's a struggle. The concept starts off great, and if there's anything exceptionally positive I can say about it, it's that the set designers deserve an award of some sort for the fantastic job they did of getting the trains looking just right through the decades, complete with props such as Woolies bags and bottles of Hooch.
But it just plods from one ever more depressing scene to the next, with every decision 'Tony Towers' makes, be it selfish or philanthropic, leading to yet more misery for himself and his family carte blanche.
At one point for example, he decides he needs his brother's help to make his nightclub business a success, despite knowing his brother does exceptionally well for himself if they continue to go their separate ways.
So a selfish act. However, he achieves this by going back in time and agreeing to let his little brother have 50% control of the business as he had always wanted. An act of generosity, even if it is motivated by selfishness.
The outcome? His brother steals the whole company from him and he ends up working in the snack car on the train, never meeting his future girlfriend/wife as a result.
Why? No idea, it never gets explained as we're too busy hurtling back in time further so he can break up with his first wife and stop them having a child.
Something he does a couple of times in the film by the way, without so much as a thought for the people he's erasing from existence.
The underlying plot about his relationship with his 'brother' is kind of clever, but they both become such unlikable people it's hard to feel for either of them too much, even if one is just a victim of circumstance.
I mean in a certain timeline one of them becomes a tagged, drunken wreck and the other tries to, albeit briefly, get into some sort of sexual entanglement with his own daughter.
Lets just say George Bailey they ain't.
In perhaps the most Christmassy thing about the film, Tony eventually sees the error of his ways and makes a huge sacrifice, essentially throwing away the chance to live his life so that others will enjoy theirs... except he doesn't really need to.
He just accepts being at the end of his life as the train arrives at its destination, when he could have easily skipped back a few carriages and continued where he started.
Then just to wrap things up with a nice little festive bow, a mystery man (who is obviously meant to be his 'brother') plays a few notes from the song they worked on together as they reunite at the train station.
This music is such a huge huge part of the plot that Sheen's character carries a VINYL RECORD of them around in his pocket at all times. You know, a slightly larger than pocket-sized, incredibly fragile piece of plastic that gets weaker the older it gets.
Except just minutes before it showed this record with ONLY Tony's name on it, outright explaining that they HADN'T worked on any music together as a result of how their lives had diverged, so the song he plays shouldn't actually exist.
I don't know, maybe I'm missing something, but it felt like someone tried to be too clever with it and it just comes across as a confusing, overly long tragedy of a film.
Had I not been duped into thinking this was a nice little 90 minute festive jaunt I might have reviewed it higher.
A post-credits note says 'Tony Towers will return in "Yesterday is Forever". Someone at Sky obviously thought this generally loathsome character was worth a sequel, but thankfully I couldn't find a single mention of it being green lit almost a year later. Fingers crossed someone jumped back a few train carriages and pulled the plug on that before it got going.
Stalker (2022)
Solid acting let down by weird cinematography
Stalker is a 2 person thriller set entirely inside a stuck lift, which must be a difficult task for any actor, never mind someone relatively new to the scene.
Both Sophie Skelton and Stuart Brennan play their parts to a tee, even when the script brings them grinding to a halt with mediocre rambling (a problem created largely by the runtime of the film being about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be.)
Their stellar performances are ruined by the directors decision to use weird shots and bizarre editing, presumably to try and create the feeling of claustrophobia or tension, but all it actually does it make things frustrating and/or confusing to watch.
At a certain point of the film the director decided it would be a great idea to zoom right in on random parts of the actors faces as they converse; the eyes, or the mouth, or the forehead, but always too close to be comfortable (or in focus half the time.) It was such a bizarre and jarring choice that I wasn't sure if the aspect ratio of the projector had accidentally slipped and zoomed in.
Then toward the end of the film things randomly keep jumping forward and backward in time, with no explanation or reason for doing so, to the point I again thought something had gone wrong with the playback the first time it happened.
The twist was clever, but not all that hard to telegraph as things got a little TOO obvious at the mid-point and there was only one obvious direction to go to keep it interesting.
The two strangest aspects of the movie though, are why they chose to splash the cash casting Bret 'The Hitman' Hart as a semi-sleazy director, and why the writer/director seems to have a disturbing fascination with dismembering (quite literally) one of the characters toward the end.
Neither added much at all to the film, but are in there none the less.
I hope Sophie and Stuart go on to better things as they were the one shining light in this otherwise below par horror thriller.
Polaroid (2019)
Nothing original but not awful either
Have you ever read the Goosebumps book 'Say Cheese and Die'? Well I'm pretty sure whoever penned this movie had.
It's essentially the same story with a few refinements.
Instead of kids it's teens, and instead of the people who get snapped dying in freak accidents (a far more interesting concept) they are instead hunted by a shadowy figure who's story is gradually revealed through the movie.
I can't say it was a bad film, the acting was decent and the camerawork was pretty good, but everything was a little bit dark and for the most part the death scenes left things to the viewers imaginations rather than showing anything particularly gruesome.
Some may prefer that but I'd have liked to see a bit more of how the shadowy killer polished off its victims.
There were a couple of nice twists, I especially liked how things happening to the pictures affected the people in real life, but it was an average watch at best.
Right down the middle with a 5 out of 10. There are better out there, but at least it all made sense and had a satisfying resolution.
Under Wraps (2021)
Get in the Halloween Spirit!
As someone who definitely isn't the target audience for this movie I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
It's typical DCOM faire, with mostly hammy performances and the odd really good one in there to carry it.
The three leads are all pretty decent too, at least much better than some I've seen in low budget straight to TV movies, and although very campy, The Mummy is played to appeal to kids very well.
I'm hard pushed to say anything too negative about this, it was a fun way to waste an hour and a half while I caught up on some work.
It's a bit strange that the lead decides to name the Mummy after his dead Grandpa, that was the only 'what? Seriously?' moment for me, but I guess it was done to show how he desperately wanted someone to fill that void in his life having lost someone he was really close to.
If you've got pre-teen kids with nothing to do, put this on for them they'll probably enjoy it!
Freaky (2020)
Fun, Surprising Time-Killer
I think you have to set your expectations before you watch this movie.
If you're expecting some serious, gritty horror film then you're going to be disappointed.
If you're expecting an out and out hilarious comedy, it'll probably come up short for you too.
If you're wanting a fun way to pass 1hr 40mins with a solid (if not done quite a few times before) plot with some decent writing, a few nice jokes, some mild gore and a surprisingly good Vince Vaughan performance then you'll probably enjoy it like I did.
The premise is 1 part Freaky Friday (hence the name) 1 part The Hot Chick and a generous sprinkle of campy horror akin to the later Nightmare on Elm Street flicks but with a little less of the supernatural.
Kathryn Newton takes a while to grow the role of a serial killer in a teen girls body, and at first I did kind of laugh at how she was moodily stomping around the house looking for something to wear, but about half way in she really gets into it.
Vaughn as a teenage girl sounds almost impossible to imagine but he does it so well you actually do believe Millie (Newton's switched character) is inhabiting him and he's just a vessel.
Misha Osherovich plays a kind of toned down Kurt Hummel from Glee, and aside from Vaughn they put in the stand-out performance.
Effects-wise it's a bit of a mixed bag, some look fantastic but the 'cursed' dagger at the heart of the plot looks like a £3.99 kids toy you might see in a cheap seaside gift shop.
Overall I'd say give it a watch if you have some time to kill, you might just enjoy it!
Blood Red Sky (2021)
All Bark No Bite
This film is like an amalgam of all the worst aspects of Money Plane, The Strain, Redeye and a hundred other low budget zombie/vampire films rolled into one.
I'm not sure how Dominic Purcell got dragged into this, but mercifully for him he gets bumped off relatively early.
The visual effects range from very competent to almost laughable but the biggest crime this film commits is running about 45 minutes longer than it needed to.
It's not the worst film in the world but at over 2 hours I definitely felt I could have spent that time more wisely.
The weirdest thing about it though, is that someone made the decision to have half the dialogue in German (it's a German-made film) and the other half in English, which means no matter where it is being shown half of it has to be dubbed, and it's been dubbed REALLY badly.
Like 70's Kung-Fu badly.
If you want to kill two hours maybe consider giving it a watch, but there are far better things on Netflix alone than this.
Honeydew (2020)
Incoherent Garbage
I've watched some awful, nonsensical horror films in my time but this is up there amongst the worst.
I normally try to keep my reviews spoiler free but if I can prevent just one person from putting them through this drivel it'll be worth explaining (or at least trying to explain) what goes on in this film.
Two insufferable lead characters (Sam and Rylie) head out to some backwards forest location to research how it has been affected by a bacteria found in wheat (really interesting point that hooks you in, right?) and after having sex in a tent get told to move on by the land owner.
Their car won't start (typical!) so they stop by a creepy old house occupied by equally creepy old woman and go inside for some dubious looking food.
Things play out at a glacial pace, and it turns out the old woman and the land owner that moved them on are a couple, and they are lobotomising people who get near to their farm so they can cut chunks of flesh off them to feed their daughter, who lives in a wooden coffin in a barn and has no arms and legs.
No I'm not missing anything out, that's all the explanation we get.
The police show up and one of the previously lobotomised and part-flayed visitors (Gooni) suddenly develops the ability to rationalise, cuts the two annoying leads free and sets off running with Rylie in his arms while Sam battles the old girl and quickly gets stabbed.
Gooni runs into a bear trap so the old woman puts him out of his misery as the girl crawls away.
The next day we are back at the farm and it's business as usual, but now Sam and Rylie have taken Gooni's place and she's pregnant.
It's also insinuated that they have done the same with a whole host of others as a wall of pictures shows all their other 'victims'.
You'd think that would be a somewhat clever way to end things, but no, we then have to sit through another 10 minutes of the old woman feeding various meats and cakes to her hostages before making Sam and the legless daughter have sex while their eyes all start to bleed.
Weird from start to finish but not in a good way, aided by the awful music and sound effects. It's a constant chore to work out whether what you're hearing is part of the world these people inhabit or laid over the top for our benefit.
If this had a deeper/hidden meaning I don't think I want to be messed up enough to interpret it.
I gave this a 2 initially because there is some decent camera work in there, but I dropped it to a 1 as I wrote this because it really doesn't deserve anything higher.
Just steer clear for your own sake.
Me You Madness (2021)
Awful... just awful.
I don't get who this film was pitched at.
It's a blatant rip off of American Psycho, and it tells you as much in the opening monologue, which is a bold move to say the least, but to do that you have to make sure what you're creating is good.
The problem is American Psycho is a brilliant piece of cinema, and this is absolute garbage.
The writing, the acting, the camerawork... all awful.
I don't like turning films off once I've started watching them but I couldn't sit through all of this, maybe it gets amazing at the end but based on the majority of what I saw I'm not optimistic.
So back to my original point; who is this pitched at?
Men wanting to get a bit of sexual gratification? There are quicker and easier ways on the internet.
Women wanting to watch a powerful female lead? She's too out there for anyone to relate to..
American Psycho fans? They won't like how much of a rip off this is
Those who don't like American Psycho? They certainly won't enjoy a crappy pastiche.
I think the intended audience for this movie is one woman... and she's the one who wrote, directed and starred in it.
The Call (2020)
Good Setup, Poor Payoff, Awful Ending
I chose to watch this film based purely on three things; Lin Shaye, Tobin Bell and it being a Horror set in the 80's.
I recently watched AHS1984 recently and enjoyed it more than most so I gave it a go.
The first third of the film was good, I liked the aesthetic, the characters seemed interesting if a little generic and there was a strong element of mystery involved.
Moving into the second act Tobin Bell got his chance to shine, and shine he did. Without doubt his 5-10 minutes of running the show was the best bit of the film.
Then it went downhill. The supernatural segments were boring and shot in a way that I presume was supposed to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, but all it achieved for me was to make me question what the hell was going on.
Finally the big finish arrives and admittedly the twist wasn't bad, but then there is another 5-10 minutes of the film that plays out and ends abruptly with no real explanation as to what has gone on.
I mean I can guess what they were going for but it just wasn't good at all.
Lin Shaye does well with a strangely written character and puts in a believable performance, but without Tobin Bell I'd have been giving this a 1 or a 2 like most people have.
The Color Rose (2020)
Idea better than the execution
The premise of this film is actually a decent one; Mean Girls with a religious coat of paint, each of the seven girls representing one of the Deadly Sins.
The problem is this main thread, and how the girls reach their untimely demise supposedly relating to their specific sin (a la Seven) gets lost fairly quickly.
The film meanders along with long exposition scenes about characters that are barely relevant to the plot, while six of the seven girls remain paper thin in terms of personality and just exhibit their 'sinful' traits.
So paper thin in fact, that when the killings started to happen, there were times where it was hard to know which one had been bumped off, especially as a lot of the murders were barely even shown or explained.
By the end of the film we know 10x more about the Cop and the hippy woman who sells flowers than we do about SIX of the SEVEN MAIN CHARACTERS, how can that be right?
Great lengths are taken to build suspense around who the killer is, but it's obvious from the start who is behind it all due to a line in the opening dialogue of the film, so when the big 'reveal' comes, it's more of a 'meh' than a gasp.
Where the 10/10 ratings came from are beyond me, as I doubt anyone could objectively watch this film and think it was worthy of that score.
If I had to say anything positive about the whole thing it's that the cinematography is nice, and the music works well.
The rest is just dull, and not worth investing the 1hr 35 runtime, just watch Mean Girls again, I promise you'll enjoy it more.
Zomboat! (2019)
As slow and meandering as an actual Canal Boat
For those of you looking for the short version; Rather than putting yourself through the torture of watching 'Zomboat!', you can enjoy Shaun of the Dead and still have 32 minutes left to do something productive.
Because that's what this is.
Shaun of the Dead, with a canal boat, nowhere near as many Zombies, worse characters, worse writing, and a distinct lack of humour.
Does it drift into the 'so bad it's good' territory? Almost, but even the hokey accents and nonsensical decision making aren't entertaining enough to make this tolerable.
In their defence Cara Theobold and Leah Brotherhead do their best with with a bad lot, and Ryan McKen and Hamza Jeetooa deliver a handful of genuinely funny lines ('Who do you know that wears leather? Hells Angels and Perverts!')
But the bottom line is there are better things to spend your time watching, including The Walking Dead which the writers decided to mention at every opportunity.
Concrete Plans (2020)
Concrete Plans but Drywall Execution
It's hard to say anything about this film really, it just wasn't that good, but it wasn't THAT bad either.
I went into it with relatively high hopes given the decent cast, and their performances were what kept my interest.
The story meanders, as it tries desperately to flesh out the backstory of all those involved without actually going far enough to make the viewer care about any of them.
An ex army descendant of a wealthy dynasty trying to get his inheritance, a struggling business owner, a murderer on the run, an illegal immigrant trying to make some cash to send home for his daughter, an old bloke and a work-shy little yob; that's your cast and that's about as much as we really find out about them.
There is also a love interest and a dodgy accountant, but despite being relatively important characters we find even less out about them than the rest.
Scenes vary from paint drying to graphic violence, but the one vein that runs through them all is the nonsensical decisions that continue to be made.
Any scrap of an interesting sub-plot gets hastily cast by the wayside in favour of the ham-fisted main story, thrown in to pad things out as much as anything else.
Plot holes are in abundance too, but in all honesty that's the least of the films problems.
I've seen a lot of comments claiming they did an amazing job given the budget, but I fail to see what these reviewers thought cash had been spent on.
Barring one particularly gruesome effect with a drill, the rest could have been achieved with a few hundred quid down at a hardware store, a dozen bottles of vampire blood from the Poundland and some facial prosthetics that wouldn't have looked out of place in a Hammer Horror from the 70s.
The actors gave it their all and for that they should be commended, there are a couple of laughs to he had, but there isn't much else here to enjoy.
Spontaneous (2020)
More of a Coming of Age Romance than Comedy, but still good!
Update:
So apparently this film gets a bad wrap (and evidently do so any reviews of it that score it positively) because right at the end it goes pretty political and anti-Trump.
Not being from the US, and watching this toward the end of his run as President, I genuinely couldn't care less about that part of the film which is why I rated it so highly.
Does it need to be there? Definitely not, and I do think it was crowbarred in at the end to get the writers personal views across.
But it doesn't change that the rest of the film is enjoyable, for me at least.
Original review:
This was a weird one.
Having finished watching the film with about 90% interest as I also worked on something else, I didn't really have strong feelings toward it either way.
The acting was good, the storyline was OK, a little weak in places but nothing terrible, the comedy was there although not quite as in your face as I think most would expect given the main idea of the film.
But a day later, and having listened to the soundtrack a few times (the music in this works SO well, it fits every scene like a glove and is great to listen to, especially 'Even' by Julien Baker) I felt moved to write this review, because I feel like the film got to me and I didn't even realise.
For a start it made me wish, as I often do, that I had grown up in America and got the full 'High School' experience, which is a strange thing to say having watched a film where the kids at said school explode at random.
Secondly it made me think about what I'd do in that situation, when you don't know if every day, or even every minute could be your last.
I'd say it's worth a watch if you don't expect a full blown comedy, it's more a 'coming of age/romance' deal with a few laughs thrown in.
The negatives, or the big negative for me, and kind of a spoiler, is that there's no answers.
I like all the loose ends to be tied up, but here we NEVER find out what is causing the main plot point of the film, and sort of just get told not to worry about it and get on with things.
If you can cope with that though, definitely check this one out!
Murder Party (2007)
Practical Effects ALMOST make it worth watching
I always like to try to look for the best in any situation so I'll start with the positives!
The practical effects are brilliant, especially considering the complete lack of a budget, and Bill Tangradi stands out amongst the distinctly average cast.
Now for the negatives.
Plot - there isn't one. Or rather what there is of it, isn't worth having.
Some sap (who barely gets any screen time at all in the second third of the movie) decides to attend a party after finding an invitation blowing along the street (as you do!) only to become the unwitting victim of a group of aspiring artists desperate for a grant.
Humour - there isn't any.
Not unless you find a bunch of one dimensional stereotypes calling each other the more common name for a rubber phallus, a dog eating a bag of drugs or a bisexual Jeremy Piven wannabe talking nonsense and over-acting to be mind-bendingly funny.
A point - if it had one I missed it, perhaps you have to be an artiste to 'get it'.
I love horror films and almost always find something to enjoy in them, but even the awesome practical effects in this weren't enough to make me recommend it to anyone.
Fair play to the team that made it for having a go with no budget, but I feel their talent for practical effects would have been better used on something well written that had a coherent plot.
Escape: Puzzle of Fear (2020)
Good idea, terrible execution.
Some films are bad because they are written poorly, or they don't make sense, some because the camera work is bad, others because the acting isn't up to much.
This has a bit of everything but the biggest problem is Tommy Nash.
There's definitely a reason his acting career never took off, and this film exemplifies that.
He shouts when he should be calm, he feels off lines like he's literally looking at the script, he just isn't convincing at all, all while Omar Gooding acts his ass off for no reward.
There's a part in the film where they make fun of one of the Escape Room actors for not being good, but she's way better than Nash.
Speaking of Escape Rooms (the supposed premise of the film) there isn't actually that much to do with them. It's a weak plot point, so if you're looking for something like 2019's FAR superior 'Escape Room' then you'll be massively disappointed.
The end of the film throws 'big twist' after big twist at the viewer, and aside from one they are so easy to telegraph it's difficult to accept they planned on them being twists at all, but the way each is revealed makes it clear that was the intent.
The biggest mystery the film presents is how the lead character (Nash's Matthew Blake) goes from being a blonde haired, scrawny teen to a Jesus-lookalike, rippling with muscles.
There are the odd moments of attempted comedy which largely fall flat, the music is dreadful (the 'aftermath' scene for example has a loop of music that sounds like it came from Diagnosis Murder or Monk) and of course there are gratuitous sex scenes thrown in for good measure.
The annoying thing is the story was quite clever, it was just so poorly executed and acted I can't possibly recommend watching it.
Havana Darkness (2018)
A Real Mystery
Scouting through the Horror section on Sky I stumbled upon this film and I have to admit, I was drawn in immediately by the small blurb:
"When three friends get trapped in an old building, they make their way through a maze of deadly traps in a bid to escape. There's also a crazed killer hot on their tails..."
I'm not sure if the person who wrote this watched the film, but very few aspects of that teaser are technically accurate.
For a start, the first half of the movie is a dull canter through some back story about Earnest Hemingway documenting a house of horrors in Cuba, accompanied by some trite attempt at romance between the two backup characters.
I don't mind a slow burner, but this was practically glacial, and generally boring to boot.
So eventually they enter 'the house' despite warnings from locals not to do so, and immediately they are locked in.
Is it a maze of traps? No. I counted a total of three, and two of them were just spikes.
Was there a killer hot on their tail? No, there were three, and they barely put up any sort of a challenge.
The biggest sin this film commits? If you want to know WHO is behind the whole thing, or WHY they are doing it, you're going to be disappointed.
'The Game' is constantly alluded to in the second half of the film, but there's no exposition as to what the game is, the only rule they repeatedly trot out is that nobody gets to survive.
There's an old guy watching on as the action unfolds, but there's never really any exploration into who he is, or why he has a clock that is counting down from 60 minutes.
The three 'hunters' are never explained either. Why are they there? What is their motive?
Honestly the whole thing is a mess, and I think the writers hoped they could leave enough unanswered questions to get a sequel, but I very much doubt that will get commissioned unless the person with the cash somehow didn't watch this one.
The acting wasn't TOO bad and there were some nice shots of Cuba, but other than that there's not a lot of point to watching this one, it'll just leave you confused and disappointed.
The Terror of Hallow's Eve (2017)
Director Todd Tucker is the True Trickster
In all honesty I actually enjoyed this film.
Despite the campy 80s horror nature of the thing I think it was acted out really well, and as laughable as some of the effects were it was fun and not the worst way to pass an hour and a half.
It was kind of like Goosebumps for adults and that's fine in my book, I'd happily watch it again.
However the biggest riddle of the film presents itself before a single scene of the movie has been played.
Right at the start a message flashes up on the screen saying it is 'based on real life events' or words to that effect.
Having watched it I was perplexed. To give a VERY high level overview, the story follows a budding horror effects artist who is bullied by a few older kids (a jock, a fat kid and a stoner... hitting all the tropes!) He unwittingly summons a demon to do his bidding and ends up bearing the brunt of the consequences.
So I wondered... Was it based on a murderer that blamed the paranormal for making him do it?
Was it based on the wild claims of some poor soul troubled by a demon?
Well no, after some research I finally found the answer in an interview with director Todd Tucker; it was based on his childhood, or rather the first 30 minutes was.
Basically he got bullied when he was a child. Everything supernatural that followed was pure fantasy.
Surely you can't brand something 'based on real life events' in this circumstance?
That's like claiming Jurassic Park is based on real life events because there is an archeological dig going on in Montana, or that Harry Potter is based on real life events because somewhere in the world an adopted child went to a zoo with his aunt, uncle and cousin, and looked at some snakes.
It's ridiculous.
The film didn't even need it.
I would recommend you watch this as it is a little bit of fun, it's just a shame the director decided to try and deceive people for no apparent reason.
Crawl (2019)
Claustrophobic but difficult to become 'submerged' in
I guess I must have missed something with this film, given it's average rating and being Tarantino's favourite film of 2019... but personally I found it to be a bit of slog that contained so many unbelievable aspects that it was impossible to become immersed in it fully.
Where to begin?
Well, we start by seeing swimmer Haley (Kaya Scodelario) falling just short in a race before a phone call with her sister that acts as a great big lump of exposition revealing:
- Her place on the swim team is in jeopardy
- A Class 5 Hurricane is on the way
- Their dad (who Haley has fallen out with since her parents divorce) lives right in the path of the storm and they can't reach him
Inexplicably Haley decides to drive into the path of said Class 5 Hurricane to look for her dad, and after finding his dog abandoned she discovers he has been 'attacked' in the crawl space under their house.
What ensues is just over an hour of trying to escape from the soon-to-be-flooded space while being pursued by... Alligators!
Big CGI alligators to be precise.
Sounds alright, doesn't it?
The problem is it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. One minute a tense thriller, then aspects of horror with blood and jump scares, then moments later its 10 minutes of touching drama as father and daughter discuss why their relationship is so fractured.
I could have looked past that though, were it not for so many things that were ridiculous and immersion breaking.
Just to pinpoint a few:
When Haley first finds her dad he is unconscious his shoulder is ripped to shreds and there is a bone sticking out of his leg. About half way in he (rather gorily) splints up his leg and snaps the bone back into place. From that point on his mobility goes from 5% to about 90% for the rest of the film.
Haley gets grabbed by the gators on at least 3 different occasions and seems to shake them off with relative ease (albeit with the help of a flare the last time), then suffer practically no ill effects. Yes she shows her leg all shredded up, but it doesn't seem to hinder her in any way.
I don't profess to be an alligator expert, so perhaps this actually is how they would behave, but they seem overly motivated to kill any human that comes near. Jumping into boats, stalking people around a mini-mart and even leaping a good 6ft out of the water to grab someone at the top of a set of stairs.
Not to mention creatures displaying this level of intelligence are stumped by some pipes, and can't figure out how to go around them or just smash through them given how large and powerful they are.
Finally, there are sections of the crawl space that have been bricked over in a kind of hexagon pattern, with missing bricks presumably to let in light and air (and unfortunately in this case water). Having splinted his leg, Daddy finds a shovel and some pipe that he uses to distract and then fight one of the alligators with. I'm certain that these two items could have been used to jimmy loose the single bricks and create a hole big enough to escape through, but at no point is this attempted.
But I digress. was Crawl a good film?
Personally I found it slow and frustrating, but I can see why people would hold it in higher esteem than I do. It's all very well acted for the most part, the 'big bad' is definitely something to be frightened of and the sense of claustrophobia toward the end of the film works brilliantly... until something ridiculous snaps you out of it.
I was going to give this a 4, but actually for all the things it does right a 5 feels more appropriate.
I look forward to seeing Kaya Scodelario in more things going forward, as she did play her part excellently.
James vs. His Future Self (2019)
Quite unbelievable even for a Time Travel plot
I'll preface this review by saying this film isn't awful. It's watchable, it has a couple of funny moments, one or two really heartwarming spots and a brilliant performance as always from Daniel Stern.
It isn't without its problems though and there are quite a few.
For a start it's just a little bit... boring.
For a film about a time-travelling scientist not a great deal happens and it's quite slow going for large parts.
The actions of the lead character are hard to follow too. His future self comes back, tells him he needs to very specifically NOT do something lest it lead to a miserable, lonely future in a dystopian world... and yet he still presses on with doing the thing he was told not to do until a big revelation moment in the final act.
Perhaps even more unbelievable is the fact that a guy so nerdy (and presumably still a Virgin) would, when mere moments away from finally doing the deed with the girl his future self has already revealed as the love of his life, stop to write up a new theory on his chalkboard.
The film is littered with these kinds of small details that snap you out of the moment to address how unbelievable they are.
Another example is when we discover the protagonists boss has apparently created a particle collider that is allegedly 3x more powerful than the Hadron Collider at CERN... and it fits in a secret box below a coffee table.
I have to give it credit where due, the message of the film is a good one; live for the moment, don't dwell on mistakes of the past or fantasise about what might be in the future, I just think the journey there meanders a little too much.
If you like Daniel Stern you'll get something out of this, even if it's just to hear him shout 'FOR GODS SAKE LOOK AT MY CAWK' after 10 or so minutes of the opening titles.