sbcxynkt Reviews

Jericho Ridge (2023)

Exceeded my expectations

[8/10 · 4 October 2023]

I put this on expecting it to be background noise while I worked on my laptop but was immediately drawn into the story. The premise is pretty basic and we've seen it a million times but you don't mind it here because all the characters, even the side ones, immediately feel like real people with real baggage. The acting in general is solid all around but Amuka-Bird is amazing. The action is pretty brutal too. There are some scenes where you know what's about to happen but the impact of the violence still hits. Between this and Average Joe, also on BET+, the service is starting to come into its own. The app itself is still trash but that is a different story.

Dybbuk Box: The Story of Chris Chambers (2019)

Boring and cliché

[1/10 · 30 August 2023]

First of all, OF COURSE it's not a real documentary. It is truly scary that people actually think this was real. Jeez. But anyway, this was boring af. As a found footage/horror mockumentary fan, I know to keep my expectations low. But come on man, you gotta give me more than paintings falling off the wall. You gotta give me more than "This was inside a box...now it's outside the box!!! OMG!!!" I didn't even finish it. This film gave me no reason to. Half an hour in, nothing interesting happened and the movie is only an hour long.

Lastly, and since I have to fill space, I want to reiterate how frightening it is that people thought this was real. The future looks grim folks.

The Bake Street Hauntings (2011)

Very effective scares, iffy main characters

[5/10 · 21 August 2023]

I was initially going to rate this a little lower because while the scares are good, I didn't believe the characters. This is about a couple being paid $2 million to stay in a haunted house and I just didn't find their willingness to stay (despite the money) or their actual physical reactions to actual ghostly things happening in front of their faces believable. I still don't but I do believe, after thinking about it, that there are people dumb enough to continue staying in a literal haunted house. I mean there are still Trump supporters in 2023 so yeah, people are this dumb. There was certainly enough to be scared about though as the ghostly happenings in the film are very effective, mainly because of the grainy, black-and-white film style. With better characters and even a slightly better plot, this could have been really, really good.

Urban Legend (2022– )

How Eli Roth became such a "big" name in horror, I don't know

[2/10 · 6 August 2023]

To give you an idea of what you are dealing with here, there is an episode about a haunted shower. If that was not lame enough, in this episode, it turns out the ghost was a victim of some type of hazing where he was locked in a shower where the water was scolding. Instead of just turning the shower head, this character just stands under the burning water screaming. Instead of taking off the giant freaking towel he was wearing and covering/shielding himself from the shower head, he just stands under the burning water screaming. This episode was half an hour long and felt like three hours and that's the problem. All of these stories are built to be YouTube shorts and they're tuned into half hour episodes that drag and ultimately crumble the longer they go on. Skip this.

Homestead (I) (2023)

Started Well Enough Then Hit A Wall

[4/10 · 27 May 2023]

This movie starts off well enough, it looks good and while the dialogue is iffy (as it remains throughout the movie), it clearly establishes the main characters. Once a new character enters shortly after, there's actually a great deal of tension. Then DDP shows up and it all goes limp, slumping to the floor and never getting back up.

The synopsis and setup make you think this little girl is going to be a total badass and save her family. Sligh's acting was so good that I was actually becoming invested and looking forward to see her become that hero. But she is totally wasted and the story suddenly becomes ill-paced, generic, and predictable. The tension dies as the movie slowly and weirdly shifts antagonist motive, gives us action that is unimaginative and either happening offscreen or onscreen with terrible special effects, and becomes increasingly clear with us that we're not getting the David vs Goliaths battle we were waiting for. The character is actually given a disappointingly small amount to do. And that's too bad because the actress was ready to give us something special. The writing really let her down and the movie ultimately lets us all down. Bottom line, watch "Becky" instead.

Motion Detected (2023)

Terrible on almost every level

[1/10 · 22 May 2023]

Where to start. First of all, the movie makes zero sense. This is not a "if you pay attention, everything makes sense" movie. This is a movie with zero internal logic, no explanations for anything, and no actual revealed motives. There are also dumb coincidences. The leads are a couple who escaped a serial killer called El Diablo and end up in a home with a security system installed by a company called Diablo operations or Diablo security, something like that. You might think they're connected, which would be stupid. But it turns out to be just an unbelievable coincidence. Which is also stupid. This is literally one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Unwelcome (2022)

Very fun dark fairy tale

[7/10 · 4 March 2023]

It's not the straightforward horror I thought it was going to be or the one it started off as. Maybe a lot of other people took issue with that. It quickly becomes a beautiful-looking but slightly creepy fairy tale, before becoming a silly, violent black comedy in the end. I loved it all. It is sort of a dark cottagecore fantasy tale and I know that aesthetic is got right now.

The acting and cinematography are great (especially Hannah John-Kamen, who straight kills it), the special effects not so much. Still a very pleasant surprise. I did not think I would be as throughly entertained as I was.

Skinamarink (2022)

I've learned my lesson with horror hype

[3/10 · 4 February 2023]

Barbarian was eh, M3gan was beyond dumb and now we have Skinamarink, which, like the other two movies listed, the internet would have you believe is the greatest horror movie ever made. Skinamarink is nothing but a horizontal Instagram reel. It's beautiful...for a little while, the same way you watch those Instagram reels on loop...for a little while. Then you move on. But this never does. It loops itself for an hour and forty minutes. The next horror movie that the internet starts buzzing about, or has a "viral" trailer, I'm just gonna skip. The online horror hype is just out of control these days.

Margaux (2022)

Well produced, well acted but zero sense and logic. None. Zip.

[3/10 · 1 October 2022]

It's good looking (for the most part, the CGI is trash) and well acted and I am ecstatic to see two Black female leads in a sci-fi horror. I'm sure, despite the actual problems this movie has, this qualifies it as "wOkE" and may immediately lead to bad reviews from certain people. But yeah, the actual issue is nothing....and I mean nothing....about this movie makes sense. First of all, it isn't a smarthouse. Ihas what can only be described as superpowers? How? Never explained. What's the white goo everywhere? Never explained. Why aren't the authorities at least 'concerned' about a house no one ever returns from? Never explained. Who built the house? Never explained. The house's motive? Explained but nonsensical. This was bad and I'm only giving three stars for the positive reasons I stated.

The Co(te)lette Film (2010)

Zero stars if I could

[1/10 · 14 August 2022]

The dumbest thing ever committed to film/hard drive space/whatever. The very definition of pretentiousness. Completely ridiculous and meaningless waste of time posing as abstract art.

Dashcam (I) (2021)

The most irritating main character of all-time

[2/10 · 4 June 2022]

Let's start with the good: the special effects are really impressive.

The bad: literally everything else. This was EXCRUCIATING to get through due to the horrifically annoying main character. My god, what a terrible character. Also, I know you have to suspend belief especially in found footage horror, but there's absolutely no way her devices would have kept working, let alone stay open in the same app, after being smashed, dropped, thrown, and submerged in water.

The Cellar (2022)

Not Ti West horror. Thankfully.

[7/10 · 14 April 2022]

There's a YouTube short film with a extremely similar plot and I do not know if this film is by the people who made that. But I do like what was done with the concept here, even the elaboration kind of takes away from the creepiness of the original. That being said, if you make it past "mopey teenage girl hates the new house" cliche in the beginning, you'll find an engaging, satisfactory film here.

The buzz this week is Ti West's 'X' and if you like his style of build-up-to-nothing-and-movie-over horror, you should watch that. However if internet hype machines have no effect on you and you want a surprisingly solid horror flick with genuine chills, watch this.

Umma (2022)

Generic and disappointing

[4/10 · 9 April 2022]

First the pluses: it's well-shot and well-acted. And I like seeing more non-white leads in well-produced horror films. However, this was a miss. Generic story, generic scares. See that shadow in the corner? You already know when the character looks closer, it's gonna be gone. You see every scare coming and you immediately know exactly how it's gonna play out. And the CGI Nine-Tails looks more like Tails from Sonic then some menacing creature. It looked so bad and it wasn't even unnecessary for the plot, like, at all.

It's one thing to try something new and fail, but this didn't even try. There was absolutely no attempt to make this stand out in any way, shape, and form. It's a well-made Lifetime horror.

Severance (2022– )

Are y'all serious?

[1/10 · 18 February 2022]

Critics and apparently audiences are raving about this show and for the life of me, I can't see why. The premise is cool. But once you get past that, which doesn't take long to do, there's nothing else there. This show is so boring, so drab. It's a show for pseudointellectuals about pseudointellectuals. Weird for the sake of weird. Hard pass.

Slumber Party Massacre (2021)

You'll actually like it if you're not an anti-"woke" crybaby

[8/10 · 24 October 2021]

I started this without knowing it was a Syfy original, so when I saw that logo, any hope I had, which was little, was deflated. But I stuck with it out of boredom and was pleasantly surprised. This is actually very good. Well-acted, funny, twisty, with great kills, and woke without being pandering. This is probably the best Syfy original you'll ever see.

Stickman (2017 TV Movie)

Terrible movie but lead actress is very good

[3/10 · 24 October 2021]

Your typical horrible SyFy movie (with the oh so tired "okay we have a new kid at a foster home, let's make a veteran foster kid be an absolute dick to them" trope) only redeemed by the fact that the lead actress, Hayley Law, is very captivating and definitely had a future ahead of her. I'd love to see her in a good movie or series.

Demon House (2019)

Rich white dude destroys poor black people's home

[1/10 · 11 October 2021]

This is literally the story of a rich white idiot who comes into a poor black neighborhood, buys a house that homeless people are squatting in, kicks them out, capitalizes on their mental illness, poverty, and suffering gun violence to make himself look like a some heroic demon fighter before tearing down the house that, as mentioned, desperate people had been living in. The end. I always knew Zak was a scumbag but he at least made for entertaining hatewatching. This crossed the line. He is absolutely filth.