jfost75 Reviews

Ghosts of Devil's Perch (2022– )

What is this supposed to be?

[1/10 · 30 August 2022]

In a world saturated with shows about the paranormal, this show is definitely nothing original. The premise of the show seems to be the authorities of a MT town call in a team of "paranormal investigators" to figure out the paranormal activity being experienced (pretty much in queue) by the residents.

What's unclear is whether this is supposed to be a scripted show? The way the cast speaks, along with the almost on-demand appearance of activity feels more like a B-movie than an actual paranormal investigation.

For those familiar with paranormal shows, the cast is familiar, however the (bad) acting makes this entire endeavor feel like a "mockumentary"

Conjuring Kesha: Not Today, Satan (2022) Season 1, Episode 1

Please NO!

[1/10 · 9 July 2022]

If someone had offered to pay me a million dollars to come up with the most ridiculous way to make Ke$ha look even more ridiculous, never in a million years would I have come up with something as awful and stupid as this show. Trashy pop "star" Ke$ha decides to take a camcorder she bought at a goodwill and, dressed as a homeless drug addict, go hunt for ghosts. Doesn't sound pathetic enough? How about teaming her up with comedian-wannabe Whitney Cummings, a bargain-bin Sarah Silverman.

Looking completely unwashed, it's no surprise the two "entertainers" are at an abandoned prison, since that's about the only gig either of these two could book these days.

If you truly do not like yourself and wish to deliberately cause yourself suffering, then this is the show for you!

SX_Tape (2013)

Please stop finding these "found footage" movies

[1/10 · 6 April 2022]

I ran across this movie on one of those Amazon Prime deep dives, first red flag, those never work out.

What I got was a paint by numbers FF horror flick that offered nothing by way of plot or originality.

This movie is about two 20-something whites kids who decide to poke about in an abandoned hospital l, with the occasional break to fill them having sex.

My best interpretation is that the gf gets possessed by the crazy horny ghost girl after she is left strapped fo a bed for and indeterminate length of time.

They escape the hospital, just to immediately go back in when their friends arrive to give them a ride.

Blah blah blah, possessed gf has sex with her friends bf, engages in a little theeesome action then goes on murder spree until the final smash cut to her ripping off some guys unit in a bj gone horribly, HORRIBLY wrong!!!

This movie was a waste of my life, don't let it waste yours!!

Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed (2022)

As if we didn't already know...

[4/10 · 29 March 2022]

This documentary was about the mega church Hillsong. The entire documentary seem to focus around the fact that the church exploits its members for money and personal gain while the heads of the church behave in a completely unchristian manner. This is not new information! I assumed everyone on earth knew that these type of organizations were all about the money... I don't mean to sound anti-religious, but I am strongly opposed to these massive, cult-like organizations.

I found most of the testimonials in this documentary to be a bit whiny. Perhaps I was being too judgmental of them for being so naive , especially after having so many examples of where these large religious organizations abuse their authority over the parishioners. All things being equal, this want a bad series but don't expect any sort of conclusion. It's essentially 3 hours of ppl talking about being duped by con men in the name of god...

After Chernobyl (I) (2021)

Absolute trash

[1/10 · 25 March 2022]

Without the benefit of a script or any filmmaking knowledge, I could have grabbed 3 random stranger's and an iPhone and made a better movie.

At its core, this was essentially another "found footage" movie about a group of friends who wander into the woods and run afoul of ghosts. In this case, through a series of bad choices they've wind up in the abandoned city of Pripyat, where they encounter a predictable combination of ghosts and predictable jump scares.

The writers but absolutely no thought into the script and it shows throughout. For example, "Kate" tells her bf she's pregnant and 5 min later she's chugging bourbon... This was bad bad bad...in fact, it would have to get better just to be "bad". I despise this movie and it makes me wish I'd made different choices in life...

Halloween Kills (2021)

Not my most favorite thing

[1/10 · 18 March 2022]

Admittedly, I watched this out of morbid curiosity. That being said, I feel as though choosing ANYTHING else would have been a better use of my time. For the first 20 or so minutes, I felt As though I'd accidentally entered the movie halfway thru. The "storyline" is sporadic at best. One thing that really bothered me, when did MM learn how to drive a car? He's been institutionalized for most his life, so.... (Spoiler alert, he did crash into a wall almost immediately, so maybe he didn't learn after all) All things being equal, this felt like a bunch of Hollywood writers sat down to a pitch meeting without any preparation and threw this idea out there in a desperate attempt to keep their jobs. If I knew then what I know now, I definitely would have passed on this one...

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Let well-enough alone!

[3/10 · 18 February 2022]

I've never understood the need to repeatedly remake or reinvent this movie. I can't exactly be sure how many times this story has been retold, with the remakes, "sequels" and not to mention every movie Rob Zombie has ever made, this story is just played out. This movie contributed absolutely nothing to the franchise and even less to the horror genre. If anything, it just encourages millennials to stay in their parents basement to avoid being slaughtered by a psycho with a chainsaw...

Antlers (2021)

Mediocre at best

[3/10 · 17 February 2022]

In my opinion, anything Del Torro is attached to means it will be inherently odd and this was no exception.

In a nutshell, this is a movie about a wendigo, essentially a lame version of a werewolf. The movie is about an elementary teacher in a small, drug riddled town. The teacher takes notice of one child in particular who she fears may be suffering abuse at home. Having been abused as a child herself, the teacher sets out to "save" the boy from his situation. What she finds is that the small boy has been acting as keeper to his father and younger brother, both whom are infected with...the wendigo "spirit"? They never really explain how this came to be, just basically the kid keeps them locked in the attic and feeds them small animals that he traps.

Unless you've never seen a horror movie, you can pretty much guess what happens. The movie makes NO attempts to be original in any way.

While the movie has decent acting and better-than-syfy special effects, the overall story was lackluster at best. It's worth a watch if you've nothing else to do, but I doubt I'd recommend it to friends.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Couldn't have been better!

[10/10 · 2 February 2022]

It felt like this movie came out right as a lot of other bio pics for bands of that era, however this movie was by far the best representation of an iconic group. As a child of the mid 70s, I wasn't old enough to really appreciate how Queen essentially changed the course of rock music but now as a grown man I understand that these guys redefined music. The sounds, the constant desire to create something completely new and even the flamboyant behaviors, this band represented art and to see the way these actors brought that to life in a way that I don't know anyone else could have. This was a phenomenal movie, full of superb acting and an engaging script. I don't hand out 10 stars hardly ever, but if BR didn't deserve a 10, I don't know who could.

The Haunting of Helena (2012)

Same old story

[2/10 · 22 January 2022]

This was one of those films where I watched it out of boredom, knowing full well that it would likely be awful.

Firstly, the "ghost" consisted basically of a small creepy child dressed like a doll and a beautiful lady in makeup. I couldn't pretend to be scared because I kept thinking how hot the ghost lady was... The premise, a single mom moved into a haunted...apartment? House? They referred to it as a house but it seemed to be more of an apartment, haunted by the spirit of some hot Italian lady whose husband pulled out all her teeth and locked her in a wardrobe to die. The young daughter begins to communicate with the spirit and starts acting peculiar, doing things such as gathering her classmate's teeth to give to the "tooth fairy".

Been battling with her douche ex husband (who dresses like a wannabe 25 ur old GQ model) and dealing with her daughter's odd behavior, the single mom (who was VERY loosely portrayed as some sort of professor) unravels the story of this haunting and seeks to free her daughter from the hot Italian ghost lady's thrall and find the hottie Italian ghost lady's teeth so she'll go away.

I won't say this was the worst film I'd ever seen but it certainly wasn't good. Was the apartment haunted or the wardrobe? What was with the little ghost children? Why did every Italian person speak English like a Norwegian? These are questions that will haunt me, at least until I finish writing this review and put this movie completely out of my mind.

For the actors, it was a paying job, so I understand why they did it, but for the rest of us this was just an absolute waste of time. I appreciate the Italian's attempt to make an English-speaking horror movie, but it just wasn't good enough to ever recommend watching.

The Exorcism in Amarillo (2020)

You can do better...

[1/10 · 7 January 2022]

This was definitely a floater of a movie. Something tells me the people who ranted on about it being a good "Christian " film are also Qanon believers and own a little red trucker hat...because this movie was absolute garbage. The kids were actually the best actors in the entire film.

I would have much preferred to watch a cheesy documentary on this supposed "true story" than to have suffered the terrible acting, non existent plot and the awful awful music.

Why o why did they force steroid Matt Damon from "Stillwater" to read a book on camera? There's a reason this movie only has 2 stars in prime...because you can't give negative stars.

Hellbox (2021)

This...Was...Bad...

[1/10 · 7 January 2022]

When you're a fan of the horror genre you come to expect a level of cheesy that is unique to that genre, however for me this movie had a plot that was just too much of a homemade Hellraiser ripoff to even consider it original.

In a nutshell, there's a box, no one knows what's in it nor do we ever get to see the contents. However it is safe to assume that the contents are somethings straight out of hell.

The movie begins with a few knights Templar escorting the box to some far reaches of the planet to hide it. Jump too modern day where some substitute teacher finds the box while cleaning out his dead brothers house...(half-brother) I can only assume that the protagonist had committed suicide after being involved in a scandal between him and a student, and everything thereafter was some scenario played out specifically for him in hell???

In the end, I felt dumber for having wasted the hour of my life watching it, so if you value your time at all, stay away!

The Whole Truth (2021)

It's the visual equivalent of a root canal

[1/10 · 25 December 2021]

Painfully long and an exceptionally weak story line. If you don't want any spoilers, stop reading now.

The single mother of two teenagers (a boy and a girl) gets into a car accident and ends up comatose. The kids are sent to stay with their estranged grandparents, a retired policeman and his senile wife. The kids discover a hole in the wall where they begin to hear bizarre sounds and looking thru the hole appears to look into some ghost dimension with the obligatory scary Asian ghost girl.

Blah blah blah, fast forward 15 years, we learn there was another sibling, a few years older, who was being babysat by her drunken father when she decided to drink a bottle of rat poison (kept conveniently low and accessible by the grandmother). The drunken father "commits suicide" with the grandfathers gun... It's all very predictable, in fact the only twist was that the grandmother was actually the one poisoning the dead daughter (and later, her brother.. for whatever reason). All the reviews that talk about this movie being too long were spot on, this movie could have made a 30min short and still accomplished everything it set out to do. NOT a great foreign horror film.

We Need to Do Something (2021)

Do ANYTHING else with your time

[1/10 · 21 December 2021]

This was one of the biggest disappointments I've had in years. A family gets trapped in a bathroom after a storm and you're not sure if it's the apocalypse or they're just having a really bad week. Either way it was a poorly written, poorly acted piece of cinematic garbage with an ending that leaves you hating yourself just a little more for watching it.

Imagine "This is the end" except without the comedy, the decent actors, and filmed entirely inside a bathroom set from The Golden Girls and that was this movie. There's no "maybe it's not so bad" here, this was, without question, an absolute waste of my time.

Paradise Cove (2021)

Nightmare bay

[1/10 · 5 December 2021]

The most intriguing thing about this movie was that it was SO awful that it borderlines on comical. The acting was on par with a poorly produced lifetime movie, and that was the best part... An emotionally abusive couple moves in to an I'll-gotten beach house with the intention of flipping the property (with the help of their pothead contractor, Griff, who is only good for pretending to get high. The couples plans are put on hold when they discover a mentally I'll homeless woman living beneath the home. Chaos ensues as the couple attempts to flip the property, have a child over the age of 40, all while being thwarted at every turn by "Bree" the psychotic squatter.

This movie has absolutely no redeeming value. Trust ur instincts, pass in this one.

After the Dark (2013)

Waste of 2hrs

[2/10 · 9 November 2021]

This was a group of decent actors in a poorly written film. What the summary doesn't tell you is that the entire movie is just one big hypothetical exercise. It's just a group of philosophy students waxing about what they do of they had to pick 10 people had to be chosen to survive in a bunker.

Follow Me (2020)

Straight to video cliche garbage...

[3/10 · 18 January 2021]

Any time a movie has more than 1 title on IMDB, that should be a red flag. This movie is no exception. A typical mixed group of young adults..."Cole Turner" (the blonde guy with a black guy BFF, cliche' much?) travels to Moscow to film content for the aforementioned blonde guy's vlog (still not clear on exactly what he did...extreme sports? Travel vlog? The director was never clear) They travel to Moscow and promptly get into a scuffle with a couple of bald Russian bad guys. The entire film plays on the same tired story of ignorant Americans traveling abroad in a land full of creepy foreigners who want to do bad things to them. It's exactly like other users have said, it's a remake of Saw, Hotel, etc... None of the actors in the film are recognizable, that's also always a bad sign. The scruffy blonde host is going to a mysterious place, to experience something that he has no knowledge about. He mentions that it's an Escape Room, but otherwise there's actually no explanation of exactly what it's supposed to be. Apparently all his friends know, but refuse to give him any clue (yet a few of them seem to know it's NOT good). His BFF and his (GF? Maybe?) behave as though he's going to be executed. Finally, he gets to the secret location, where his cliche Russian guide feeds us some story about a prisoner and how Cole must escape and release his friends before the timer runs out and his friends are executed. The entire film is basically SAW, with a little Escape Room and COUNTLESS "I'm a social media personality" thrown in. There is NOTHING new or original about this film. It's a straight-to-Hulu movie, which already tells you it's gonna suck., but out of desperation you watch it anyway (and then hate yourself, because you knew it was gonna be bad). So long as you go into this expecting it to suck, it'll be okay. But if you expect it to actually be a decent movie, you will be sorely disappointed.

Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020 Video)

Exactly as bad as expected

[5/10 · 20 October 2020]

As much as I thought this was an awful, awful movie, it's nice to be reminded there's still a place for D-list actors to still find work. Honestly, almost everyone who watches this movie will do so out of boredom or out of loyalty to the cheesy franchise. The movie itself has all of the production quality of a made for soft tv movie. CG monsters, less than good acting, and a cheesy script that can almost guarantee eye rolls. If you're hoping for a good monster flick, you're outta luck. But if you've got nothing else going on in your life, why not?

The First 48 Presents: Homicide Squad Atlanta (2019– )

Over produced

[7/10 · 19 October 2020]

I'm definitely a fan of First 48 and was excited to see more from the crew in ATL, however this felt overly produced, with long, babbling monologues from the detectives meant to make them seem more like warrior poets. It's strange to say, but I also felt that the more studio-quality camera and editing work made the entire experience feel less real and more like an episode of L&O.

Unfriended (2014)

Byeeee

[3/10 · 16 October 2020]

If I had a time machine, I'd go back and and stop this movie from ever being created... With are "chonies"? And why are they constantly saying "Byeee"? Its supposed to be a horror film but comes off more like a poorly rehearsed group of white kids with crappy internet connections.

Social Distance (2020)

Millenial BS

[4/10 · 16 October 2020]

Wasnt quite sure what to expect but due to Netflix complete lack of anything new and interesting in English, I decided to watch this collection of episodes shot from the perspective of video chat software. Each episode is designed (supposedly) tondeal with different struggles people are facing in America during the COVID pandemic (solitude, employment, racism, etc...) but in the end it comes off largely like a pile of millenial bulls**t. The first episode is about a man quarantined in his apartment, struggling to deal with his recovery from substance abuse, the loss of his relationship, and his business (which has been shut down due to pandemic). The second episode, which I found somewhat funny due to the excellent casting choice, was about a family holding an online memorial for the death of their father. This was probably the only truly entertaining episode in the bunch. Subsequent episodes included the relationship issues of a gay couple trapped together in quarantine, a single mom working without childcare, an elderly couple in retirement, a young Asian gamer girl and her online crush, and a young man trying to determine his responsibilities to the BLM movement. The majority of the series felt entirely self serving and pandering to every cliche the writers could muster. TV should be entertaining and news should be informative...currently it seems the other way around, with news looking to grab attention, regardless the consequences and TV trying so desperately to be relevant by attempting (and failing) to address the state of modern life. Anyone not fairly well versed in modern SJW speak will likely be as confused as "Uncle Tony" as a large chunk of the show is dedicated to issues and situations only relevant to tweens and millennials who spend the majority of their lives behind a screen. What was the point? Other than making my eyes roll at all the "OMG" moments? The last few episodes were particularly awful, where Netflix attempted its hand at addressing racism. We should all try to remember that TV (including the news) benefits more from stirring the pot and trying to create a cagematch, rather than addressing such issues intelligently and with passion and understanding. Bottom line, this show passed the time for a few hours but ultimately didn't benefit my life in any way whatsoever.

The Black Water Vampire (2014)

Just because you CAN make a movie, doesn't mean you SHOULD

[1/10 · 14 October 2020]

This movie is what happens when movie makers become so invested in their own work that they can't see how bad it is. The camera work is nauseatingly awful, the script was written by a child and the sound work was full of cross talk. The story is about your typical dingleberry brunette who hires a few "professional" filmmakers to film a documentary about FOUR murders in her hometown area (where no one knows her) over FORTY years (not exactly a murder spree). I couldn't decide if her motivation was to solve the killings or to prove the man on death row didn't do the killings. Btw, he was barely 40 himself, so unless he was killing and an embryo... This was definitely a poor man's Blair Witch, with the addition of an extra cast member. They even went so far as to make a big deal about a paper map! Who uses those anymore?? The writer of this "movie" didn't waste any energy on trying to be original...or on camera work, or anything else. The only thing this movie offers the viewer is motion sickness and the chance to completelyan waste an hour of their lives.

Bigfoot Girl (2019 Video)

Where was bigfoot girl?

[1/10 · 14 October 2020]

I agree with all the other reviews, this was a waste of time. Primarily, it was footage of a middle aged hipster self proclaimed psychic talking about everything except bigfoot and a buddy native American man rambling on and on like he hasn't had human contact in years. The funniest thing was how "bigfoot girl" (poorly chosen title) is never seen IN the actual woods. She rides the ferry in, then is seen walking in her little hooded sweater (no gear) and then the rest of the film is about some blonde girl named Ashley. Seemed pretty obvious that Kiara didn't actually bother to hike into the woods. This was beyond bad and offers nothing entertaining.

Knock Knock Ghost (2014– )

Waaaaay too Canadian

[1/10 · 13 October 2020]

Props for trying to NOT do the same old ghost show, however the cast of this show was far too gay and FAR too Canadian for my taste. Maybe it was the constant pronunciation of the word "out" by Canadians, but I couldn't endure this show for long. Apparently I'm not alone, as it didn't last

The Selling (2011)

Disappointing...

[3/10 · 13 October 2020]

The trailer for this made me think perhaps it would be a good horror comedy, however the actual viewing of the movie was everything but good. The plot is about a loser guy buys a haunted house in Hope's of flipping it to help his sick mother. In the process, he is helped by his self centered friend and a goofy waitress/self proclaimed ghost advocate. The acting was "meh" at best, the scares were neither scary or funny. I found my mind wandering a LOT during this film and I can't recall it ever actually making me laugh. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone, not even someone I disliked...