iamkrause Reviews

Soft & Quiet (2022)

Pretty great but really stupid.

[7/10 · 18 July 2023]

I think the only people who are scared by ghost stories are people who believe ghosts exist. It's hard to take them seriously if you don't believe. The bad "guys" in this movie are such over-the-top caricatures of cliched leftist fears, it's impossible to take them seriously. The OK hand symbol? Really? Everything they did was completely stupid and totally unbelievable. This movie has never happened anywhere in the real world. But some people believe...

That being said, the execution was actually pretty great. The whole film is a single camera one-shot take. It makes it feel like the viewer is right there with the characters. I was engaged the entire time and really thought it was a fun and nasty little movie. If you can get over the one-dimensional agenda villains, and you like home invasion movies, I'll think you'll dig this.

Bitch Ass (2022)

Fun horror throwback

[7/10 · 15 October 2022]

I liked this one quite a bit. It has "Boyz in da Hood/People Under the Stairs" vibes mixed with one of those movies where people are forced to play death games. It's low budget but nice looking, and the director played around with changing aspect ratios and split screen shots to add to the mood. Some funny stuff like score cards flashing on the screen and text popping up that only the audience can see. Some might not like those gimmicks but I do.

The games themselves were all based on beloved childhood games, except with a lot of blades, nooses and electric shocks. The gore was nice and explicit, if not a little cartoony. I like cartoons so whatever.

It really explained the killer's backstory, which I enjoyed, but it had a little bit too much of that backstory than necessary. They could have added in another death game and cut out some of that stuff.

The acting was hit and miss, but what do you expect from these kind of movies?

Can't remember much about the score, which means it wasn't bad but it wasn't great. I loved the track on the end credits though.

Here's what you get with this movie. Just a fun throwback to the times when everything wasn't ghosts popping up making boo faces and loud pitch-shifter noises. If you yearn for those times, you might enjoy this one.

The Haunting of the Tower of London (2022)

Ghosts and Gore

[7/10 · 27 June 2022]

Was pleasantly surprised by this one. Kinda had a Hammer Horror vibe. It's based on the real-life murders of two princes at the Tower of London in 1483. Of course, there was never any ghost stuff going on, but the movie is a fun "what-if?"

It's your typical ghost movie, so you pretty much know what to expect, but the ghost effects are pretty good. There is also a lot of torture chamber scenes that get really brutal. I've never seen a Pear of Anguish used so effectively.

Has a nice downbeat ending where all the bad guys get what they deserve, but all the heroes die too. Ghost movies tend to bore me but this one had enough bloody violence to keep me satisfied. This isn't a 100-million-dollar production or anything but I was impressed nonetheless.

Human Factors (2021)

Das Boring

[4/10 · 18 April 2022]

Wanna watch a boring foreign film about a kinda dickish man and overly annoying woman being passive-aggressive to each other? Want the catalyst of all that to be based on a nothing burger incident? Wanna see that incident replayed over and over in a Roshomon-type structure from the perspective of the dickish man, annoying woman, AND their bland son and lame daughter? Wanna slog through all that with the style of the boring parts of a Michael Haneke film, without any of the fun violent bits, and just end up at the uninteresting nonexistent payoff? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you'll like this movie way more than I did.

Searching for Cannibal Holocaust (2021)

Decent effort.

[6/10 · 6 April 2022]

It starts off with some fake drama on the film maker's part, which turns out to be a big nothing burger, so that annoyed me.

I really liked the part where he interviewed the native actors. They said they enjoyed being in the movie and didn't feel exploited. They also said they ate all the animals killed in the movie, and back in '79 it wasn't that big of a deal. So please, everyone complaining about that stuff, just shut up.

The end got kind of lame because the film maker had a white liberal guilt moment over a native performance he saw, which was lame and annoying. It came across as weak sniveling virtue signaling, as if we don't get enough of that already.

The film presents some theories about the production of Cannibal Holocaust, which the film maker himself says he can't prove, so it was kind of pointless but still interesting.

But in general it was fun hearing from some of the old cast and seeing the beautiful locations again. It just would have been nice if the film maker could have kept his lame politics out of the film.

Dragon Knight (2022)

Drag on and on and on Knight

[3/10 · 29 March 2022]

Just pointless and dull. Bad acting, generic as hell, poorly written. I could forgive the low budget if it wasn't so bland. Boring bloodless sword fights. Every bad guy wears a mask so they could use the same 3 "stuntmen" for each fight. No passion. Didn't care about any of the characters. The end battle was larger, but by that point (long before that point actually) I didn't care. Yep, it had a dragon.

It was shot in a nice wide 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but barely had the content of a 4:3 90s Hercules TV rip-off to fill it. The score was fine.

I feel bad making fun of this movie because it was obvious that the people who made it were sincere and at least trying. But it just wasn't good. They should have made a fun Deathstalker rip-off or a simple kid's flick. Instead, it just seems like a resume placeholder made because "reasons".

The Hyperions (2022)

Super Zeros

[3/10 · 11 March 2022]

I saw the trailer and thought, "Oh, this looks fun."

I was wrong. It was really boring. I didn't care about any of the characters. The extremely limited super hero scenes were super cheap looking. I enjoyed the 70s aesthetics but that wasn't enough to carry the film. Especially considering that most of the movie took place in one room.

A lot of the reviews here feel the need to mention "The Daily Wire" being involved with this movie. That should neither be a pro nor a con. This movie sucked, and it doesn't matter who made it or why. If you like watching spoiled children complain about how much of a douche their father is (and he is), you'll love this movie. Because that's all it is. Anyone who gave this movie a 10 is lying.

Lamb (2021)

Needs more mint jelly...

[3/10 · 30 October 2021]

I was intrigued by the trailer for this movie. I wish I quit while I was ahead.

This movie was so stupid it made me physically angry. I'm slightly remiss to hide this review under the spoiler tag, because there's nothing to spoil. Nothing happens for 20 minutes, except we establish that the most boring couple in the world lives on a sheep farm that doesn't seem to have enough sheep on it to ever make enough money to be sustainable. Maybe their bumper potato crop offsets the costs, it's never explained.

20 minutes in, one of the sheep gives birth to a child with a human body with a sheep's head. We only know this because we saw the trailer, because it isn't until 40 minutes of nothing happening that we finally see the entire child. Instead of completely freaking out like normal people would do, they just take it inside and start raising it like it's their own. I don't know how much time passes in the movie, but for the audience, it seems like 937 years. The sheep-child is a toddler at this point, and the sheep who gave birth to it keeps hanging around the house. The wife gets jealous and shoots the sheep.

The husband's brother shows up to stay with the couple for a while, sees the sheep-child, and is like WTF is that thing? They tell him to shut up, and for the rest of the movie, he's just totally cool with it. About 50 more minutes of nothing happens, and the brother leaves. Then a giant naked sheep man shows up (I'm not kidding), shoots the husband with a rifle, and takes the sheep-child away. The wife cries and the movie ends.

OK. Maybe if you're from Iceland this movie will make more sense, but this is the worst thing to come out of that country since Bjork. The worse part is the sheep-child itself. It just looks so stupid. I don't mean bad CGI, I just mean stupid. There are so many scenes where they're interacting with the child, and it just cuts to this dumb, stupid-looking lamb head, and it just ruins any emotion they were trying to convey. It's absolutely comical looking, and impossible to take seriously. There are some serious themes in the movie like miscarriage and adultery, but every time they cut back to that stupid lamb face it just derails whatever point this movie was trying to make. I am shocked by the number of good reviews this movie is getting. I have to believe people are just pretending to like it so they can act like they're smart. They're not.

Antidote (I) (2021)

Not bad for what it is...

[6/10 · 5 September 2021]

Saw this yesterday. I enjoyed it. Very disturbing and claustrophobic, especially if you like medical and body horror. Made the most of its limited budget. Unfortunately for me, I heard someone compare it to another film, so I knew what was going on from the start. But if you just go in blind, I think it's a fun way to spend 90 minutes. There are some really embarrassing green-screen effects at the very end, but it didn't ruin it for me. I was more like, awwwww that's cute that they tried that. I thought the lead actress did a fine job, the main doctor was good, and I enjoyed all the weird-o patients. I think the whole production team was sincere in their desire to make an enjoyable film, and I think they were successful. It's certainly not the best thing ever, but it shouldn't make you angry either. If the trailer intrigues you, give it a shot!

Girl Next (2021)

Girl Snooze Fest

[3/10 · 13 August 2021]

I'm a simple man with simple tastes. I love me a good exploitation movie. The premise really piqued my interest. This movie was god awful.

It had some cool concepts like weird drugs and a secret organization, but it never really explained any of it. The process of brainwashing the woman was poorly executed and bland. The r@pe scenes were lackluster and uninspired. I've never seen a r@pe scene where both actors just looked bored. I know I sure was. The antagonists were amusingly over the top, but the schtick got old long before the closing credits. There are a couple of good gore scenes, but they aren't worth sitting through this movie. The lead actress was attractive, but not worth sitting through this movie. Someone gave me 1 million dollars, but it wasn't worth sitting through this movie.

I almost quit watching about an hour in. I wish I had, because there was another 42 minutes after that. This movie was a mess. This movie was boring. This movie was bad, but not in a "so bad it's good way". It was just bad. A truly horrific t0rture scene would have been if the bad guys tied up the woman and made her watch this movie.

Joe Bell (2020)

Be better

[3/10 · 13 August 2021]

This is one of those movies that deals with an important subject matter. Something that everyone involved with can pat themselves on the back and brag about how awesome they are for being a part of it. It's got award bait written all over it. But it's just not that great.

The plot device where Marky Mark talks to his dead kid's ghost is distracting and silly, and takes away any seriousness the film needed to be effective. The Marky Mark character comes across as buffoonish and completely unlikeable, making it difficult to care about his ordeal. This is based on a true story, and if the real-life guy wasn't that annoying, I think they did him a disservice.

The rest is just paint-by-the-numbers cliched dreck. Total Lifetime Movie of the Week level stuff. There are so many "you're supposed to be sad here" moments, that it resembles the way a bad horror movie relies on cheap jump scares instead of actually being scary. Throw in a few musical interludes with Marky Mark walking down a road looking haggard and pathetic, some terse wife interaction, and a splash of him still being a dick to his other kid, and ya got a movie... I guess?

The acting is fine, I blame everything on the script and direction. Marky Mark was Marky Mark, but he was fine. The actor that plays the gay kid did a good job, albeit too good perhaps. Could've dialed it down a notch, but again I blame the direction. The mom did a great job of being a mom in a movie not about the mom. The younger brother got to cry in one scene. They were all fine. Gary Sinise as the sheriff was pretty damn great.

The problem with this movie is that the people who actually need to see it will either never watch it, or make fun of it if they do. This movie will not change any hearts or minds. It's only gonna stroke the egos of the producers into thinking they did something good and important. The sad truth of the matter is that they might actually have been able to do that, IF they were more interested in the craft of effective film making, and less interested in getting back-pats from their soulless peers at parties. I lost a friend to suicide due to bullying, and this movie is an insult to his memory. I wanted to like this movie. I wanted it to be important. I wanted it to inspire.

I didn't like it. It wasn't important. It disappointed.

The Djinn (2021)

In defense of this movie

[5/10 · 18 May 2021]

If you like hard-core horror movies, this movie isn't gonna do anything for you. Don't think you're going to get anything like The Wishmaster movies. You'll be so disappointed that you'll probably leave a 1 star review here. And I can't blame you. However...

If you have young teens who like horror movies, I think they'd get a kick out of this. The movie is well shot. The child actor does a good job and isn't annoying in the way so many child actors are. I think kids between like 10-13 would probably root for him and be scared for the situation he was in. This movie is rated R, but there's hardly any blood and the violence is nothing you wouldn't see on network television. There's really no reason this should be an R rated picture. It's gonna make people think they're getting a bloodbath, and it's gonna make them mad when they don't get that. This movie has a nice downbeat "Monkey's Paw" kind of ending, which will make kids think twice the next time they try to summon a demon. It'll scare your kids, and they'll learn a lesson. Give it a try in that context.

Everyone else should avoid this movie like the plague. It was incorrectly marketed to be something it's not. But if your kids like Goosebumps and that kind of tame stuff, this should be right up their alley.

The Seventh Day (I) (2021)

The filmakers rested all seven days

[3/10 · 23 April 2021]

Full disclosure, I don't like exorcism movies. But I want to like them. I keep watching them in hopes I find one I'll like. The Seventh Day is not it. Pitch shifters? Check. Boo faces? Check. Priests saying prayers? Check. Anything new or interesting? That's a big nope. Guy Pearce sounds like the Mahk guy from Zebra Corner. His partner has the personality of a flaccid kielbasa. The possessed kid is even worse. I've heard better sounding demon voices on my 80s heavy metal records. Certain events take place in front of multiple people, and the main characters proceed to the next scene without anyone saying anything. They give away the twist 15 minutes before it happens. The twist is boring. The final showdown is uninspired weak-sauce. And then the movie ends with a set-up like it's the first episode of some cheap new streaming series. Oh, and the worse thing is that Keith David is in this movie, and they completely waste his potential. The man is a legend and deserves better. So does the audience.

There is no excuse for this movie. If people keep paying for this nonsense, the studios will keep making it. If you've never seen an exorcism movie, please don't start with this one. If you like them, please don't waste your time with this one.

I'll try to say something positive. There was one scene involving a hallway with a strobing effect that looked pretty cool. But 20 seconds of cool does not make up for the remaining 1 hour 26 minutes and 50 seconds of this steaming pile of generic excrement.

Holy Hell (2015)

I love movies like this!

[8/10 · 29 March 2020]

A couple of people here are saying that they can't believe the positive reviews this film is getting, claiming it's just friends of the director leaving them. I never heard about this movie before, but it's exactly the kind of cinematic pleasure I enjoy. (I refuse to use the term "guilty" pleasure, because only mentally ill puritans would think pleasure is something to feel guilt over.

If you like Troma movies, the early John Waters stuff, cheesy 80s action flick one-liners, and exploitative levels of violence and gore, you'll get a kick out of this one. The acting ain't perfect, the effects aren't perfect, there's no real plot. None of that matters. Billion dollar production budgets and photo-realistic effects would probably make it less entertaining. It's something out of an alternative universe. But it's so damn fun. Just turn your brain off get over yourself. No one likes that sour face you're making.

Hate Crime (2012)

Hell is other people.

[9/10 · 13 April 2013]

Hate Crime is a wonderfully nasty little gem of exploitation goodness, and a breath of fresh air for horror fans who have grown weary of all the PG-13, CGI ghost/devil spooky kid movies of the past decade. Pitch shifters, boo faces, and jump scares might startle in the moment, but Hate Crime's very real world horrors will linger long after the film ends. The brutality starts about 2 minutes in and doesn't really let up for the entirety of the picture.

Hate Crime is a "found footage" movie, and while some may argue that this premise has run it's course, it's the perfect format for a project like this. A nice Jewish family has just moved into a new neighborhood, and is recording their youngest son's birthday party when a not so nice trio of neo-Nazis invades the home to try and scare them into moving back out. An unplanned act of violence quickly escalates the situation into something that can't be undone, and all hell really starts to break loose.

What proceeds is 70 minutes of beatings, burnings, mutilations, rape, and murders... all in your face and up close thanks to the first person vantage point that the "found footage" format provides. It gives the horrors an intimacy that wouldn't be possible from a traditional narrative, and makes the viewer almost complaisant in the affairs. The victims are so completely dehumanized that by the end one becomes almost numb to their plight, until the credits roll and you're painfully reminded the extent of what's been lost. Powerful stuff.

But it's not just exploitation (and it would be fine if that's all it was), there's also a message here. Hate Crime exposes the damage that hate has on not only the victims, but the victimizers as well. It shows the futility of an ideological stance based on emotion rather than reason, and how the poisons of bigotry and xenophobia are far more harmful than the perceived threat of the targets. Nobody "wins" in this movie. There are no happy endings. Hatred destroys everything and everyone. But it's message isn't preachy, and never gets in the way of the action.

The only reason I don't rate this movie a 10 is because of the lack of total nudity. I just don't think that people who rape and kill you would let you leave your bra on. This is a minor quibble and doesn't detract from the film effectiveness, but it needs to be pointed out. At the end of the day, Hate Crime is exactly what I'm looking for in a horror movie, and rightly earns it's place among the greats of extreme cinema.

@iamkrause

Dark Water (2005)

Drowning in Boredom

[2/10 · 9 March 2007]

If I went into a store to buy a can of Mountain Dew, but when I opened the thing it turned out to contain Dr. Pepper, I'd be angry. I would never buy Dr. Pepper. If the can says "Mountain Dew" it had better damn well contain Mountain Dew. Similarly, when a studio markets a movie as being in the horror genre, I expect horror. What I got was a snail paced Lifetime movie of the week. I'm surprised that Meredith Baxter-Birney didn't play the mom in this movie.

Seriously, nothing scary or interesting happens in this movie for the first hour and fifteen minutes. NOTHING. A single mother with emotional problems moves into a crappy apartment with her daughter. Her ex-husband is a dick, she can't get over her past, and her daughter starts talking to an imaginary friend. Oh, and there's a leak in the ceiling of her apartment. It leaks water. Brown water. Super scary DARK WATER. Oh wait, it's not scary at all. It's just annoying and wet. Actually, it looks like Dr. Pepper. The mother tries to get the apartment maintenance man to fix it, but he refuses. She calls the guy's boss, and he tells her to tell him to fix it. She tells him. He tells her no. She calls the boss back and tells him that he told her he wouldn't fix it. He tells her that he'll call him himself and tell him to fix it. Meanwhile, her ex-husband is threatening to sue her for full custody of their annoying daughter. Her apartment still leaks. She still hasn't gotten over her unhappy childhood. And now she may lose her own child! Are we bored yet? Yes. Are we scared? No.

Dark Water is yet another PG-13 Hollywood remake of a Japanese "horror" movie. What this means is that the movie has little to no gore or nudity, so it has to rely on nothing but atmosphere. A woman walks into a room. There's nothing scary about the room, and nothing scary happens. But the movie lets us know we're supposed to be scared because some spooky music starts playing. The leak in the ceiling is not scary, but the movie let's us know it's supposed to be REALLY scary because not only do we get the spooky music, we also get close-ups of the spot where the water leaks. If I wanted ONLY atmosphere, I'd watch the Weather Channel.

After what seems to be an eternity, we finally find out that the woman's daughter's imaginary friend is bad. We know she's bad because spooky music starts playing whenever the little girl talks to her. It turns out that her friend is really the ghost of another little girl who died in the apartment building. Oh, did I mention that the apartment building has a big water tank on the roof? Hmmmmm, the movie is called Dark Water, there's a tank of water on the roof. Hey, is that spooky music I just heard? Yes, the body of the dead girl is found in the tank of water. Someone learned the truth behind her death, and now her spirit can finally rest. And if you didn't see that coming at least a half an hour before it happened, you must be 5 years old and have never seen a ghost movie before.

The last 10 minutes of this movie are actually quite good, but they weren't worth the first 95 minutes. Just when you think all is well, the little girl's ghost actually materializes in the flesh and tries to kill the woman's daughter. It's the only scene in the movie that's anything close to horror. To save her daughter, the woman agrees to stay with the ghost. But, in order to do that, she has to become a ghost herself, and she dies! I enjoy it when a movie kills off it's main character, and I thought it was a satisfactory twist. (Although if they'd killed her in the FIRST 5 minutes instead of the last, I could have saved myself 105 minutes to stare at a blank wall).

The movie was well acted, and the sets and color scheme provided plenty of that oh so important atmosphere. But at the end of the day, this movie is a clichéd, soporific, estrogen laden drama wrapped up in a horror coating. If that's what you're looking for, you'll love it. Real horror fans need not apply.

Oh, I almost forgot. Tim Roth pops up in this movie. That made me think about Reservoir Dogs. That was the best part of this movie.