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Reviews
It Chapter Two (2019)
An absolute train wreck
This movie manages to do something few can through its failures it manages to highlight everything wrong with the first film and cheapens what worked. The only positive is stephen kings self deprecating cameo, wich is made extra funny when the joke that his books struggle with endings is placed in this film that is an absolute failure of a ending and an abomination of an adaptation. Literally every change but one (and if you know the book you know what i mean) is for the worst and turns the whole effort of these two films into a bad joke a party clown would tell. Between the injected humor, softened and simplified pennywise appearances, the rearranging of characters traits and terrible uncanny deaging of the child actors this movie should be shown to the director on a loop that he can not look away from until he promises to take a reading comprehension class and to never direct another film again.
Road House (2024)
Way more fun that it has any right to be!
Not so much a remake as a much as an homage or spiritual sequel this movie is just big stupid fun full of well edited fight and action sequences, a fun crew of supporting characters and a chraming and ass kicking performance from jake gyllanhal. My only real complaint would be the obnoxious overuse of conor mcgreggor who can not act but to some extent that works because once he showed up all i wanted was to see him die. Dont watch this expecting a serious movie because its a road house movie and like the first film its just silly violent fun that hits all the beats of a classic 80s popcorn munching action film.
Malum (2023)
This re make Somehow seems hindered by having a bigger budget
While the first version of this film "Last Shift" was one of the few horror films ive seen recently that truly freaked me out with its claustrophobic atmosphere and unexplained strangeness and mysteries. The original film had fantastic performances and a narrative that punched above its weight class through a pretty incredible economic use of exposition, a raw unnatural lighting design that looks the way a solitary late shift feels. Its shallow compositions use oppressive darkness at their edges to make that shadows feel infinite and dangerous and great sound mixing. Here we get a bigger budget remake from the same director but he sadly deploys the extra money in all the wrong places and commits the way to common crime in remakes of over explaining things and adding unnecessary details. The leads performance is solid but thats it. If the description of the movie interest you i cant recommend the original film more and i hope that the director is able to find a new story to tell that is exciting as this one was the first time around.
Dead Ring (2016)
magically awful
Holy hell this movie is magically awful!
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2017
This is epically terrible, like tommy wasso the room only minus the humor and charm. It feels like a group of talentless but passionate wierdos in an apartment complex decided to get together and make it happen. "Well make the next Edward scissor hands" one said. "Yeah but lets make it just wholly unwatchable and lacking in any solid internal logic" another said. "Wait, we can use the worst makeup effects ever right?" Said a third. " can we? Oh man its gonna be great, ive got a twelve year old who just got a makeup kit and has no idea how to use it." Said the first with a smile. The rag tag crew gathered all the worst actors from their apartment building and they were off. Who needs a decent cinematographer or art director, or make up artist, or actors or costume designers or writers or a director.
Secret Invasion: Resurrection (2023)
Maybe it will get good?
So far not much is particularly interesting intriguing or original, sam jackson is always fun to watch and the performances are generally pretty good but so far the set up is pretty dumb and trope heavy. Hopefully we will get more skrulls in their true form as those makeup designs are fantastic and im definitely interested to hear their reasoning behind skrulls not impersonating super powered individuals that have the publics confidence and access to all kinds of tech and govt bodies. The comic story hit a lot harder but they haven't filled out their universe enough to tell that story so whatever. Heres hoping this gets more interesting and narratively complex as it goes.
Lowlife (2017)
Appropriate title
No ones hands are clean in this twisted little tale of strange people who get brushed off by society and struggle to exist on the fringes while being prayed upon by the worst of said society. A surprisingly well made and bizarre film with an aesthetic that captures the feel of the darker corners of Southern California through fantastic cinematography on what i imagine was a shoestring budget in a way that few films manage. The movie is a bit of a downer to say the least but that makes sense for a movie reflecting reality through a surreal circus mirror. Im Glad I stumbled upon this one and decided to give it a chance.
Black Adam (2022)
The jsa is great....
...and maybe With a different script, a more sure hand at the wheel and a willingness from the rock to fully embrace the chance to play adam as a monster it maybe would have been good.... I genuinely think the casting is inspired for most characters, and you can see the ghost of what could have been a truly great performance by mr johnson but sadly the direction fails to make anything out of it. I have to assume this was constructed by committee and as such dont want to put all the blame for the failures on any one part of the production team but the final product never amounts to more than the some of its parts and each of those parts feels like it was pulled from a different movie. In the end the parts that work keep it watchable if you turn your brain off and dont listen to like 90 percent of the dialogue.
Batman Beyond (1999)
If you always thought batman needed powers this show is for you.
If instead what you enjoy about the batman is human flaws being overcome through sheer determination and will, genuine pathos, villians with equally involved and developed motives to the hero, or detective stories then keep moving because this show is trash meant to turn batman into spiderman.
Shriekshow (2022)
I just kept imagining what restaurant these people must work at together
Magically unnatural dialogue, nothing that could be described as acting and genuinely impressively derivative plots....amazingly entertaining in all its awful glory! Also the cinematographer has an excellent sense of color and framing that i thoroughly enjoyed.
Nope (2022)
The haters are just wrong:(
If you are just expecting very surface horror or something super obvious or you somhow didnt enjoy "us" i can imagine you didnt like this but if you enjoy gorgeous movies that leave you thinking and make your skin crawl for long after your initial viewing then you MUST see this. This says about as much about audiences, cinema history, and being a viewer as any film i can think of. I suspect most who didnt enjoy this would like it more after a second viewing but who knows or cares, its fantastic!!!!
Ms. Marvel (2022)
A fun take that is missing a key component
The first episode of the show does a lot right, kamala is fun and likeable, her supporting characters all feel like the ones we know from the comic and its use of animation and fandom is fantastic...the only problem and its a big one is this, by changing kamalas powers in an attempt to make her more cosmic focused they have removed the most endearing subplot of her first comics run, that being the struggle with identity and the way she views what a hero is through her use of changing her appeared to make herself more of a traditional hero figure. Their is also the issue that by removing her connection to the inhumans (especially after their excellent reintroduction through multiverse of madness) they have removed her struggle of feeling like an outsider two times over as both a muslim teen and also an inhuman. I hope the show can keep from slipping into generic mcu storytelling but im pretty worried after these massive changes.
Eight for Silver (2021)
An excellent horror period piece
The film oozes style similar to hammer horror and at times the universal classics building an atmosphere that is both gorgeous and horrifying, and plays with its monster myth in a fun and interesting way. There is an attempt at a mystery or twist that falls absolutely flat but the core of this story and direction is so stellar that its short comings barely register.
Behind the Sightings (2021)
A bunch of halloween store clown costumes, and terrible masks do not a movie make.
Its pretty funny I definitely had a good time and more than a few laughs watching it. Just so bad. So so so bad. Between the store bought rubber masks and halloween store clown costumes and I'm assuming complete lack of a script kills the horror elements. There is some nice photography the cinematographer/director of photography got some nice shots out of suboptimal circumstances but damn this movie is rough.
Chompy & the Girls (2021)
Great right up untill the end
A strange and fun low budget effort with a funny script and some solid performances from the two leads is really let down by a terrible ending.
The Manor (2021)
Solid performances from a great cast and solid plotting
This is an efficient little spooky tale with some solid performances from a solid cast of veteran professionals. Sadly while the story is solid the actual script feels a bit rough. The movie is competently shot but lacks any real sense of style or atmosphere leaving its bones as a streaming services return to the cable anthology series of old exposed. The filmakers seem to recognize this when they make self aware reference to their project's progenitors with the appearance of john carpenters "body bags" (it self a failed pilot for a tales from the crypt rival released as a film ) but that doesn't excuse the boring visual elements and amateurish editing that leave this a solid but mediocre campfire storie.
The Forever Purge (2021)
It had some potential but nope.
The dumbest in the series. The actors all do their best with what they are given but the script feels like it was written by a bot that is somehow drunk on redwine. There is some nice camera work and a few tense moments but it just never quite works. Its a shame to see the talents of the cast and cinematographer wasted on such an awful script some weak editing and laughably cheap sets and locations. This was someones tax write off.
American Horror Stories (2021)
Just plain awful:(
As of writing this only the first three episodes have aired but i can definitively say this show thus far features some of the most painfully bad acting. The performers are either emotionally flat in a way normally reserved for school plays starring kids who think they are being subtle by not emoting, or the performers seem like have escaped an off broadway productions of hello dolly. Its disappointing because several cast members have shown themselves to be astoundingly talented in other productions which brings us to another embarrassing failure: the writing is a joke undoubtedly explaining some of the performances. If you want a sample of the quality of writing on this show i would suggest you go over to creepy pasta, find a low rated story, preferably a 13yr olds first attempt and just bask in the type of shallow profundity and unaware dependence on tired contemporary tropes...ill say this for it though Adrienne Barbeau is in episode three and thats enough for a watch.
Nomads (1986)
Can you say "Bad acting"?
Wow....just wow. This movie is just plain bad. I cant understand the positive reviews here as the acting is so bad it makes this film nearly unwatchable, the female lead plays it like a soap, pierce brosnans accent is cringe inducing and the story is just plain dumb. The movie has a couple cool moments but they arent worth the investment of your time. Watch something else.
Snatchers (2019)
You would have to be an idiot not to enjoy this stupidity
This movie is insane, and i love it. This is Easily one of the silliest most entertaining horror comedies in the last few years. Between the fun of watching victims pretending to be puppeteered by a puppet of an alien, the over the top gore effects, or kinetic dialogue and perfect comedic timing pulled together with some great direction and editing this film is a blast. So get some friends get your heads in the right space and enjoy this magically silly nightmare!
Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
What are u trying to say?!?!
Its all so pointless, like nihlism the movie but with a general "racism is bad But understandable" bs "subtext" its just wanna be grindhouse with none of the charm of its influences.
Locke & Key (2020)
I was sooooo excited!:(
To start with the positives, the actors all turn in commendable performances and the visuals effects and production are solid for the most part, what knocks this down so far for me is the unnecessary changes to the nearly perfect narrative structure of the source material resulting in a complete neutering of the multilevel horror that should be. Then there are changes that while they may seem rather minor wind up causing a domino effect that kills The themes of each characters stories leaving us with something like WB teen soap opera made by someone who flipped through an issue or two of locke and key and maybe read a cliff notes synopsis but had no understanding of the power of the story they were altering. The attempts at little witty changes like the name of the town from lovecraft Massachusetts to another horror author whose work is far less relevant but more palatable to modern audiences.
P.s. do people really not realize that just because the main characters of a story are children doesnt mean the story is for or should be altered for children. Give us a locke and key adaptation with teeth as sharp as the comic or take your weak sauce home.
Gags The Clown (2018)
Its worth it for a couple truly shining moments
I want to start with some praise for gags. For what seems like a no budget horror passion project/corman esq market share grab, probably shot and assembled rather hastily, this film has some truly shining moments of inventiveness that give some really great creepy imagery (particularly an amazing shot involving a cloud of talc and a man standing like carpenters shape overwhelming the frame with mennace). Had this script had a few more eyes to help streamline and focus the narrative and iron out the kinks in the dialogue (puke and rally?...dude its "boot and rally" unless they are supposed to be fully Canadians and not Americans....) that throw otherwise good scenes a challenge for the performers to try to push through. Honestly its a fun watch if you like schlocky horror but it has moments of potential greatness and i imagine this director and his team have some really awesome pictures in them!
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
The best since T2 (thats not saying much but still)
This movie takes what worked before and pushes the idea just the tiniest bit farther, it has some truly awesome action set pieces and fight choreography and linda Hamilton brings it. Its too funny seeing all the reviews on here crying like delicate snowflakes about how wokeness ruined terminator or some ruined my boys go boom movie" the best part of this of course is that both the first terminator and the second even more so were very clear in adressing social issues of their moment look up what cameron said about the rodney king beating affecting terminator two and the inescapable image of violent untrustworthy police.
Go Ask Alice (1973)
An unintentionally hilarious piece of propaganda that is 100% fictional
This "movie" (afterschool special) is a Hilarious attempt at a scare film that can only be compared to something like refer madness in its sheer insanity. At the time this was released it fooled an embarrassing number of Americans into thinking it was based on a true story while in reality it is 100% fictional created in attempt to add fuel to the fear that powered the war on drugs. If you want something to chuckle at give this a watch but be sure to recognize that this is nothing like any kind reality that ever existed. Ps this would probably be a hoot if you were to partake in some herbal refreshment beforehand
Go Ask Alice (1973)
An unintentionally hilarious piece of propaganda that is 100% fictional
This "movie" (afterschool special) is a Hilarious attempt at a scare film that can only be compared to something like refer madness in its sheer insanity. At the time this was released it fooled an embarrassing number of Americans into thinking it was based on a true story while in reality it is 100% fictional created in attempt to add fuel to the fear that powered the war on drugs. If you want something to chuckle at give this a watch but be sure to recognize that this is nothing like any kind reality that ever existed. Ps this would probably be a hoot if you were to partake in some herbal refreshment beforehand