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jchavero93
Reviews
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023)
Too much drama with no monsters
So I've been keeping up with the series weekly and have been a big fan of godzilla and the other titans and kaiju. I was super excited to see this series and see how they might transfer some of the huge destruction, monsters, and elements into a series. Visually it is pretty cool looking in my opinion. Some interesting titan designs and vast location shots. But that's basically where anything good really stops. While the acting is ok, the series is really just kind of boring. There is way more human drama than is necessary, while very little shots or scenes of titans. I think most people expect it to be a big summer blockbuster series and find a family and relationship drama series instead. It's like if you made a Michael Bay Transformers movie but took out most of the Transformers and action scenes.
The Field Guide to Evil (2018)
An imaginative idea cut short by the actual movie
The idea of this film is actually pretty interesting. With short horror, almost vignettes, from all around the world and culture specific tales and creatures. But that's about all that ended up good here. All the short stories were not scary in the least. With most being weird or gross at best. It was as if it was a bad art film combined with a bad horror film. It is very "artistic" interesting direction of the scenes and acting, but at the same time the acting is terrible and like a film school project while having slightly above the worst special effects. The film will really test your patience. Some of the stories really made me want to fast forward through parts of them and i needed to begrudgingly check a few times how much longer was left in the film. As an anthology, I felt that there were either too many stories in general or possibly it could have been split into multiple films, like other anthologies. Overall I think that the idea was interesting, but it went way too far into the artsy imaginative type of role and wasn't able to secure the horror it set out for, nor even the general interest from people looking for something to watch.
Blood Shed (2013)
An positive tone hampered by many negatives
Blood Shed was plainly not a great movie. It was confusing and left multiple plot holes. While it was an indie, B-movie horror movie, it had really bad acting, mediocre at best special effects, plot holes, and just generally confusing storyline and character motivations and choices. The story is not even really explained until halfway through the movie and then it throws everything at you and explains the basic plot. The "supernatural" enemy is also slightly confusing as she has both some kind of magic, but also has to use tunnels and can not go through closed doors for some reason. Almost as if the writers were not sure if she was supernatural or if she was a physical being. There are also characters randomly barely introduced that never come up again, just disappear for the rest of the movie, or never even have any relevance what so ever. While I have seen worse in cheap indie movies, this film had some of the feeling and tone of a decent horror movie but had a lot of negatives that it just never overcame.
Cannibals and Carpet Fitters (2017)
A boring Job with an unexpected turn.
I stumbled upon this movie while looking through a random list of b-movie horror movies and just had to give it a watch based off of the title alone. It honestly turned out to be great fun and I would definitely recommend others to see it. The title pretty much gives you the whole plot and more or less everything you wanted to know about the film, but when I started the film I had a completely different idea and was wondering if it might have been mislabeled or that I didn't understand what carpet fitting had to do with some random campers. But it relatively quickly jumped into what it is at it's core, a British horror comedy, after a pretty good jumpscare to end the beginning sequence. It does have some admittedly dumb humor throughout, but I felt it juxtaposed well with some enjoyable action scenes that were pretty well done considering it wasn't some movie with A-list actors or big budget. There were a couple plot hole questions that I had in the end, but they weren't that important as this film is more of a turn your brain off and just enjoy type of movie. While I was a bit sad with how the ending played out, I thought it was an interesting, and a bit funny, addition to the story that I was a bit confused at with how the genetics worked. I thought the plot, acting, stunts, and effects were all done well. Though the audio seemed mixed a bit weirdly, where the actors spoke somewhat quieter than any other sound in the scenes. This is definitely a great movie for anyone who likes horror comedies or any B-movie horror and slasher flicks.
Leprechaun (1992)
Sad that Jennifer Aniston doesn't want people to remember this
So this is one of the most famous "cult classic" film series out there and I've had it on my to watch-list for a long time now. I love B-movies, campy horror and classic monster movies, and boy did this movie not disappoint. The plot was goofy and fun, the acting was bad enough to not be anywhere close Oscar worthy, but also good enough to have a bit of fun with and enjoy. I have seen bad B-movies that are practically some film students final project from some middle of nowhere college, and in comparison this was Oscar worthy. There was a clear and fun plot, the characters had an interesting and dumb dynamic, there were classic bad horror movie tropes and overall it was enjoyable entertainment. It was no way some super in depth drama, but I equate it to a summer blockbuster without as big of a budget. Something you can turn your brain off and not have to think too hard about while just enjoying the entertainment. Supposedly though, Jennifer Aniston doesn't like that this film is in her career/film history, and I wish that she did as it is an incredibly fun film and a great start to a franchise that has become a huge "cult classic".
Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)
A Confusing Sequel
While I loved some of the scenes from the first movie and how much of a bad monster movie that it was, This sequel did not hold up against it. It was somehow way more confusing and worse. Where you almost had to have seen and understood everything about the first movie and the monster to understand this film, and still be confused about some things and have to look some things up. Let alone when did the monster change from a fun, typical horror monster into the goofy ninja in this film? Why do 90% of the male actors in the film always have their shirts off? Why did the one girl all of a sudden become psychic and then not really have that discussed or play into much overall? It almost feels like the writers were trying to fill up and diversify the characters so much with backstory and conflict that there was too much information so almost none of it was conveyed. Just random information and arguments were thrown out, but without any backstory, as if we already knew all of these characters beforehand, rather than just meeting them. So much of the plot and characters were confusing, goofy, and just bad that it wasn't even that good of a B-movie and just had me laughing at the whole thing.
Blood Orgy at Beaver Lake (2012)
A B, pretty much C-Movie
Don't read too much into other negative reviews of this movie. Though, you probably should not look into this film unless you are a fan of Troma or indie B-movie horror. It is absolutely a horrible movie, but that is what makes it fun. It has bad acting, effects, and a dumb plot that gets even wilder through the movie. While it retains many of the enjoyable aspects that many B-movie horror flicks do well, I have seen it done way, way better, and feel that even though I did enjoy the film, it did lean a bit toward just being bad altogether, though I've seen much worse.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
A complete letdown compared to the previous film
Honestly, as a standalone film, it was a pretty decent, turn your brain off, summer blockbuster, superhero movie. But, in comparison to both, movies like the MCU and the first Wonder Woman, this film vastly pales in comparison. There are multiple issues with storyline and character motivation, time and chronological inventions and culture, and just factual errors that don't necessarily make sense. It also suffers from what might be something like the batman issues, where factually/physically the thugs/people would be dead, or at least badly paralyzed, but according to the superhero plot armor, they never kill anyone and just knocked them unconscious. There are also multiple plot holes were the viewer is just left wondering what happened to something or someone, or why someone would do something, as well as multiple times were it is full of very soap opera-esque romantic/family drama type scenes/plotlines that did not mesh well with the quick paced action. Speaking of which, the movie highly lacked a lot of action for a superhero movie. There was like two big fight scenes and you don't even get to really see Cheetah until the end and they just have a quick fight and that's it. The whole movie tries to beat you over the head with the idea of having a moral movement toward the truth and very blatantly pushes the moral lesson and even uses the whole first scene, without any explanation or background, to show you the moral lesson.
Main Street Meats (2017)
A movie which misses the mark and comes out dreadfully mediocre
Main Street Meats comes off as if it is a great b-movie/cult classic type of movie that is right up my alley, but then ultimately misses the mark in multiple aspects. It seems like at some points it is running fine then all of a sudden tries too hard to either lean into the b-movie idea or try and lean to far in the opposite way. There are multiple times where I loved the movie and its quirky comedy and different take on the barber of Seville type story. But at many other times I was left confused as to why a character would do something, why a scene was even there, or why a plot point was just seemingly wrapped up all of a sudden without any real conclusion. I wanted to like the film, but ultimately I felt like it tried to straddle the line between triple A-movie and B-movie, without sticking to one, or utilizing its strengths, and ultimately coming out just mediocre at best.