codersmurf Reviews

American Horror Story (2011– )

double feature, the second story

[9/10 · 19 September 2023]

Man these writers were trolling the lgbtia+ community. Absolutely hilarious. You gotta love them sneaking in reality into their stories that belittle the people that bring ridicule on themselves.

This season is like some where it seems not very good and then gets better and inserts political satire or societal evil or insanity. It's basically a serious South Park with less eccentric stories and visuals.

This one was interesting considering it had 2 stories, each with good and bad parts. The first one was fine, nothing too special. The second didn't seem that special but the social and historical commentary was interesting. The first one was go for broke, second one more thought out.

As all the seasons, always worth the watch.

The Sandman (2022– )

Creative, but distracting at times.

[7/10 · 21 December 2022]

The premise is interesting, the acting is good, effects, wardrobe and makeup are good. Some of the issues I have are pretty glaring. One such is that everyone is gay, and I'm not exaggerating. If 2 guys or 2 girls are on the screen at the same time the money is on them getting with each other.

Lucifer as an old chick was weird. She stuck out like a sore thumb in hell. Though the landscape and demon designs were interesting, which made lucifer all more out of place.

I liked the references in the series. The white horse inn was a nice touch, that story line was cool. It showed the changes of the sandman or great periods of time, along with his friend.

The show got weaker as it went along, Seems they were padding it out hoping for more seasons. There also doesn't really seem to be any good characters, maybe the chick that was driving around john dee. But it's near impossible to find any one without serious character flaws.

It's worth a watch, but probably better in the background than having your full focus.

Candyman (2021)

I can't even describe how dumb this was!

[1/10 · 26 October 2022]

I'm not sure there was a way to make this movie worse. The cartoonish portrait painted of the real villains of the movie were laughable. The movie dragged on, and on, and on preaching nonsense. It was so covered in misguided hate one could not even take something useful from this film. At least Reefer Madness's misguided enemy was enjoyably funny, this was just sad. I'm sure had 95% of the movie been scrapped and redone it could of at least been a new take on this story worth the effort, but I didn't even see Clive Barker's name anywhere on it. This leads me to believe the story, themes and characters were too butchered for the source material to be acknowledged. Far worse movies have lower scores, so perhaps many have been spared sitting through this crap. And the ones that gave it a decent score did it for source material recognition and Peele fandom.

Hellraiser (2022)

Not the worse, but far from the best.

[3/10 · 24 October 2022]

Honestly, it's quite forgettable. The cenobites weren't as good looking, or sound as cool, as the originals. The story wasn't compelling. I didn't like how they handled the box, since I guess we can't call it the lament configuration anymore. Some elements were cool, like what happened the rich guy as his "reward". It was better that, in the words of a superior Pinhead, and yes I will still call him that, "It's not hands that call us, it is desire!" This new one has people tricking others to damnation for perceived gain. It was better when people didn't really know what they were getting into, but wanted more from life and got what they wanted, more. All in all, if they build on this I hope it's more like HIghlander 2 in that the original concepts carry on and the dumber of the reboot stuff is never acknowledged. Doug Bradly made Pinhead, and they just can't seem to find his replacement, I get it, but there has to be someone out there.

Blood Red Sky (2021)

Only good for concepts here and there.

[3/10 · 21 May 2022]

Pacing was terrible, would go from slow, to exposition, to incompetence, to short periods of cool. The heroine was inspector gadget, stumbling into solutions with the help of Penny's all around. I found myself almost rooting for bad guys, since the heroine was too stupid to survive this long and I wanted the gene pool to be stronger than it was with her. She could have saved lives by not hating her vampirism so much. Like so many emergency situations, fear, stupidity, slow reaction, etc. Will make a bad situation fubar'd. So much potential squandered on bad writing. Perhaps it's cultural.

No Exit (I) (2022)

Not bad

[8/10 · 5 March 2022]

The movie would have been short had it taken place in a state with less gun control, and far less people would have died. Also, nobody takes advantage of the situations they are put in, by accepting they are victims and refusing to take down evil when given the chance, more people died. All in all, it was suspenseful, and a lessen to those who think giving in to terror and letting evil people pursue their injustice only leads to more injustice, death and suffering.

Evil (2019–2024)

well worth a watch...or binge

[9/10 · 10 January 2022]

Story grand and interesting. Characters are well written and actors are spot on. The show certainly is in the vain of x-files and fringe. I'm near the end of the first season and hope it doesn't lose it's way.

The Twilight Zone (2019–2020)

rocky start, gets good a couple episodes into 2nd session

[6/10 · 10 January 2022]

So this show is the poster child of "get woke, go broke."

Started early in the first season and made the show awful. The stories were terrible and unrelatable. I'm not sure if they fired all the writers into the second season, but it went back to something resembling the good TZ.

I'm sure the first season destroyed the viewership and the second got it going but the decision was made to can it. Had they allowed it to gather viewers after they stopped being woke it would still be around, but studios often don't give second chances. And if numbers don't hockey stick up it will be let go.

In the end it was a missed opportunity. They waited too long to correct their course.

Rent-A-Pal (2020)

You know that movie you put on

[9/10 · 24 December 2021]

Not really expecting much, but it had an actor you like(will wheaton). This is one of them, story was engaging, bringing many emotions to the surface. It was well acted. I won't say anymore, but it's certainly worth the watch.

Verotika (2019)

Simply Terrible

[1/10 · 14 October 2021]

I barely got through this, mostly thinking it can't be this bad all the way through, I was wrong. The stories went no where, the acting was terrible. It looked like they went to a strip club and took all the dancers and patrons and gave them lines to memorize. I think these came from a comic, which perhaps would be a better medium, but again, the stories went no where. It would be like writing a story about microwaving a burrito or walking to my truck to go to work.

Creepshow: Mums/Queen Bee (2021) Season 3, Episode 1

What happened to this series?

[2/10 · 7 October 2021]

1 and 2 are great seasons, they start off 3 with the crap left in the bucket. The story is eh, but the forced and unneeded insertion of domestic terrorism was silly. Could the dad just be a douchebag wife beater? It adds nothing to the story and seems like there was a story already done but producers or something made the writer insert this garbage to seem relevant. The next segment was I suppose trying to show star worship in a bad light, but terribly executed with a strange story. There was a lot of potential social commentary, but they missed the mark.

This season so far has none of the humor, week stories and woke. I hope they return to what worked so well in the older seasons as it goes on, but it isn't looking good so far.

Dave Made a Maze (2017)

Truly a wild ride

[10/10 · 20 August 2021]

I can't remember that last time I laughed out loud, like really laughed, during a film. This movie is so creative I couldn't stop watching, like I would want to. People kept texting me and I would actually rewind it because I saw I missed something. This is rare for me during a movie. I highly recommend it. Best to go in not really knowing what you're getting into.

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

so much potential such terrible execussion

[3/10 · 27 July 2021]

I'm not as mad as some, but the movie just wasn't good. Writing, story, the main villain, none of it really worked. The ending was preposterous, and this was a comic book movie, more like a pre-teen type of movie ending. No real depth to any of this movie. The actors were fine, can't see much better from such terrible dialogue and story. If you need to watch it to cross it off your bucket list of seeing all of this generations comic book movies watch it. It's hard to get through at times, looking around for something better to do while watching it, but if you don't want to taint ww stick with the first one.

Stay Out of the F**king Attic (2020)

How is this rated so low?

[8/10 · 15 May 2021]

The character are awesome. They are real. The fact that a skin head can redeem his sins is what we need. I'm not saying it was anything ground breaking but a good movie is a good movie. The villians were deserving, the heroes deserving, the biz worthy. Sorry for those who can hate more than find worthy love, but the movie is easily worth a watch.

Knucklebones (2016)

surprisingly good

[8/10 · 5 March 2021]

Acting and story were good, loved the ending. The creature effects could use a little more money, but it was pretty well paced and entertaining.

Sleepaway Slasher (2020)

simply awful

[1/10 · 4 March 2021]

I still can't figure out what the hell was going on. It seemed that rosemary was a serial killer that manipulated some of the murders and others she did herself. By the end I didn't even care, mostly because the ending was the worst. Production values seemed pretty good for such a terrible film, like that ever matters in hollywood. Acting was pretty good, the story just was too random to make sense. It had potential I suppose, though cliched. It's like 3/4 of the way through they just gave up and couldn't figure out how to put the pieces together in a coherent sensiical way.

Bigfoot Family (2020)

Terrible

[1/10 · 27 February 2021]

The story is incredibly unrealistic, an since it's story driven it taints every aspect of the movie. It tries to ram down an ideology while going so far over the top it's too hard to immerse yourself in the experience. Animation was good, but the movie certainly wasn't entertaining. If they dialed back the anti-energy aspect, got rid of some of the cheesier moments it probably would have been a fine film.

Utopia (2020)

hyde is the worst

[4/10 · 11 November 2020]

I'm not sure what the writer was thinking, but the effect she wanted is completely lost. She had a character who was a leader murder one of her crew for no reason, or at least the reason was that of a street thug. Her crew should have killed her first chance they got. By doing what she did she showed that nobody is safe around her. She's literally no better than the villain's, and they are evil. Then the writer tries in vain to make us feel sorry for her broken soul. Nope, many mass murders have tragic stories, but the evil they did overrides any empathy a human would feel for them. I get trying to say you don't know what we are going to do, but you could have had lobsters with pinwheels crawl out of her ass and do a musical number from oklahoma and you'd get the same effect without making your audience hate such an important character.

Between (2015–2016)

Interesting, fuzzy science, but prophetic

[7/10 · 5 November 2020]

In light of covid this series seems to be showing things to come. Virus, lockdowns, government lies, forced fake vaccinations. They gave up vaccinating corona after a decade since it's impossible, yet they all of a sudden say they can. Population scares, global warming, all the pieces are in play now, funny how often this happens.

Await Further Instructions (2018)

incredibly relevant to today

[8/10 · 31 October 2020]

With covid hysteria gripping the world and nobody listening to those directly dealing with it, one can easily assume this was media giving insight to what we are seeing today. Certainly in an artsy sort of way, but this movie shows that listening to the government against common sense is simply insane. The government these days thrives on fear, it uses msm to trick the foolish into this state of fear.

Feral (2017)

how to create no sympathy for the afflicted

[3/10 · 17 October 2020]

The story was pretty basic with a few new things, that's fine. One would hope the writers would make up for it with the characters. Not a chance. The main protagonist, Alice, was incredibly annoying. Her over confidence and lack of trying to understand a situation she was completely unable to handle just made her unlikable. Talbot and matt were the only likable ones. They certainly did dumb things that made things worse, or possibly worse, the rest were either forgetable, or barely dealt with. Talbot was the best one, and Alice was just terrible, think the writers had a serious hate of lesbians. Might be worth a watch while drunk or stoned, but Alice will detract from the rest of the story. Was trying to be vague so as not to ruin plot points.