tijskenswim Reviews

Speak No Evil (2022)

Cringe fest

[2/10 · 30 April 2023]

This was horrible to watch from start to ALMOST finish, just because all the situations felt very unnatural/cringy:

• The terrible acting, including bad accents in English.

• The dull ways of spending time in the Netherlands (seriously, what a bore...) for a vacation. Not really a good set up for bad things to happen, honestly.

• The ridiculous decisions by the Danish couple and their weakness.

• The total lack of a true plot. It's nothing more than a series of seperate events to make the protagonists uncomfortable. But the lack of a real threat made it unsatisfying for most of the time.

In the final third it tries to make sense, but yet again fails to do what it's aiming for... *sigh* All in all, an unsettling story that never delivers except for 1 or 2 scenes.

Ritual (2022)

Misses a spark or two

[6/10 · 22 March 2023]

Not sure how they adapted this Mo Hayder story - taking place in Bristol - into a typical Belgian one concerning our awful colonial history. But, no bad job was done here. It sure is a solid adaptation.

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting background theme and none of it should remain taboo in any way, it's just that it somewhat carried away the possible suspense within the police investigation.

In Hans Herbots' previous Mo Hayder adaptation, 'De Behandeling', at least there were more midway points where there was a direct or genuine threat. This was much more case solving, supplemented with a subplot. Both fell short in real suspense, to me personally.

Second, the ending was quite anti-climactic. Towards the final third, things started to unravel with only a minor plot twist, but despite a charasmatic and potentially terrifying villain it all died out quite unsatisfying.

All in all, surely worth a watch. Not sure about a second one though.

War (2007)

If they had speeded things up... This might have been a slow burner.

[3/10 · 18 February 2023]

Hard to chose where to start. The action in this flick was actually pretty good. BUT... Before we got to any of that, I had a hard time keeping my attention.

There's not much depth in any of the characters despite all the (trash)talking, negotiating, reporting and God knows what I'm forgetting about. Other than that, it was predictable and plain boring to watch. Even with fast forward and enjoying the action every now and then, this movie felt endless.

At 25 minutes from the end, I just had enough of this lackluster story made up from this non-engaging feud between two different Japanese gangs in San Francisco. I honestly couldn't care less about the outcome, which - from what I had read - wasn't all that fulfilling either.

Then, this Statham vs Li fight and preceding sword fight made it a 4/10 for me... Until the end reduced it to a 3/10 again.

Last but not least; for the first time ever I didn't like a role played by Statham. His type just doesn't fit an FBI-agent, nor can we enjoy his martial arts skills enough throughout this film.

Als de dijken breken (2016)

Tremendous disappointment

[4/10 · 30 January 2023]

This series shouldn't have been approved to be executed like this, for several reasons.

• Despite consisting of only 6 episodes, the story is still way too stretched out. It feels like they only had material to make this a feature film or something.

• I actually liked the first 2 episodes very much, as it was focussing on the realistic topic of flooding of a huge part of the Netherlands, as well as the subsequent political discussion of how to recover the economic heart of the country. However, from episode 3, all three subplots/side stories made it a whole other kind of series, carried by family drama that had little to do with the natural disaster.

• Most of the acting was absolutely sub-par. Only the characters within the main storyline as well as the Flemish subplot did a decent job, whereas all the other Dutch characters felt very unnatural. It might be realistic though, but not to all viewers.

• Also, the two subplots that were suffering from this horrible acting, didn't go anywhere and lacked some real drama. Therefor, it didn't contribute to keeping my attention.

• Although the CGI looked good in most of the disaster scènes, the writing wasn't always spot on from a realistic point of view:

Guards who manage to escape from prisoners despite being surrounded, people of the emergency center not doing their job, four policemen can't handle one fugitive who manages to escape after they had grabbed him, a football stadium in Antwerp was used to depict Nijmegen, and so on.

The directing was definitely good. This series could have been a one-of-its-kind sensational drama filled with action, given the topic. Yet, it all appeared to be quite lackluster. The writing made it rather drepressing to watch.

I'm sure if Hollywood comes up with a comparable plot located in New Orleans, we can expect a lot more from it!

FOMO (I) (2022)

Not as bad as some of these reviews claim it to be

[5/10 · 9 July 2022]

I could be harsh on this one over some disturbing aspects.

The first half hour of the film was exactly that: If my thougts were to be spoken out loud, it would have been "Oh, come on, can't they think of anything better?" But after that, things got a little more solid.

PROS:

• Locations: There was a large forest, a cabin within in it, as well as some sort of villa. All three added up well to the story.

• Atmosphere: Most of the killing scenes were genuinely creepy, in terms of a slasher movie. The antagonist was - luckily so - among the most interesting characters. His threat felt firm and persistent.

• Gore: This must be the movie's biggest appeal. All kills and wounds that go with it were well executed, edgy, and some even pretty creative. I approved this in particular.

However, there sure were some CONS too:

• Story: Or well, the lack of it. None of the antagonist's motives were really clarified, nor was their corporation with some of their innocent colleagues, or the whole set up.

E.g.: The daughter of the antagonist appears to have suffered from the image these influencers gave her, which eventually led to pulling her down in SOME sort of way. Nonetheless, we have no clue of what exactly happened to her...

• Dialogues: These were very poor. Intended jokes didn't really get a punchline. Serious dialogues were not convincing either.

• Acting: Most of the characters felt very unnatural, even if it was partly due to the poor script.

• Pace: It's a real shame they chose to use constant cross cuts between locations over and over again, taking away a lot of tension and momentum. Post-production killed the pace this way.

Overall, I do feel like watching this movie again some day, although it won't be remembered for being a milestone in the Belgian horror scene.

A missed opportunity, no doubt.

Prey (VI) (2021)

Catalogue of cons

[3/10 · 24 May 2022]

Very slow, senseless, lack of thrills/suspense, non-engaging, lack of depth, lack of explanation towards the end, and an overall lack of motives for the antagonist here.

In addition, the type of ending you wouldn't like to see in any film...

3 stars for locations and gore only.