Gigantoscula Reviews

Seance (I) (2021)

Worth a watch, but don't expect too much

[6/10 · 16 March 2024]

This is just one of those movies that you watch and you'll forget about it rather quickly. There's not much going on for it. For the most part, it feels over the top, but that's what happens when adults are written teenager roles, they're out of touch and base everything on what they teenage years were like, which comes out to be, obviously, far from the current reality.

People are blaming this on bad acting, however I feel like the acting was decent, the part that wasn't was what the actresses were given to work with. All they did was delivering their lines, which I felt like it wasn't bad. On the other hand, having a 30 year old lead actress that plays a teenager is a bit much, everyone else looked much younger, and it broke immersion. There are plenty of upcoming actresses that would do this movie for peanuts, but they decided to cast a fully grown woman for this. Having a 30 year old woman wear a school uniform won't make her 17 again. Again, not the actress' fault, it was a role like any other and she did her part fine.

The plot is much like the "Scream" movie, nonsense, but sometimes enjoyable. The kills being off-camera was a terrible decision, I didn't like that at all. However, if they wanted this to be PG-13 and more accessible to the masses, I'd understand, but it wasn't for me so I'll deduct points for that.

The killer is inconsistent, and at points they look professional and other times like a damn clown, but I won't spoil it for you, go ahead and watch this, but keep it for a rainy night, if you want to watch something actually nice, this is not the movie. For the guys out there, keep this to watch with your partner, it's good background noise.

Jokes aside, this is a decent movie that is worth a watch, especially for fans of this genre. Respectable 6/10.

Megan Is Missing (2011)

Borderline unwatchable

[4/10 · 16 March 2024]

This movie hits hard, not only because of what it is, but also because of recent events that occurred regionally. This exact scenario, with two missing girls that were never found, a possible guilty man, that couldn't be proven without a doubt. This exact scenario made the movie hard to watch. For the people that say "it's not real recordings this is bad", you need to either wake up or realize you are unstable, you'd think people would make a movie using real videos of what this movie is trying to do? Nonsense!

The first part of the movie, the documentary, was fine. I was 13 in 2011 (however we can see there is no way this was filmed in 2011, and sources say it was filmed in 2007). I wasn't in the scene this movie portrays, I could see what i have missed, and I don't have any regrets.

The other part, feels like it's from another movie. I wish that wasn't there and they would've done it differently. The documentary felt great, although a bit forced and made very conveniently to fit the story, I can look past that. However, the last 22 minutes of the movie I can't. There like one second of horror in this, and it's really disturbing. More so than other movies. "A Serbian Film" is messed up on all aspects and that's all it is, "Megan is missing" however, is not, it starts becoming messed up at one point and never backs down. The scene I'm speaking of will probably stay on my retina for some time, and I'm 25, can't imagine young teens watching this having a better experience.

The acting, was okay, however, it must be stated that, even though the actress playing Amy is an adult, she looks 14, and this is sick, only because what this movie does. Megan looks older, but the fact that they cast Amy as a young looking actress is messed up on so many levels, I don't even want to get into details.

For the people that want to pass this as education material, this is not that, it's some twisted ideal for predators, and that's it. They'll be having a fun time with this movie, but everyone else won't.

This is a sad story, tragic even, it's real. This could've been a much better movie if they didn't decide to throw anything good they had going on out of a window, how it is now though, I'll give it a reluctant 4/10 only because I've seen much worse movies based on acting/storytelling and such.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Predictable... ironically

[7/10 · 31 December 2023]

When in mood for a drama, this suits your needs, but I can't say much more about it. It does what it's supposed to, but nothing else.

It's a great concept but flawed. The entire story is a plot convenience and is held together by chance. Spoilers incoming: how come the last door led to the bureau's building of all places? Why didn't any other door go there? Chance I guess? And if a normal person can use the doors with a hat on, why didn't humans find it earlier? Just turning the know the other way around, really?

Overall, it's a corny mess. It didn't hit where it should and didn't make me shed even a tear, which is not uncommon for me when watching dramas, but you could enjoy it more than I did. A happy, predictable story. 7/10.

The Prestige (2006)

People are going to hate me, but it's bad

[6/10 · 29 December 2023]

Expectations were high for this. Both rating and comments were huge for this but it was all a trick... Sure, a lot of the titans from the acting scene are here, but that won't stop me from being disappointed with this movie and it's a shame.

This was half an hour too long. I didn't feel like the payoff was worth the extra time, but that's just me.

I might be missing out. I'm sure there are tons of hints I didn't get. But the plot didn't make me want to search for clues so I won't bother past maybe watching a video online about it. That's why I write the review beforehand. I want it to be as genuine as possible.

6/10 not great but not bad either. Has it's moments but not enough in my opinion.

Miami Bici 2 (2023)

Terrible as expected

[4/10 · 1 December 2023]

This movie is bad, don't get me wrong, but people need to understand that every movie has some sort of niche. There are MANY worse movies than this, the reviews are split into 1/10 and 10/10 ratings (both of the ratings have an obvious source, but I won't tackle it here)

People that gave this 1/10 are closer to the reality of what the real rating should be, while the 10/10 reviews are... something, don't want to get into assumptions.

There's not much going on in this movie. This is made for Romanians only. Don't let anything fool you in this regard. Even though this has a huge US culture mixed in, it's not for outsiders. It's very targeted, all the jokes are insides jokes that we as Romanians may or may not find funny, foreigners won't get 99% of the jokes.

Everything is stereotypical offensive joke, sexist jokes, and all -ist you can think of. It's over the top when it comes to what it wants to do, but achieving it proved impossible

Romanian cinema (and not only) are far from Hollywood, it's not even close. It feels like we just discovered cinema, however this movie is a stepping stone for a better future. Movies will be bad for a long time from now, the directors should just learn from the mistakes and one day, maybe a good movie will come out.

I can't recommend this, however it's not as bad as people make it out to be. The worst offender here is the effects that look ripped straight from the 80s, and it's not the style the movie wanted to approach. 4/10.

Threads (1984 TV Movie)

This was a hard watch

[9/10 · 1 December 2023]

I randomly found a YouTube video that named this movie as the scariest movie ever. Naturally I took on the challenge and watched it.

It is a bit dragged out but it's worth the wait. I liked that they did this with multiple stages, even pre "incident", which for me was the best part. You know it's coming at some point, but you never know when.

This being a 1984 movie and the current year being 2023, you need to set the bar lower for everything: acting, sound, effects are not great for today's standard and that would not be possible, however I feel like it adds a lot of flair to the movie.

Overall, this is a classic everyone should watch at least once in their life. 9/10.

Aged (2023)

Disappointing execution of a great idea

[3/10 · 30 November 2023]

The movie gets a 3/10 only because of the premise which I like and the acting of Veronica, that's all it gets. There's many issues with this movie, and I'll cut it some slack as you know the budget wasn't great for this, however, this doesn't mean I'll disregard every problem that it has.

My worst complaint here is the audio mixing, it's terrible! I haven't seen a movie with such bad audio in a lot of time. 90s movies had better audio balancing than this! A character could speak from anywhere from the camera and they would be heard the same, be it next to it or far away, it all sounds the same.

The pacing was also a nightmare. I consider myself a patient person and even I had to skip through minutes of nothing throughout the movie. There's a chance that skipping 15 minutes ahead won't make you miss anything, and this doesn't mean anything good with any movie, even more so when the runtime is on the shorter side for this decade.

Overall, a disappointment with a lot more downs than ups, 3/10, would not recommend.

Fear (I) (2023)

Unfair rating for the mvoie

[8/10 · 24 November 2023]

The movie reviewers really got too demanding recently. What are people considering a good movie anymore? The same people would rate 10/10 every new blockbuster release because it's what everyone watches so why not give it a 10, right?

I don't understand why this movie's average is so low. Sure, it does have it's own flaws, like all the movies out there. If you hit play for this movie you knew what you were in for, so why bother watching it if you knew you don't like this kind of movies? The low ratings will make this movie go unnoticed, at least for people that judge a movie based on this site's rating (and I do many that do just that).

It's the first movie in a long chain of movies I watched that actually managed to scare me. Yes, it does use cheap jump scares here and there, but it's common practice today. The actual fear comes from the atmosphere it creates and I was tensioned throughout the movie.

Now, where the movie lost a bunch is the pacing. There's a lot of exposition, too much exposition and nothing really happens early in the movie. The characters were all presented with some small hints about them but nothing much in terms of quality character development. Having so many characters has it's downsides and it shows here.

The soundtrack was something that was hit and miss too, with great musical mixing and questionable choice for some scenes, to the point that some scenes were hard to watch because of the background music.

And finally, the thing that was a miss for me, but won't judge the movie for, was the choice for the fear bringer. I wish it was more like a natural disaster, not what it currently is (no spoiler here)

It's really hard to understand some of the directions this movie took, and I don't mean it in a philosophical way, it's just that you don't know why things happen the way they do. The acting was fine, there were some references to older horror classics and the mood was what it should be for this kind of movie.

Overall, a great watch personally and I would recommend this for anyone interested in the topic portrayed by the movie. 8/10.

Dogtooth (2009)

Tough watch

[4/10 · 31 October 2023]

It's one of the toughest movies to review and I've reviewed plenty of them. It's annoying, it's bad at times, but it has it moments, it certainly does, however they don't add up well. The idea is so good and the acting was unexpectedly good, however this movie doesn't know what it wants.

Let me explain. How can there be full nudity in a scene and in the next one it is censored by the camera angle? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

This movie can't decide if it wants to be a porn movie or a psychological marvel. It can't be both for sure, but it chose none of them.

Don't get me wrong, it's not terrible, however, the rating it has is outrageous. There's no way people rated this that high for the value of this movie. You either have to be into taboo or boring movies, there's no other explanation for it.

This is a warning for animal lovers. If you can't stomach animals being hurt, please don't watch this, you won't like it.

Great premise, butchered execution, 4/10.

93 Days (2016)

The unseen side of pandemics

[7/10 · 31 October 2023]

It's easy to go past what the doctors have to go through when it comes to viruses and pandemics. I'm not part of the crew, however, this movie proved that it's tough working in med while an outbreak is going on.

Even if this wasn't true, it still gives you the feeling that it's exactly what's supposed to happen in the depicted events.

I'm glad they gave 2 hours of runtime for this, as they needed a lot of time to develop the story. It's structured as a movie but has a distinct documentary feel but without pauses and explanations.

It's great, moving at times, but I feel like there's something off about this movie. Towards the end my interest was about to be lost just before the movie ended. There were too many moments of nothingness throughout the movie, especially during the ward scenes.

I'm glad this showed how big but not developed regions deal with those kind of situations. We had enough pandemic movies affecting the globe but only showing Tokyo, Paris, New York and other big cities around the globe. This is a decent effort to cover a smaller nation that could face a lot of problems due to the corruption of the higher powers.

A decent watch, 7/10.

The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)

Great twist to zombie movies

[8/10 · 31 October 2023]

After watching so many of what feels like copy pasted zombie movies, this feels like a breath of fresh air. While the zombie formula is the one we all know, how it is used is different than most. The zombies CAN be people this time. It's not just brain dead (no pun intended) flesh eaters, they have feelings, thoughts, questions and so much more. It's only an 8/10 because of the tropes we can't seem to get rid of from the current era movies, however, it was still an enjoyable watch.

The pace is all over the place so you need to give it a chance to show what it's got. If you're not patient you're sure to turn it off by the 1 hour mark, but my advice is to wait, it will be worth it.

As a side note, I wish there was more emphasis on the intro of the movie, maybe something like that could get a movie of its own.

8/10.

Train (I) (2008)

Deserved rating

[4/10 · 24 October 2023]

This is one of the few movies that have an accurate rating on IMDB. Most are either overrated or underrated, however this is exactly where it should.

It's cheap, but that's not where it falls short. I got this movie from another user's list of "gory" movies. This was not it. I can go as far as saying that is more censored than not. There are weird cuts before something remotely brutal happens.

It's not horror either, as not a lot of people can consider a honking train a scare, even more so after it is used more than a handful of times.

I don't know if this was for everyone so take it with a pinch of salt, but having characters speak other languages than English makes the movie hard to follow. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with foreign movies, the subtitles help in that situation. However, it looked like the subtitle I had was German. The whole movie had English VA and English Subs, while the foreign parts had German subs. I don't know any of those languages and I couldn't follow the plot besides the video I was presented with.

Overall, there's nothing much this movie can offer, you won't regret skipping this.

4/10.

Circle (II) (2015)

Feels unfinished to me

[5/10 · 20 September 2023]

This movie is what someone would dream during a rainy night and told their director friend to put this on a screen. The idea is great, don't get me wrong, but there's some jarring problems that I can't go over. This feels like a sandwich without bread, just he ingredients. It's not a sandwich then, isn't it?

Without spoiling anything, I feel like something is missing from both beginning and end. It does well on showing mankind's morals and whatnot, which is great, but it could have been done much better in my opinion. Those types of movies are the worst, not quality wise, but potential to end-product. This could have been great, but it wasn't, because some poor decisions were made during production.

5/10. It's different and not a waste of time, but fell short. Recommended for people that liked Exam, Cube and The Platform.

Countdown (III) (2019)

Great movie, giant plot hole

[9/10 · 19 September 2023]

This got the huge achievement of scaring me which is quite rare nowadays. It wasn't cheap horror. It felt personal and that is the best type of horror.

The premise is fun (as a watcher of course, I don't want to have anything to do with any type of app like the one portrayed in this movie, ever) and it is executed surprisingly well. A small issue though: theoretically, if everyone knew when they died through an app, and they would, everyone would know about it really fast, wouldn't people just exploit it to benefit them? I feel like this kind of ability makes you invincible. What's the point of anything. If you can avoid death with ease whatever you do?

MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD!

Like in the case of the touch doctor, we could see how the main character tried to kill him but was unable to because it weren't their time. Then what would happen if you jumped out of a plane when you have a lot of tiem to live? You just get repelled back? You land softly on the ground?

The psychology of this is terrifying. Imagine knowing the exact moment you die, to the second, how do you cope with this? What if you have 5 minutes after checking the date? That's why you have to live the moment I guess. Finding out you have 70 more years to live is fine and all, but you still have an app permanently stuck on your phone that will count down the time you have, which will probably get annoying down the line.

Besides the mentioned plot hole, this movie is great and it's miles better than the average horror movie. 9/10.

I Spit on Your Grave: Vengeance Is Mine (2015)

Politics and shock movies should not be put together

[1/10 · 17 September 2023]

They managed the rare "sequel better than the first" thing, which is almost never happening by the way and then they just throw this junk at us viewers just to lose any credibility it had beforehand.

This political approach this took is just about the worst decision they could have made and it feels distasteful. I feel like it didn't gain anything with the ideas the director wanted to push with this script and I'm not sure what they were expecting.

This is nothing like the first two movies. If the first few movies had clear motives, this just falls short and doesn't deliver anything at all. It's what made the first two movies great; the sick human mind being punished, fighting fire with fire for un understandable cause, even if it's not right, there's a reason for everything in the first movies.

They brought back the main character from the first movie and turned her into the most BS character possible with unrealistic transformations and behaviors.

They took everything great about the first two movies and tossed them out the window and brought new ideas that I'm sure no one asked for. The narrative here is minimal at best and it doesn't add up as it should. Many of the events are unrealistic and the setting doesn't work at all.

For example, the second movie had the kidnappers take the victim to another country, where everything happened, then it's much easier to erase everything that happened and make it like nothing ever occurred, even more so in the portrayed corruption the country was suffering from. This is mindless gore, which unless you are sick you won't enjoy.

1/10, don't watch this, this movie killed the series.

I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013)

Tops the first movie by a lot

[8/10 · 16 September 2023]

Those kind of movies are bound to be split on the audience's opinions. This makes no difference seeing as it has a mixed rating. Most have this as either 1/10 or 10/10 so I'll try to be as accurate as I can with the review.

This movie is not for everyone. Not being able to watch this because your stomach gets turned outside down doesn't warrant a bad review. For what it is, the movie is very well made. The acting is on par with the expectations for this kind of movie.

What matters more is the plot and this delivers big time and it's certainly the best part of the movie. The pacing is a bit slow and the lighting could've used a bit of tuning as it is hard to make out things in the dark in some scenes, but nothing too serious.

It's not as disgusting as other movies and it's tolerable, but not everyone is the same so here's your warning: if you read the movie description and my review and feel like this doesn't fit you, please don't watch it, turn back and watch something else.

As sick as this is, it's not without reason. Most movies in the shock genre have no essence to them and use mindless gore and shock scenes just for the sake of it. This however is different and everything adds up, except for some loose ends that were never addressed.

In the end, I can recommend this to someone that can take those kind of movies. I'm sure if you found this movie it's already on your mind to watch it, so give it a shot.

8/10.

Arctic Apocalypse (2019)

This takes the first spot on my "worst movies ever watched" list for sure

[1/10 · 15 September 2023]

I can't believe how bad this is. It took me two days to finish this as I couldn't watch through all of it in one sitting. The plot makes no sense, the actors don't fit with the characters portrayed and the effects, god. The effects are horrendous. I needed to check this movies release date after watching it and I can't believe this was made in 2019?? I'm not a pretentious watcher and the fact that this movie made watch over two days means a lot...

This could have made in 2005 and people would find the CGI dated, that's how bad it is. At some points I felt like this was supposed to be a boke some college students made and ended up leaking it online.

I don't know the budget of this, but it looks like there was not enough effort put into this. Not anyone can make a movie, this is the perfect example. Even as a disaster movies enjoyer I couldn't watch this with a straight face. Avoid this at all costs, don't waste your time with it.

1/10 and even that is too much.

Contagion (2011)

Different feeling after watching it more than 10 years later

[8/10 · 11 September 2023]

Watched this before 2019 pandemic and watched it again today, in 2023 and this is terrifying. It's a hard movie to swallow today and it wasn't far from the truth after going through a modern day pandemic.

I even started coughing while watching this, I don't even know anymore what to believe. Jokes aside, this was very well made and well put together. The time skips felt rushed and too big at some points and it made the movie a bit hard to follow. The fact there are multiple characters you need to remember makes it a harder watch than the average movie but nothing off-putting.

I removed a point from the rating for the above statement and another for questionable acting in some scenes. I feel like some reactions were not as they supposed to be, I'm not going to spoil anything as I want everyone reading the reviews before giving it a try to learn everything by themselves.

8/10 and a great recommendation.

It Comes at Night (2017)

Nothing burger

[5/10 · 10 September 2023]

I was confused after reading the short description for the movie and it's no wonder, this movie is a mess.

It's sad that it was made as an 1h30m movie, it could be a longer and still be enjoyable, they had lots to put in perspective, and yet it fell short.

It throws a lot of ideas around and that makes it hard to build anything. I was expecting more of this but the time was so short that it couldn't be possible to get something much better than what it is.

It would've worked much better as a TV show. There's a lot to build from this but sadly this is not that. The acting was okay, I felt like they did a great job for what they had to work with.

I'm giving this a 5/10 for not being anything special but not downright awful.

The Sadness (2021)

Wasted potential

[6/10 · 9 September 2023]

This movie had insane potential to become a horror classic. It nailed the atmosphere and the pacing was great. It could have been so much more than a nonsense gore feet but it fell short in certain very important aspects. Without spoiling anything, all I will say that it telegraphed the plot after some point and it ruined the feeling for me. Looks like another movie that was half written and the other half was randomly generated. A shame really for what could have been something great.

There are things you'll be stuck with forever after watching this so beware, it's not for everyone. It's sick, disturbing and grotesque but it fits the scenario and I don't feel like it goes over the top for the most part, with small exceptions.

A sad 6/10 for this.

Side Effects (I) (2013)

There are side effects to this movie

[4/10 · 2 September 2023]

I was looking for movies about disease, sickness and such and was recommended this movie in some list I found online. It wasn't really what I was looking for but I won't let it be a bias to my overall review.

I can't give more to this movie but I surely could give less. The only thing it has going for it is decent acting but that's about it. There's not many movies that can make a sex scene work in the first minutes and this is not one of them.

It takes ages to get anywhere and it made the watch tedious and almost unbearable. This could cut half an hour and it would make no difference to the plot, that's how filled it is with nothing.

The scenarios are unbelievably unbelievable and it's basically impossible to get attached to any of the characters, not because of the acting but because of how bland they were created.

I can't recommend this to the average movie enjoyer, it's hard to recommend it to die-hard medical flicks fans. It's a below average movie that no one will regret missing.

4/10.

Paradox (III) (2016)

Biased review

[6/10 · 3 February 2021]

This gets a 6 because I like time travel so much that I'll take anything I get. There's nothing special, it even looks like it was made in the 80s. Bad CGI, bad acting, but I've seen much worse. If you like time travel you'll like this, if you don't this would be a pain for you and can't recommend it. 6/10

Dimensions (I) (2011)

Saddest time travel movie I've seen

[4/10 · 2 February 2021]

Unfortunately, I'm not talking about the plot. This movie had a lot of potential but failed, at least in my eyes. There are a lot of dumb plot related problems and the characters are bland and mostly uninteresting. It looks like they blew all the budget for setting the scene. This is the only saving grace of the movie so that's why it gets a 4/10 and not a lower score.

Sophie's Choice (1982)

Bad choice to read the movie's brief

[6/10 · 12 December 2020]

I always read the header on IMDB to judge if a movie is interesting or not. This time I believed the plot was about a choice of one of two kids, and it was, to an extent. This description is the header of the movie and it spoils THE WHOLE ENDING. How is this allowed? The movie was fine, nothing special, a bit too long for my taste but I managed to watch it to the end. Be careful when reading about a movie, even when it's supposed to be spoiler free. 6/10

Irreversible (2002)

Very underwhelming

[3/10 · 10 December 2020]

This movie couldn't deliver when it comes to the premise. The whole timeline in reverse sketch was done a few times and this one isn't one of the better ones. Trying to put the story together doesn't feel like a puzzle, more like a drag and the characters are annoying. The shock value doesn't even make this movie on par with "A Serbian film", which was also mediocre. This felt like an attempt to shock the viewer but failed miserably trying to. 3/10