⭐️⭐️
Based on a hit game that I have never played. It’s not the game’s fault, it’s been a good amount of time since I’ve picked up a controller to do anything but pause a movie or switch to a different streaming service. Now doing my late night YouTube rabbit holes, I have come across some gameplay videos but I usually only make it about thirty seconds through those until it’s off to a documentary about Amazonian megafauna, so I really have no basis of knowledge for what this movie is all about. This is just a long-winded way of me saying, I’m coming into this like I would any random horror film I stumble upon. Rebecca Owens (Willa Holland from Arrow) is a newly certified mortician at River Fields Mortuary. Her socially awkward boss, Raymond Delver (the always welcome Paul Sparks), knows that there’s some awful shit brooding inside the building with the basement seemingly the main hub of unsavory activity. Usually, Raymond would tackle all nighttime work with Rebecca focusing on the work during the daylight hours but an emergency brings the newbie into a late hours shift and throws her right into a supernatural nightmare scenario. Confused as to why she has been directed to embalm and then cremate her “charge”, the horrific and fresh injuries on the body are also concerning. But a job is a job and especially this freshly into a job, nobody asks too many questions. Even if the same odd itinerary is assigned to every corpse she is dealing with during her unexpected shift. Rebecca has personal problems as well which the evil is going to be able to manipulate with an endgame of making the young woman a proper vessel for possession. There’s rituals to attend to and tasks that go beyond the usual body preparation to keep the sinister shenanigans at bay, but being a novice at battling the forces of darkness is a dangerous game. Raymond is there to shine some light on Rebecca’s current situation and there’s convenient tapes located in the storage basement to assist with the banishment of a demon but it’s gonna be some rough waters. The dead are restless, violence is intensifying and the shadows are growing deeper. Plenty of by-the-number horror beats are hit and I’m guessing that honoring the inspiration for the film leads to some rather clumsy plotting. All I’m saying is needlessly complicated puzzles make more sense in gameplay and don’t translate well to the cinematic universe. I’ve also never successfully banished a demon so what the fuck do I know? The minimal cast is fine and there’s some suitably spooky bits but again, I have no frame of reference to add any disappointment to how things are presented. There’s just an abundance of familiarity especially in those dramatic flashbacks to Rebecca’s trauma and general sense of pointlessness as the film comes to a close. As with most games I have taken the time to play, the aesthetics hit the proper vibe but the story leaves much to be desired.
aka The Everglades Killings
NOTHING! NO STARS! I HAVE BEEN TO THE NON-DISNEY PARTS OF FLORIDA AND THIS IS THE WORST THING TO COME OUT OF AMERICA’S WANG
As awful as the idea of doing any Spring Break celebrations may seem to me, I guess I can understand the appeal of a bunch of youths deciding to gather together and party. This may have never been something that tempted me even in my more adventurous days but I get it. You’re young, look good shirtless, like to drink and don’t mind coming home with some new bacterial nightmares plaguing your genitals. I’ve always been a little old fashioned, so my Spring Breaks mainly consisted of staying up late and watching movies but I’m not here to share my sad college days with you. No, if we were following along with those exploits there would be no movie unless it involved a younger Brennan sleeping past noon and forgetting to clean up his empty beer bottles. Nobody would watch that and nobody should watch that. So instead we’re following a group of mildly attractive folks as they journey to Florida to get their party on. Not my scene but I get it. What I don’t get is how the most idiotic of drunken idiots would ever decide ”Hey! It sure is fun partying on this beach but what would really be a good time is taking this celebration into the Everglades!” Even if you’re from some podunk town in Wyoming, you should be aware that the Everglades are riddled with things that can and will kill you. And it’s not even the creatures that call the place home (not even counting the legendary skunk ape and backwoods lunatics that probably haunt the woods), the terrain is a fucking death trap in and of itself. So, as I set out to watch some college cuties meet their maker, there was very little sympathy for the predicament they threw themselves into. They’re also the kind of guys that say philosophical things like “write poetry with your dick”, ask tough questions like “Are you a pussy or are you a bro, dawg?” and don’t stress about being a couple months late for their period. Real salt of the earth folks. An opening news report lets us know that a couple Vermont college girls vanished and there was a python capturing competition, there’s a quick flash of watching those two gals get slaughtered and then it’s off to the bar for some clappin’ cheeks and wet T-shirts. SPRING BREAK!!!! The bartender (Linnea Quigley) at the joint they usually hit up when they’re in the area for SPRING BREAK!!! tells them they need to go visit the Everglades and take an airboat tour. Because they’re morons, they leave the relative safety of the bar to go bring their shenanigans to the dangerous patch of American wilderness. There’s also the reward for capturing a snake to think about and the fact that the reward for grabbing the reptile will practically cover their trip. Off they go with their horny and less than reliable airboat captain who ignores the fact that a storm is on the way because money and the promise of some college boobs would make any red-blooded Floridian turn a blind eye to any environmental dangers. They plan to head on back but the horny old coot has a heart attack and nobody knows how to operate an airboat so they abscond to land. Everyone screams over everybody else which makes for some really unbearable bits of upset derps trying to shout louder than their costars. They find a seemingly abandoned home, make their way in, get the generator running and help themselves to moonshine that’s lying around. Can we start killing these dopes? It’s revealed the horny old coot faked his heart attack and he’s met by his two idiot sons for some college-kid hunting. Unfortunately, they take their time so we can be treated to more shouting and partying. The abandoned house has everything, including a boombox and a shower. Two girls go off to complain to each other and the slaughtering begins. Various others go their separate ways to shower or screw and meet the business end of a blade or whatever convenient murder weapon is around. This goes on for a while and it’s not at all entertaining. There’s boobs but they all belong to folks who look like they’re employed by a rural Wisconsin strip club and performances range from clientele of said strip club to folks banned from said strip club. There’s also butt rape so if that’s your thing, just watch Deliverance because Burt Reynolds is in that. Even the butt-naked upside-down crucifixion that brings everything to a close could not save this shit stain on the underpants of American-made horror.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Sara is a survivor. She’s discovered wandering around the middle of nowhere, covered in blood and holding not only a spear fashioned from a branch but the severed head of something that ain’t human. Her rescuers manage to gently disarm her and bag the severed head of whatever the hell it is Sara has possession of. They hear screaming coming from the woods and get Sara into their car, getting the hell out of the area and transporting Sara to a hospital. The girl has been missing for a bit after a camping trip with her dodgeball team went bad, Sara’s sister Sam is happy as hell she’s alive as is the law officer who has been working on her case. Unfortunately Sara doesn’t remember what exactly happened but it’s coming back in flashes and her missing friends are still being looked for. Against her sister’s wishes, Sara decides to help the local law search for her friends and tells them they’re going to need bigger guns. Something attacked she and her friends and Sara feels it’s necessary for them to recover the bodies of the people she knows are deceased. With “monsters” not being legally acknowledged, the state is looking to charge Sara with the murders of her friends. Now Sara has to convince people that monsters exist and that she is not a lunatic who killed her friends. PTSD and survivor’s guilt weigh on our hero and a reporter begins to dig into things, convinced there may actually be things that go bump in the night. Thank god there’s an actual corpse to examine and it’s one of the most important scientific discoveries in centuries… and that brings us just shy of the halfway point. The final girl’s flashbacks have an odd reenactment vibe to them which works well at making them feel somewhat surreal. It’s an interesting choice in an intriguing film with a bunch of interesting choices from story structure to focus. Some awkward performances and dialogue don’t take away from anything because it’s such a different kind of monster movie that I’m pretty damn impressed even with its budget working against it. More importantly, our lead Caylin Sams is great, the direction is confident, most of the sparse humor really lands and it never feels like it’s wasting anyone’s time. Movies like this are why I will watch any damn independent horror film that comes my way. Sometimes, you give the right film a chance.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Brain dead vanity project from writer, director and lead actor Marco Antonio Andolfi. When his bejeweled cross is stolen from him, Marco desperately attempts to retrieve it. He has been cursed by a satanic sect who worship a Bigfoot-looking demon called Aborin and without his cross (given to him by his mother before she was murdered by Aborin) he turns into the shittiest looking werewolf in film history. Marco spends a chunk of the running time jumping around bare assed and murdering the seedy criminal underbelly responsible for the theft. Blissfully inept in every way.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Did you ever think that Robocop would have been a far better movie if it had idiotic villains, a quarter of the budget and instead of a heroic police officer it turned a pretty good tennis player (she did finish second) into its android hero after she's mortally injured by said idiots? If you have answered "yes" then you are invited to my birthday party and you'll also enjoy this dumb movie. The Cartel is a terrorist criminal syndicate which has begun spreading its cancer throughout Neo Tokyo. The neutered police force can't seem to do a damn thing and the Cartel just grows in power. A young scientist has been working on a top secret project which may be able to curb the growth of the evil syndicate. Unfortunately, said syndicate has caught wind of his secret project and set out to destroy his work. Even more unfortunate, he and his fiancée (tennis star Kaoru) stop by the lab when the Cartel drops in to cause some destruction. The Cartel's command team called Phantom make short work of the guards and lab technicians. One overacting psychopath attempts to rape Kaoru but some fighting allows her and her fiancé to flee. They don't get far when the Cartel's super powered psychic (ok) named Amadeus shows up and uses his telekinetic powers to stop them. This leads to an exploded laboratory and two missing bodies. Half a year passes and Neo Tokyo moves on. The laboratory explosion has been forgotten by the media and the police force but one cop who was friends with the engaged couple has refused to move on. This puts him in the sights of Phantom. He's attacked on his drunken stumble home and would have gotten his ass murdered if it wasn't for the timely appearance of some sort of.... lady battle cop! With a costume resembling what would happen if an arts & crafts enthusiast got his hands on a motocross uniform, lady battle cop saves the detective and almost takes out Phantom. Luckily for the shit-heels, Amadeus saves their asses again. Realizing they're going to need to up their game, Phantom gets their hands on a neutron radiation cannon (ok). Before we get to the climax we're shown just how Robocrap was born. It turns out the couple managed to make it to a secret lab before the main lab blew to high heaven. Realizing that she was not long for this world, Kaoru offered her body to her husband-to-be to complete his project. Successfully saving her in a removable robo-suit, he died soon after. Now she's out for revenge and ready to bring justice to the corrupted Neo Tokyo. Obvious backstabbing, an official Lady Battle Cop song and a final telekinesis-laced battle all set us up for a sequel which sadly never materialized. That's a damn shame. Idiocy is in every frame of this cheapjack rip-off but I'll be damned if I didn't have a blast. Shitty special effects and an inability on every characters part to make good decisions allows any dragging to zip by. There's also a super buff guy who uses the power of his mind to throw steel beams and I'm pretty sure the robot cop had a cheap-ass earring. Yeah. That's a big thumbs up.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
In a small Irish village (where Bram Stoker allegedly got his inspiration for Dracula) a likable group of road workers accidentally unleash an ancient Irish vampire when they destroy the pile of rocks which have served as his grave/prison for centuries. The locals are none too pleased they’re destroying the land for a new bypass, so the spooky happenings are first blamed on a bit of protest. It doesn’t take long for the blood drinking to begin and shit gradually spirals out of control. There’s some cool touches like the vampire feeding by causing his victims to hemorrhage and having the blood flow his way, a fairly intelligent way to keep the vampirism contained, intriguing use of a leg, an underutilized (to good effect) boogeyman, John Lynch as the local undertaker and a winning mix of likable characters and genuine humor.
aka The Wound Wood
⭐️⭐️
An arborist and her son journey to the remote estate of a reclusive weirdo to fell some trees. Ellie is currently shaken over the loss of her baby daughter a year prior. The kind of shaky that has her throwing booze in her water bottle in a poor attempt to hide her shame from her son. Her son Wyatt seems a bit troubled thanks to hallucinations of some sort of creature, which he was having before the baby girl’s death but grief helps nothing heal if it’s just festering. This grief could explain his erratic behavior (again, he was seeing something before the death) and him being a prick (but he is a teenage boy and they’re moody pricks anyways) but the property owner would not be out of place wearing a flashing neon sign that reads “ULTERIOR MOTIVES” when it comes to the task he has put in front of the mother and son team. I’d be suspicious clearing out the sinisterly named Wound Woods. Said task causes something supernatural to stir and a very old tragedy to be unearthed that links everyone together. Ellie begins to question just why someone in her profession was necessary to tear down some perfectly healthy trees and it’s further unsettling because the spot was once an open-air children’s theater. Fuck that noise. Wyatt is dead set on his belief that something supernatural murdered his sister while Ellie is growing more frustrated with his inability to accept the reality, no matter how sudden an unfair, of his sister’s death. She’s not really one to talk when it comes to grief management as noted earlier, most doctor’s since the seventies have not prescribed alcoholism to deal with a case of the glums. Needless to say, there’s plenty of brooding from everyone as the paranormal aspect plays around the periphery and may all be in Wyatt’s troubled noggin. Wyatt runs off and Ellie finally gets some answers. The cast is fine and the setting works for whatever spookiness they’re going for but the burn is very slow and not really worth the payoff. It’s a bit more on the unintentionally silly part than scary ghost chills is aiming for. We’ve also seen similar material handled better elsewhere. The two-person crew here is just like the abatement crew from Session 9 in that they really take their sweet-ass time and are easily distracted for someone with a looming deadline dangling above their heads. No great shakes but at least it tried… and then kept trying… and then got sillier… and then just wouldn’t end.
aka Stone Boy
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m not sure how many toys you had growing up but I was fortunate enough to have an older brother I wasn’t too far behind in age. We were also into a lot of the same shit which meant I got just as much joy out of the army men, dinosaurs and He-man toys my brother relished. He’d get into sports, I’d fall deep in love with monsters and those toys were key pieces in various adventures concocted in my monster kid skull. Godzilla would take on Spider-Man, Skeletor rode Gamera into battle and the Real Ghostbusters would find themselves in mortal combat with the giant ants from Them! (which haunted my nightmares for longer than I’d care to admit). Linear storylines and plot development meant exactly nothing, I just wanted the things I loved to exist together in the same world. I have a feeling the angels behind The Boy God were in the same headspace. They’re my kindred spirits and they made one hell of a psychotic cocktail of comic book fun, a dash of Filipino folklore, an odd mix of Roman and Greek mythology and some monster movie hijinks. It shouldn’t work and by normal cinematic standards it does not... thank the old Gods we aren’t about that here. An immortal materializes on the front porch of a human he has the hots for and because gods are often selfish pieces of crap, he has his way with the poor woman while invisible. Don’t worry, the mortal and the immortal will both pay for his crime later thanks to the others of his kind frowning upon relations with lowly humans. Nine months fly by and out pops Rocco. He’s delivered by his no-nonsense grandma and right after he is brought into the world (unbreakable umbilical cord and all), trouble arrives for his mother and her husband. Enraged with jealousy and also just being a complete dickhole, the dastardly Robbie shows up and guns down Rocco’s poor parents. Grandma flees into the cover of night with the baby and manages to escape. They return to the town several years later, Rocco is now a pudgy young boy who shares an odd resemblance to Winnie Cooper. Rocco also has superpowers. Thanks to his rapist father, he is somewhat indestructible. His granny explains to him that he is like a limestone. He gets hard when he gets heated (what?) but when he gets soaked he begins to dissolve (what?). So, much like Bruce Willis, his one weakness is water. As the film progresses you’ll come to realize that Rocco must have some sort of death wish ingrained in him with how much he finds himself submerged in that good old agua. Anyways, it would seem Rocco has returned at the right moment because the small village could desperately use the help of a hero... no matter how pudgy and inexperienced he is. Three witches who turn into werewolves are up to no good and are creating some vampires of the bat/human hybrid variety. Adding to the issues, that bastard Robbie is still being a dick under the employ of a mad scientist we will later find out is the nefarious Dr. Mengele and I believe he is supposed to be THAT Dr. Mengele (portrayed by a chunky Filipino man in a neckerchief) who has plans to create a master race. There’s an army doctor in the village looking into the poisoned water in the area which the mad scientist is behind. This research will put the army doctor on the same heroic path as Rocco... at least to a point. About half way through the film, the witches and vampires are taken care of and Rocco’s story takes a more mythical turn. After falling into a large body of water when he loses his grip on the feet of a flying bat-human (yes, you read that correctly), Rocco wakes up in a cave in the company of an elderly blind man. Turns out he is also an immortal and luckily for Rocco he doesn’t have the same thing on his mind his father had. He lets Rocco know that there is a chance he can free his parents from their purgatory-like punishment and become the true hero he is destined to be. He must travel to the land of immortals and pass a few trials, Rocco agrees without even thinking it over. Decked out in some tiny armor, he teams up with a tribe of dwarves to take down a cyclops (it involves Rocco becoming a human projectile), teaming up with a super hot warrior woman to take out some evil twins who can attach to each other and have faces on the back of their heads and death himself who has the ability to shoot lasers out of his eyes. By this point, you may be ready to put down your tea and inspect it for LSD. Fear not, your significant other has not drugged you, this is all happening. Rocco eventually makes it back to the land of mortals and takes care of those evil bastards Mengele and Robbie. After accomplishing these final goals on earth, his parents are free and he has a happy reunion with his mother and her rapist. Yay? I know it may sound like the end stages of syphilis have finally eaten away at my brain but I guarantee you all that this crazy shit went down. I didn’t even mention the fully naked Rocco (vegetation carefully covering his ding dong) being brushed with water by one of the witches in preparation to be barbecued or the mad doctor’s prize creation, a box he imprisons people in which zaps them with lightning and turns them into smoldering ash. I probably didn’t need to. It’s all done on the cheap but any lack of budget is more than made up for by an over abundance of enthusiasm. This is the kind of lunacy I could watch till the world explodes... hopefully Rocco won’t let that happen.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Lo-fi tackling of a mummy’s curse comes off like an ode to Skinamarink but way more focused and intriguing than that plodding piece of wasted time. A bad ass opening features a deep, malicious narration sharing the history of an Egyptian evil over the image of the kind of mummy you’d see gracing the cover of a Goosebumps book. So… it fucking rocks. Henry is an asshole. He’s pretty much tanked his conservative podcast he has with his girlfriend Brittany by cheating on her with a wealthy journalist named Dorothy. But they’re on the outs too because, as I said, Henry is an asshole. Dorothy left a priceless necklace at Henry’s home which he returns to her in the mail along with a strongly worded letter admonishing her. He’s that kind of guy. Henry’s home is broken into by someone covered in dirty rags and this has him releasing a recording of audio his microphone managed catch. After claiming he would have done something if he hadn’t been suffering sleep paralysis, he discovers (thanks to a comment on his posting) that the voice is Arabic and it’s saying something about a necklace. He thinks Dorothy was behind it, and after making a threatening phone call, he gets sick and has to back out of the podcast recording. Brittany is annoyed with him but says she’ll do it. Henry goes from feverish to deathly ill, throwing up blood and fucking up his eyeball. The necklace ties deep into Egyptian history, dangerous gods, a serial killer and a curse that looks be set in motion for our vile “protagonist”. The issue with anything that holds Skinamarink as an inspiration is that it’s going to remind me of Skinamarink, which I consider one the most overrated films to ever hit the horror scene. And even at just a minute over an hour, there’s drag. But whereas Skinamarink felt like nothing but drag around ten minutes of semi-solid terror, Adipocere at least holds more interest by giving me a glimpse at a deteriorating character who has fallen into a completely horrifying situation well outside any realm of expected karma. It’s a matter of having someone to invest in as opposed to two whispering nothings that leave no impact. It’s a flawed film, but it’s way better than its micro-budget should have allowed for. Especially considering the subject matter it decided to tackle.
aka Operation Pink Squad II
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A sting operation set up in a haunted apartment complex gets real goofy real fast when when a pissed-off female ghost manages to escape an exorcism. Four women posing as money forgers look to bust a crime boss but their top cop’s wiener husband gets it in his head that his wife is having an affair with the police chief and he decides to crash what he believes to be a cuckolding session. After some merry mixup hijinks ensue, our heroes begin fleeing for their lives from the specter. They manage to chop off her head but that just serves to get them pursued by a decapitated corpse and a flying noggin. Our spirit’s main goal is to open the doorway to hell that all her exorcised buddies were placed behind but the cops keep mucking things up and the exorcist returns to the building to get that final ghost out of there. Scatterbrained fun doesn’t have a serious bone in its body so be prepared for idiocy and the usual Hong Kong perversion (in this case it’s way more tame than most) along with some wacky-ass action.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
I’m sure there’s other things happening but I find it hard to focus on anything else but the creepy-ass Ginny Weasley and the chemistry void that is her growing relationship with our hero Harry. Enough bourbon and I can finally look beyond it. The amazing plot contrivance that is a horcrux gives our heroes objects to seek out and destroy, so they can finally put an end to ol’ Morty Vold and his stupid snake face. Of course, there’s still two more outings in this franchise so them horcruxes are gonna take a little bit of effort to uncover. The main chunk of the film deals with a dastardly plot that’s been placed in the reluctant hands of Draco Malfoy and a promise made by Snape to guarantee its success. New potions teacher Horace Slughorn (fuck me, Jim Broadbent is a national treasure no matter what nation he calls home) makes a habit of “collecting” famous and powerful students (not like as a villain, just as like an old British dude who enjoys name dropping) so of course he’s eager to get Potter on his good side, which is exactly what Dumbledore wants because Slughorn has a secret that will give them a leg up in the oncoming war. Weiner king Ron Weasley gets a girlfriend, Hermione Granger gets upset and Harry Potter gets placed in excessively horrifying situations. Rickman gives a brilliant performance as his predicament begins to force his hand and a major turning of the tide knocks the wind out of ya.
aka Cypress Creek/A Haunting at Cypress Creek
⭐️
A weekend getaway for four irritating chickadees takes a southbound turn when they feel a little adventurous and break into an abandoned cabin. A creepy doll watches them and they come across a tape recorder which goes into detail about the various evils calling the cabin home. At first, they dismiss it as bullshit but it doesn’t take long for the malicious presence to show itself. Have you seen any of the Evil Dead films? Well, it’s that but with a cast made up of charmless assholes and a seeming disdain for excitement. There’s jittery ghosts, awkward performances, bloody footprints, wretched audio, possession, a chubby demon, some memorable bits of violence, multiple monsters, blood drenched babes, an incredibly stupid scene involving a ghost girl that looks like a music video by an Evanescence knockoff band who has seen The Ring way too many times, the last act appearance of some dude who looks like he should be playing in a rockabilly band and some weak-ass demon POV that just makes you miss Sam Raimi. Extended scenes of pure pointlessness are accompanied by an endless butt-metal guitar riff and sometimes play out in slow motion for some reason. The opening is just a long stretch of nothing, scored by the soundtrack of bitchy girls picking on each other or complaining. Luckily (if that’s the word to use), I watched the “sequel” to this first and since that is one complete shit stain of a film, I could at least say that the original was way better than the movie that followed. That’s faint praise. Getting an impromptu prostate exam from your best friend Lindo’s pet lobster is more enjoyable than Lake Fear 2: The Swamp… which takes place about 1300 miles away from the cabin in this one. I also don’t think there was a lake in this movie and that may be the only connection this has to its sequel. I would recommend it over the second one but I still wouldn’t recommend it… I hope that makes sense.
⭐️1/2
Three filmmakers looking for a story and filming their exploits run afoul a Minnesota legend and get the usual found footage comeuppance. The opening text warns that this is footage from a recently discovered vhs master presented in its original form but then right after they throw the standard poorly-acted Blair Witch apology in your face, opening credits completely negate any suspension of disbelief. Great job. Gateway Township has a history of ghost sightings, missing hitchhikers and strange noises and it all comes back to the notorious Satan worshipper Jasper Hagan and I guess it’s intriguing enough to get the small crew out there following an email from a local. Of course, old creepy Jasper had some property in the woods and of course our gaggle of dimwits will be heading out to the isolated forest. There’s more camera shots that defy the reality they’re going for and you can’t technically call anyone actors because I’m sure that would be considered libel. Brenda, a motor-mouthed Minnesotan gal, takes them on a tour of the woods but doesn’t want to stay there too long. Inverted crosses get the director/host/producer (probably) Chuck really excited and he refuses to listen to reason because he smells himself a ticket to big bucks city. He and his cameraman head to some abandoned cabins where bad shit went down and the girls are left behind in the car to ramble on about shit and get spooked. There’s an out-of-focus POV shot to represent the evil force, a satanic journal that was probably crafted during a study period and a distorted noise to go along with the POV. Things pick up when it drops the broke-ass Blair Witch angle and hits us with a broke-ass Evil Dead one. Is it good? No. No, no, no, no. Is it entertaining? Also, no but it did happen and I can’t deny that.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Six months after the death of their friend, a group of four men hike a Swedish trail in his honor. When one among them twists his ankle, they decide to cut their hike back in half by cutting through the vast northern Swedish woods. Things go from screwed up to royally fucked in short order. Spending a night avoiding a downpour in a dilapidated cabin, the men all suffer horrifying nightmares and come to realize they are being stalked by something large that calls the woods home. The men attempt to hold onto reason as the situation becomes more unreasonable and tensions mount within the gang. Guilt, sacrifice, cowardice and tree branch impalement all figure into the story. Adapted from the excellent novel by Adam Nevill, the film makes the wise choice of excising the whole black metal band subplot that never really clicked in the book but the movie also ends up feeling like a watered down retelling whic was an inevitability when pacing is considered for a Netflix audience. Still, it’s a decent enough horror flick with a breathtaking location, a fully realized folkloric nightmare (one of the coolest creatures I have seen in a very long time) and the always welcome presence of Rafe Spall. “If the shortcut was a shortcut, it wouldn't be called a shortcut, it would be called a route.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A horny couple sneak away from a cave tour to get their smooch on and they both fall into a pit where they have a fatal encounter with a monster. A plaster cast of the creature’s footprint and the obvious claw markings on the man’s corpse draws the attention of a renowned professor. The woman who survived is in a state of shock and lacks any coherency when the scientists attempt to drag a description of the encounter out of her. Curiosity piqued, the esteemed professor and a small crew of scientists and adventurers journey into the unexplored lower cave system to solve the mystery. Of course, the monsters are there waiting for the poor fools. A long-tailed cyclops man-thing attacks a sexy geologist and kills one of the crew, putting the men on the hunt for it. Their tracking brings them to a large underground city and more death. A murderous man-bat shows up and the discovery of diamonds turns one greedy member of the group into a killer. The professor’s secretary, Hilda, makes an understandably big impression on the bat/human thing and it scoops her up for itself. There’s also footage from other Dino-flicks, a river of lava, bat attacks, a goofy looking giant spider and budgetary constraints. It’s a pretty fun time that takes a little bit to get going but garners good will from the cheap and delightful creature fun.
aka Creepers
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
At a classy Swiss boarding school, Jennifer Corwin (teenage Jennifer Connelly, even then outclassing her peers) awkwardly deals with the usual bullies (maybe the lamest in film history), fits of sleepwalking, a bitchy headmistress (smoke-show Dalila Di Lazaro) and the unusual ability to telepathically communicate with insects and psychically witness some nasty murders. According to the local entomologist, Professor John McGregor (a game Donald Pleasance doing a shaky Scottish impression… I think), it is perfectly normal for insects to be slightly telepathic. He is the expert, after all. Insect telepathy and teenage awkwardness aside, a string of brutal murders have been plaguing the area and our hero is tasked by her friend the good professor with using her abilities to get to the bottom of things. He’s been helping the police force with the murders and is pretty damn keen to get things solved after the life of one of his favorite students was taken. If this sounds slightly off-kilter… it is but it certainly gets more insane as it runs towards the finish. The professor has a pet chimpanzee named Inga who proves to be proficient with a straight razor, the completely lovely Daria Nicolodi is Jennifer’s legal guardian (her actor father is away filming something in the Philippines) Frau Brückner who has a disturbing secret and a horribly disfigured dwarf (and not a “normal” disfigurement either, this is like a disfigurement that lands on a scale between zombie and mutant) proves to be the madman behind the impressively vicious slayings. Of course, Argento’s keen eye presents things in a disgustingly gorgeous fashion and an abrasive soundtrack keeps the viewer on some shaky ground. Don’t go in looking for logic and just enjoy a style of ridiculous corruption nobody has ever been able to fake. Hell, Argento even had a hard time faking it himself in later movies… even if I’m a larger fan of those dumb outings than most of the population. The opening scissor murder and decapitation sets the scene for what to expect but the nearly two-hour runtime does feel a bit unnecessary even if it doesn’t really drag anywhere. I’m also not sure how well the metal music provided by Iron Maiden and Motörhead actually works when it’s included, it’s not my scene so I don’t know if it’s just my personal taste leading me to feeling its completely out of place. I’ll leave that to the actual fans to decide. The other music is solid and gets more time in the film, so I’m good all in all. There’s awkward acting, an amazing Bee Gees top I will forever be jealous of not owning (and I’m not even a big fan of the trio), the excited exclamation of “Richard Gere!”, a fly attack via psychic abilities, a helpful fly detecting the location of the murderer, a disgusting body pit and a completely satisfying comeuppance via pissed-off chimp. Don’t let anyone blow smoke up your ass and tell you it’s high art. It may look wonderful but this is the typically atypical semi-sleazy horror ridiculousness an Argento with the power to let loose unleashed in the 80s. Yes. That is a very good thing.
aka The Forgotten Ones/Island of the Apes/The Tribe
⭐️⭐️1/2
Some mildly attractive dopes get their mildly attractive asses marooned on an uncharted island as youthful revelries lead to inevitable boating accidents. Instead of just waiting for the natural elements and the survival instincts of an unwatched toddler to finish off the goons, a tribe of cannibalistic throwbacks are doing God’s work and taking out the intruders. The lovely Jewel Staite is our hero Liz and I’m just fine with that… it’s the Serenity affinity working its magic. She may be a complete bitch for all I know but I’m blind to it. To the surprise of absolutely no one she’s the only likable member of the group. Her boyfriend is a manipulative cheater, Kellen Lutz is kind of a prick, some chubby dude is obnoxious and his blonde girly is a bit of a gold digger. They’re not purely awful so it’s easier to spend time with them but if I had a choice I would never go anywhere with this group… except for Kaylee Frye… excuse me, Liz. Anyways. There’s a bad boat accident and they end up shipwrecked on an island. It is gorgeous and luckily the boat’s radio made it onto the island with them and they’re able to reach out to the friend they were going to meet up with. Dude is not happy they sunk his boat and he claims there is no island at the coordinates he’s been given. Realizing they’ll be waiting for a bit, tempers flare. It gets worse when Liz is convinced she encountered something big and ornery hiding in the foliage. After a proposal and some partying, the group camps down by the fire and passes out. The next day hits and Liz’s boyfriend is gone, all that’s left is a puddle of blood and drag marks leading into the jungle. He wakes up not knowing where the hell he is and having a hard time moving thanks to a leg wound courtesy of some primitive weaponry. Liz and Lutz head into the jungle to look for their friend and the other two begrudgingly join them when a threat with a gun prevents them from taking the raft to go look for help. The monkey men get their monkey paws on the blonde and the chunky rich guy gets his chunky paws on the gun. Neither of them are long for this world. Liz and Lutz find a convenient journal at a camp that was set up decades ago for research purposes and it fills them in on the inhabitants of the island. The monsters look a lot like the Uruk-hai’s more simian cousins, which is nice because it doesn’t require any cgi. Costumed creeps for the win! It’s fine for what it is but it never exactly bodes well for a film when you can go get housework done and not really miss much.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Sexy Gary Oldman (trust me) returns and gets a bunch of screen time (comparatively) and… well… because Harry Potter can’t have nice things… we won’t be seeing him outside of ghost form in any further outings. Also, Hogwarts finally gets a hero in the form of an adult who wants to bring some order to the chaos that is Hogwarts. Of course, Dolores Umbridge (a scene-stealing Imelda Staunton) is treated as a villain for actually trying to act like a responsible teacher… just ignore the student torture and bigotry (in all fairness, humans are pretty much garbage). The government is actively working to discredit Harry and Dumbledore with their claims of Voldemort’s return but evil gonna evil and even the shitty wizarding administration will eventually have to accept the fact that the big bad is back. “He’s back!” With little help from the adults (outside of their usual cryptic bullshit serving as “assistance”) and the usually warm Dumbledore turning a cold shoulder to Harry, Mr. Potter begins teaching his fellow students in the ways of magical defense. It’s a good thing too, because old snake-face is rebuilding his army, which is bad news for wizards and muggles alike. It’s one hell of a great time with an intriguing story finally building, better performances from the elderly children and the usual excellence that is the supporting cast. If, by this point, you’re not dedicating your free time to curing cancer while simultaneously cracking the riddle of time travel to ensure that Alan Rickman gets at least thirty more years on this planet, then I’m not sure what the hell you’re doing.
aka Killer-Beast
⭐️⭐️1/2
A couple professors, select students, city employees and a news crew explore a long-abandoned film studio. Time goes all screwy and everything goes to hell shortly after they enter the building. The completely out of nowhere deaths of two amongst their crew scatters the team. Their problems are exacerbated when they discover an acid fog has surrounded the building, making escape impossible. They’re forced to navigate the cavernous building looking for a way out. On top of the three-clawed monster picking them off one by one the expedition have to put up with a bullheaded professor, green-blooded zombie-like aliens, flesh-hungry cockroaches, and the general confusion that goes along with any time paradox. There’s a whole bunch of wandering to go along with the bullshit science and the blue-drenched cinematography. Its kitchen sink attitude saves it from being boring but it’s still just about average in every way. Worth a look and may have some cult film value upon further viewings.
⭐️1/2
The idea of a couple paranormal investigators checking out an abandoned property in the middle of the woods is nothing new. But this time it’s in Spain, so stuff that in your pipe and smoke it. Opening credits play over cut scenes from a History Channel Halloween special. Hugo introduces us to what he and his buddy Carlos have been doing for the last couple years of their young lives. You guessed it, they explore abandoned places and film it. Hugo shares that they weren’t really expecting anything of interest to happen when they journeyed to the isolated hotel but here we are and this is the footage from the fateful night. Spoiler! Their definition of “interesting” does not fall in line with mine. Replays and enhanced audio are thrown in throughout the movie and the visual narration from Hugo and Carlos pops up frequently. It’s basically like you’re watching a ghost hunting show with a very small budget and a murder revelation that hits like a wet feather. So… not worth the journey. There’s a wonderful setting for the urban exploration tomfoolery but an empty building is still just an empty building and dereliction can only keep me interested for so long. For what it is, it’s fine but that’s not a recommendation.
⭐️⭐️1/2
Mi-jung became a hot commodity when her short film was well received and sparked the interest of producers. A lack of inspiration has hindered her ability to fulfill her obligation to these producers with a script for a horror film. She’s getting desperate but hope comes in the form of an urban legend shared with her by her friend Joon-seo. He vaguely recollects a supposedly cursed film created by a student who claimed the damn thing was shot by a ghost. He can’t remember the student’s name but he can remember the audience reaction to the film was one of pure terror which led to half the viewers fleeing in panic and one audience member dying of a heart attack. Well, Mi-jung’s curiosity is piqued and she begins digging and sleuthing on the hunt for this lost film. She eventually finds the artist behind the movie and he is sufficiently a fucking mess. His threats and cryptic musings don’t deter the young woman and her fascination with the forbidden media becomes an obsession. When she eventually (and illegally) gets her hands on the footage, it sends her down a rabbit hole which may prove to give her the horrifying script she’s been searching for but it also makes her a target for the supernatural entity better left forgotten. Gorgeous Seo Ye-ji is easy to root for and crafty enough to get behind as she makes some poor decisions on her tumble into the kind of darkness you can’t just shake off. Lost media is always an intriguing addition to a horror flick and the specter may be the usual phantom girl with long, wet hair draping over herself like a funeral shroud but this one’s burnt up a little and is still effective enough at being spooky. Solid but standard fright flick contains a compelling hook and affable lead but also seems to be lacking much depth to really get a recommendation beyond a once over.
⭐️⭐️1/2
“Urban Explorers are extreme sports’ answer to computer hackers...” Sure. Whatever. A trio of “extreme sports computer hackers” sneak into underground Moscow to find and document Stalin’s secret “Metro 2” and Ivan the Terrible’s torture chamber. Things go to shit at a rapid pace and they’re soon dodging armed and gas-masked soldiers looking to contain some kind of plagueish outbreak. There also may be a supernatural element in full swing as the guilt ridden Nate begins to see some strange shit. Frantic to the max, the film utilizes a mixture of schizophrenic camera work, intense sound design and strobing lights. It has aspects of the found footage genre but does not completely rely on it. The ending may be predictable but it is completely justified by the experience.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A PR nightmare awaits the most dangerous school in the world when a needlessly life-threatening tournament is held at Hogwarts to crown the world’s most bestest wizard (age 17-18). Of course, the underage Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe looking the most like Rachel Dratch he’s ever looked) is entered into the damn thing and he and his god-awful haircut stumble into victory at every turn. You’d think somebody would directly tell this “chosen one” what to do but I guess that’s not how the Wizarding World of Harry Potter™️ works. The shiny vampire kid who would one day be Batman is also there and he gets murdered by a finally fully-resurrected bald reptile man with one hell of a grudge. Scheming was afoot from the start to get Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes, who is clearly having the time of his life) back into action and the idiots played right into it. Brendan Gleeson plays the new certifiably insane teacher (with an obvious case of PTSD who should be nowhere near children) who takes a shine to Harry and steals every scene he’s given, David Tenant is wonderful as one of the villains but gets like two minutes of screen time, Roger Lloyd Pack is also underutilized as the man from the government monitoring the tournaments and the usual side characters are all a bit more interesting than Harry and his gang of wieners. There’s dragons, mer-people (look like fish but they hiss like people), an awkward dance, a wonky eye, a really horny ghost, one big bitch, foreigners and more plot devices from the bigoted and lazy mind of J.K. Rowling. Again, we’re reminded of how much worse off we are now that Alan Rickman has shuffled this mortal coil.
⭐️⭐️1/2
In Dublin, Andrew Fleming looks to prove to his wife that their home is not haunted. He figures if he can film and do some investigating, he can come up with evidence of logical reasons for any spooky activity. Why he decided to upload this to his vlog for people to watch I don’t know because I can simply prove to myself that ghosts don’t exist by sitting on my couch and going about my business. I guess if he hadn’t uploaded his skeptic video journals we wouldn’t have had collected footage to edit together into a full length film. Andrew claims he wants the viewers help to figure out what is actually going down in their family home. Oh. I’ll shut up now. His wife goes to stay with her parents (along with their one year old) and wants to sell the place. Andrew is a fan of the house, so he’s asked for a week to prove there’s nothing supernatural in the works before taking the big step of just selling the property and moving somewhere else. HVAC and plumbing are probable nightmares for the homeowner especially because the strange sounds only started up after the remodel and instillations happened. Of course, that business stirred something up and our hero’s continued monitoring of the house is going to prove his wife’s suspicions correct. We get the usual noises, moving objects and even some shadowy things moving in the background of shots to build up the haunting as Andrew has to finally admit to himself that he’s out of his depth while he gets a bit obsessive with his current project. A newspaper clipping answers a major question as to the why and the title of the movie lets you know anyways who may be knocking around the place. The “excitement” of pseudoscience combines with the lethargy of ghost hunting for a stretch but the affable protagonist makes it tolerable. I mean, it’s necessary to a found footage ghost movie, isn’t it? Especially when one is trying to be as convincing as it can be. So, a necessary evil when it comes down to these kinda flicks. There’s a nice little mystery at the heart of things and as I said earlier, our lead (nearly only performer) is likable (kudos to jack of all trades Michael Keane) and not one of those insufferable idiots that usually pick up a camera in these things. It’s solid for what it is but there’s really only so much you can do. It can’t help but be boring because of how it presents itself and watching a solo ghost hunt with someone who refuses to fake evidence is tedious in the best of circumstances. Still. I respect Mr. Keane for getting it done and having an actual story thread for his found footage flick.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Melvin spends his days as a custodian at a bridal shop where the employees and the customers either treat him like shit or barely acknowledge his existence. He escapes to the building’s third floor where he can take out his frustrations on the mannequins stored up there. During his most recent weirdo attic session, Melvin passes out and wakes up to find the building closed. Being the uncanny freakshow that they are, the mannequins freak the hell out of Melvin. Hurling insults at him and finally getting some retribution. Mental illness? Supernatural revenge? I can’t say for sure but it’s only nine minutes long and it’s freaky as all fuck.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
There’s something wonderful happening in Texas… well, more than thirty years ago there was. Opening credits set to a true toe-tapping masterpiece ease ya in to a Tales From the Crypt yarn shot through the lens of cheap beer and good vibes. Some frat pledges are in a local cemetery desecrating a grave. The most nervous (and mullet’d) of the pledges shares the fraternity history with his cohorts and it’s sketchy as all fuck. Mr. Mullet (Donny Wahlberg… not the actor, that’s the characters name) heard from the wonderfully named Detective Tommy Stompanado that the Beta Phi house has a history of death and murder. We are then blessed with a black and white flashback to witness the sinister shenanigans of the fraternity founder. Harnessing the powers of darkness drove the man to extreme lengths (well, backyard budget extreme lengths) and contact with a great evil has the cocky man dooming his own future and the future of his fraternity. Tricking supernatural evil never really works in anyone’s favor. Fraternity president, suitably named Lance, sends the pledges to a forgotten cemetery to grab the founder’s gravestone and that catches us up to the present. The drunkest of the pledges gets left behind to stumble, vomit and pass out. This also gets him grabbed by the skeletal corpse of the fraternity founder who has a shitty sense of humor and a murderous streak thanks to the theft of his property. Lance (pledge master with the golden mullet) is proud of his pledges for leaving the deadweight behind. The Beta Phi Delta are also putting on a haunted house attraction and the shambling zombie shows up to raise some hell. Detective Stompanado arrives looking exactly as I had hoped and rocking his own signature score (also of the toe-tapping variety). He’s a very grumpy man and holds a grudge against the Beta Phi. He use to be one and knows they are no good. People die by the rotted hands of the zombie who can’t seem to help himself from making dad jokes at any opportunity and claims the pieces he rips from his victims as his own. Analogue bliss feels like a narrative feature pieced together as a history for a local spook show that a whole town participated in and put together by some very enthusiastic Famous Monsters of Filmland fans with the previous decade’s perversions seeping in. Local thespians and maybe a couple librarians with an acting bug fill out a cast that endears and the violence fits exactly in line with the limited resources not getting in the way on the filmmakers insistence on being as over the top as they can even if it’s not that much. Charmingly corny, slightly annoying but well-worth digging up.
⭐️⭐️1/2
The synopsis claims that a man dreams about a camera on his kitchen table and he finds the damn thing when he wakes up. The footage on the camera is his nightmare and that’s what we’re watching. I don’t think this is expressed in the film. A woman hires a man to film her husband because something very strange is going down. When the husband gets agitated, the woman tells the videographer to leave. Things get very strange. Insane people working under shadowy motivations seemingly pop up at random and it’s all caught through the lo-fi eye of our protagonist Alex’s camcorder. He flees into the night and then pops up back at the woman’s apartment where this all started. There’s something very wrong with her husband. Fuck if I know. The videographer meets up with a new person. It’s a guy showing off his new apartment. Unit 40. The guy goes on about religion and starts quoting scripture. The unit renter claims that he got the place at a steal because every other person who has lived there has died under mysterious circumstances. He claims he’s seeing a phantom tenant but he’s been unable to capture any proof. Hey! An actual plot… kind of. The renter is having trouble sleeping and believes something awful is going on as he slumbers. There’s definitely a woman wandering the apartment and she’s definitely not adhering to the laws of physics. More scripture is read and the renter acts strange. There’s alot of people acting strange in this. This is mostly a movie focused on people acting strange. Alex films the man sleeping. I start drifting too. The man rolls out of bed onto the floor and just sort of stays there. Alex investigates but finds the floor empty. “Spooky” demon voices and more weird behavior follows. The rental guy pees in a pot and calls it “discharge”. More scripture. I find myself drifting again. A random person runs at the camera, holding a knife and screaming. Perhaps the phantom tenant? I think that’s how the first segment ended. I don’t remember, that was days ago. A man brings in Alex to film his wife acting strange so he can use it to convince their pastor to perform an exorcism. She flees into an orange grove when her husband tries to take her to a church. She gets upset when Alex doesn’t answer if he wants to eat an orange with her. A mysterious woman shows up. We then go back to the apartment we’ve been at for all of the “segments” and see Alex speaking with the concerned husband as his wife acts… you guessed it… strange. If you’re playing the official Merits of Sin drinking game… congratulations, you’re dead. There’s an interesting sort of hazy nightmare logic at work that builds up a suitably baffling atmosphere but without much of a narrative to build upon, it just kind of gets lost in its own ambiance. Performances are where you’d expect them to be with something working under these budgetary limits (some much better than others) and it pulls off some minor eeriness as it wanders in and out of drowsiness but at more than 100 minutes, it feels like it’s dragging to a payoff that doesn’t exist. It has a better focus than the vastly overrated Skinamarink and a heavy vibe of the liminal spaces that haunt the Backrooms series but is also more watchable than either. You can throw it up there with The McPherson Tape (it has the conviction and skill to be convincing as an actual piece of discovered video) in the category of an interesting yet flawed found footage experiment.
⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Deep in debt and out of options, cute young Jackie goes to stay with a friend of hers in Thailand and tries to make some cash in the escort line of business. Her first job with some creepy crime boss is unsavory enough to get her looking at other options. She’s taken by her friend to worship at the shrine of the God of Gold with the hope that her luck can be changed through prayer. The unsavory crime boss creep hangs around and doesn’t mind resorting to violence to get his way. After he murders a couple nice young men looking to take Jackie out, she and her friend go and visit a holy man for help. She discovers she was pretty rotten in her past life and is paying for it now but there is hope. Hope lies in the practice of ghost nursing. She’s given a goofy little mummified-fetus-looking thing to worship and if done correctly her luck should shift for the better. And wouldn’t ya know it, she meets herself a man and the creepy guys she runs into meet with nasty fates. Looks like the tides are a-changing. But this is a Hong Kong horror flick, so ya know the good vibes ain’t lasting. Jackie neglects her duties and quickly learns the little bugger she’s been taking care of is easily upset. Her boyfriend witnesses the ritual and is soon tormented by supernatural shenanigans. He and his friend attempt an exorcism but only fuck things up more... dumbass gets himself possessed and gets up to no good, eventually transforming into an ugly zombie-like creep. There’s a mouthful of worms, a couple zombies, death by giant fork, a chubby little ghost brat and your standard climatic exorcism. Nowhere near the best HK horror has to offer, it’s still a pretty enjoyable time that kicks into gear in its second half. Subtitles on my copy are once again done by someone with a passing knowledge of Cantonese midway through a heroin binge so if my synopsis is off, I apologize.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Five likable members of a mountain biking club ride right into serious trouble when they journey into Chiak mountain for some riding adventures while crashing at group leader Min-joon’s uncle’s mountain cottage. The man went missing from the place years ago but they try not to let that disturbing fact ruin the fun. The missing man’s daughter, Hyeon-ji, is invited along by her cousin, and she may be a little socially awkward but this affable group aren’t too annoying about it. The mountains also hold an urban legend concerning murder and mutilation which has given it an infamous reputation but that can be written off as bullshit ghost stories. So, even before they make it to their destination, there’s a lot of shit blatantly throwing up warning signs. They even get the standard old hermit (homeless person) warning them away from the area on the way in. While scouting for a good trail to set cameras up on to catch the biking, Yang-bae discovers strange rock towers set up in a creek and as soon as he prays for safety and fame, shit gets weird. Bright red lights, a sonic boom, a wonky compass and the rumbling of those rock towers all hit within seconds of each other and then everything quiets down. That night, something comes into the cabin and scavenges their food supply. Oddly leaving the meat strewn about the floor but munching on the lettuce. Hyeon-ji acts stranger than usual, staring off into the night but there’s riding to be done and the next day, they get their biking on. Hyeon-ji (who is the least experienced) wipes out and encounters a giggling little girl who runs off into the woods. She limps after the child (who may be her younger self) and stumbles across her father. Papa dissipates away like Thanos just snapped his thumb. It’s all a dream. But the high strangeness is only gearing up. Yang-bae catches something that seems to be camouflaged in the environment and not exactly human, but it looks like he’s creeping on his making out friends so they take the SD card from the camera. His minor tomfoolery is accepted but they won’t stand for perversion. Soo-ah develops a nasty-lookin’ rash on her neck, Hyeon-Ji’s nightmares grow progressively more unsettling, those bright red lights come back and the group gets agitated as their situation spirals further and further out of control and into the realm of the unknown. An underground bunker may offer up some strings of an explanation but unfortunately any answer just makes the realization hit that things are about to get much worse. Not at all what I was expecting but in the pleasantly surprising way. It falters in various bits with some ideas not being sustainable thanks to the budget but that’s only a quibble and doesn’t really take away from the slightly bonkers ride we’re taken on. It’s interesting, even if it runs a bit too long and feels just a little undercooked.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Things get dark for the world’s oldest-lookin’ thirteen-year-old when the dude that supposedly had a hand in the death of Harry Potter’s parents escapes from the wizard jail Azkaban. Oh, he’s also Potter’s godfather… throw salt in the wound why don’t ya? The scourge of Michael Scott, The Dementors, show up as the Azkaban guards who suck the souls out of their designated victims. The new Dark Arts teacher is David Thewlis (who is great) and has a lycanthropy problem to go along with another secret about the escaped godfather, Sirius Black (it’s Gary Oldman and he steals the movie to no one’s surprise). The true meat of the franchise begins to come together and bigger and better things are on the way. You don’t need me to tell you the supporting cast is wonderful (including Gambon’s first turn as Dumbledore) and the now middle-aged teenagers are all showing growth as actors and probably more than a couple grey hairs. A large revelation plays out and the damn thing is one big ol’ turning point for the whole series. J.K. Rowling brings time travel into the equation, further opening a whole new bullshit world of plot hole convenience for herself.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
There’s more hijinks from that wiener kid Harry Potter and his wiener friends at the most dangerous school in the world but this time around there’s a wonderful new scumbag in the form of Draco Malfoy’s father played by an excellent Jason Isaacs and a foppish out-of-his-element new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher played by a scene-stealing Kenneth Branagh. In the trade we get the Jar Jar Binks of the wizarding world called Dobby as he uses all his annoying skills to prevent Harry Potter from going back to Hogwarts. It’s not because he’s a dick or anything, it’s because there’s schemes in the works that will put the young man in mortal danger. An old diary connects Potter to a former student named Tom Riddle who has a big old secret and a hidden chamber is opened unleashing a very dangerous monster into the halls of Hogwarts. As usual, the supporting characters are wonderful and some of the kids don’t make me want to punch them… that’s a small victory for them. This would be the final turn as Dumbledore for Richard Harris who would pass away in 2002, sucks he’s gone but it would allow for Michael Gambon to take the role and completely become synonymous with the character until his death in 2023. Damn, the Harry Potter films left us with a lot of In Memoriums. The basilisk and giant spiders are pretty damn wonderful for this old monster kid.
⭐️1/2
Demon and Dink robbed a check cashing place and it went bad. This led to kidnapping and a car wreck. Demon woke up in an unfamiliar place. “This shit crazy.” Demon assures us. All of this action is narrated to us as some dude in a very cheap black goalie mask slowly walks towards the camera on a pleasant bridge. Yes, Demon. This shit is indeed “crazy”. Credits play over some lovely nature footage and then we join Demon shouting as he holds his eye and wanders down a culvert. Judging by his orange hoodie, I believe our man Demon is the hockey-masked power walker from the opening. As someone else who can’t shut up that pretentious voice in their head, I completely sympathize with narrating your own bridge stroll. Demon is trying to figure out where Dink is and also get an idea of where the hell he has ended up. The “action” music hits as he washes his face with stream water. Can this shit get any crazier? Dink’s body is found along with the loot, Demon also comes across a cave and repeatedly asks if anyone is in there. Receiving no answer, he climbs in and lights a conveniently available torch. Sure. He then drinks some liquid out of a thermos also just laying in the cave. To the surprise of nobody, this makes him violently ill. Me thinks Dink was a far more suitable name for Demon. His illness ends and he throws on that black goalie mask and leaves the cave as catchy rap music plays on the soundtrack. “We gonna grind till we shine!” Masked Demon roams around the woods and takes in his environment. He also removes his hoodie and gets himself an axe. We then join a dude in a Dodgers jersey on the phone explaining the narrative as he excitedly talks about the family getting together for a reunion camping trip. This family is comprised of mostly middle aged folks with a few of them being just as excited about a camping trip in their forties as I would be. Drinking and nature footage caught with a somewhat cheaper camera follows. We’re also blessed with familiar music cues, lazy slasher shenanigans visited upon random nobodies (the axe vanishes and is replaced with a machete) and people talking over each other when they’re not just mumbling at the same volume. This may sound like I’m complaining but this is the right kind of backyard filmmaking that charms the hell out of me… until it doesn’t. The huge camping party finally enters the woods (a wanted sign for Demon lets us know it’s the same woods) and continues yelling at each other and complaining about camping. They have also taken no time to introduce any of these people as singular humans, so it’s just like a large grouping of cannon fodder. There’s one guy who has plenty of grays in his beard and definitely did not want to go camping so he’s the one I sympathize with. The fifty thousand dollar reward for Demon is tempting for almost everyone (my hero just wants to relax) and they discuss this (yell) as overly dramatic music plays and Demon stalks around the background and footage of a python crossing a road plays. A cop shows up to a “shots fired” call (he’s rocking a sweater, a Yankees hat and a badge) and gets immediately murdered. Demon shows himself to the gaggle of campers, gets shot and beaten (hilarious sound effects here) and shrugs it off. This makes the campers retreat… with all the urgency of filing paperwork due in four months. Around 60% of the family vanish, the rest end up in the culvert and more convenient torches are discovered. More wandering and loud mumbling happens. All focused on people who I’m not sure were ever given names. They go in the cave. They leave the cave. People die at random and I think the only character I was loosely invested in just disappeared. We jump to Jackson, MS after timelapse footage of a plane being prepped for takeoff… no, I did not have a stroke. This movie is having one. A couple of other family members visit a voodoo priestess to help their family members stuck in the woods (adjacent to the suburbs and a busy highway) in dealing with Demon. She struggles to deliver exposition and a direction for our heroes to take. I think it’s a spirit named Ling Ling that can help them… although I also believe that becomes inconsequential to anything. The camping family gets a message from (maybe) the voodoo priestess with automated voice directions on what to do and what they’re dealing with. Demon is possessed by the medicine man Geronimo (I know, what the fuck?) and it’s up to our surviving family members to put an end to the terror. Also, my grumpy hero returns to complain about things. A basement slasher with delusions of grandeur could make for a fun time and there are pieces of this film I was completely enamored with (homemade slasher action, lunatic plot points, ornery middle-agers, odd music choices, pathetic violence, accidental crew cameos) but it’s sunk by an ambling attitude, almost no focus and a seeming refusal to cut anything out. Nobody needs to watch this much walking and arguing. Nobody. Shit is crazy but the sad kind of crazy that cruelly takes beloved family members away from you.
