X is a solid slasher film, but it didn’t leave much of an impression. It is a beautifully shot movie with a solid foundation, but it is a slow burn with little payoff. It certainly stands out amongst all the other horror I’ve watched this season. It’s a much better story than Halloween Ends. If you are looking for something to watch and don’t mind the nudity, X is a solid choice. I don’t regret watching this movie, but it isn’t something I will ever be revisiting.
X is about an overly ambitious porn producer and his dream to make the next big porno. He and his cast and crew head to a remote farm in Texas where they will film his first and greatest movie. Filming goes better than expected, but there is something sinister on the farm. Before they can finish their film, the crew begins to get hunted. Will they be able to make it out alive?
This movie is okay. There is enough good with it that you won’t hate it if you watch it. The acting is great, the visuals are fantastic, and the story is fine. The problem most viewers will have with this movie is you have to sit through an hour of people making a porno. It goes without saying, if you don’t like sex and nudity, do not watch this movie.
The movie is a solid addition to the horror genre. There is proper suspense, some creepy scenes, and some fun kills. The problem is that it takes too long to get to the horror. I get that they are trying to create deeper characters and a more meaningful narrative, but it takes away from the horror. Don’t get me wrong, I like that there is an attempt to give slasher movies a stronger narrative, but they haven’t figured out the perfect balance between murder and story. It is a great attempt, but it falls flat.
If you don’t mind the softcore porn and you are patient, sure, it’s something to watch. It clears a very low bar to be better than average. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it, but it’s fine if you want to kill some time.
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Series Review: The Watcher (2022)
The Watcher is a suspenseful drama full of fantastic actors that is fine at first, but it certainly overstays its welcome. I was fully invested for the first half of the series, but the show becomes tedious towards the end. It isn’t a bad show, and you won’t hate it if you sit through it, but it should have been shorter.
The Watcher is a series based on the real events of a family being sent threatening letters when they move to the suburbs of New Jersey. Strange things start to happen to the family as they attempt to settle into their new lives. There is an ominous force messing with the family. The family grows increasingly paranoid as they desperately try to determine the cause of the unexplainable events in the house. Will they ever find the cause of all this evil?
I have mixed feelings about this series because the pacing is terrible, and the ending is disappointing. I think Netflix was trying to drag this series out, as most streaming services do with their original content, to keep people watching. The slow pacing hurts the narrative, making it hard to recommend. There is too much build-up to an ending that doesn’t deliver a satisfying conclusion. The last two episodes are pointless and add little to the story. This series should need to be condensed to be a more effective narrative
Toward the end, the series gets repetitive. The couple will get a clue and follow the lead toward a big confrontation only to be proven wrong by a new lead. This keeps happening to the point where I grew tired of the couple and as a result, less sympathetic. The Watcher does a fantastic job at showing the growing obsession and paranoia in the family, but it does a terrible job unfolding its mystery. This puts me in a weird place because I love the initial presentation, but hate how diluted it becomes.
If you have nothing else to watch, this is a good choice. Just be aware of its faults. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it, but you can stream it on Netflix.
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Movie Review: The Curse of Bridge Hollow (2022)
The Curse of Bridge Hollow might be one of the most unfunny and stiff horror comedies I have seen this year. It is very forgettable. If this movie comes up as a recommendation, ignore it.
Another generic family moves to a new city to start a new life, but the house they move into is shrouded with mystery and ominous energy. Their lives change when the generic daughter character unleashes a curse on the city that brings all the Halloween decorations to life. She and her daughter must free the town of this curse before it unleashes a great evil into the world. But before they can deal with the curse, they must first fix their relationship. Can they do so before midnight on Halloween?
The Curse on Bridge Hollow is poorly written and acted waste of time. There is no chemistry between the leads, and it makes all the banter and dialogue painful to get through. A movie like this that focuses so much on intrapersonal conflicts needs better leads with better chemistry. Everything about this movie is stiff, and as a result, none of the jokes, one-liners, or emotional moments work. There is no reason to watch this movie, even if you like making fun of bad movies.
The plot of this story is basic at best. You’ve seen this story play out better anywhere else, but this story is beyond redundant as it follows a tiring formula. The daughter and father would go to the next scene, they would have an argument about how controlling the father is only to be interrupted by the animated decorations. The father begins to see that his daughter is competent, they have a small emotional moment and move to the next scene to do it all again. The only difference between the scenes is the terrible jokes and the poorly delivered one-liners for each situation.
I don’t think they had enough ideas for this movie because there is a bit of filler. There is a painfully unfunny recurring bit about the mom’s terrible baking. The mom would push her vegan goods on people only to have them reject them out of disgust. This plot point came back so often that I thought it was going to be the ex-Machina that would save the world from the curse, thankfully, it wasn’t. Although now thinking about it, it would make for a much better conclusion. Unfortunately, this joke was the best attempt at storytelling this movie has. This unfunny baking bit is the only plot point that gets a proper conclusion.
It took several sittings to get through this movie because it was so boring. This season hasn’t been good for Halloween movies, and I can only hope there is some hidden gem on the horizon. Until then, I will keep sifting the genre in hopes of finding anything worth watching. Until then, skip this movie. But if you don’t believe me, you can stream this on Netflix.
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Image by HANSUAN FABREGAS from Pixabay
Movie Review: Halloween Ends (2022)
This series should have ended with the last movie. There is no reason for this movie to exist except to make money, but you shouldn’t give it any of yours. If you want to indulge in someone else’s self-serving terrible vision, this is the movie for you. But if you are trying to watch some good horror for Halloween, watch anything else.
Halloween Ends is the conclusion to the Michael Meyers saga that no one asked for. This is possibly the dullest and most uninspired slasher movie I have seen this year, and I just watched Jeepers Creepers: Rebirth. There are many issues with this movie, but the biggest one is that nothing happens. I like that there has been a trend to give horror movies proper plots, but please make it interesting. There is nothing interesting about this sequel. The first half of this movie is wasted on a relationship no one cares about. There are maybe 15 minutes where the slasher movie exists, but the rest is just pointless filler. The slasher bits aren’t even fun, most of the kills happen off-camera or too quickly to matter.
The biggest issue I have with this movie is with overbearing narration that refuses to go away. I am sorry, but I came here expecting to watch a slasher film, not to listen to a terrible audiobook. All the narration in this movie comes in the form of a fake book Jamie Lee Curtis is writing that only seems to be repeating her big speech from the last movie. You even get to watch her write the book in real-time. How exciting is that? I am very upset that this movie is desperate to convince its audience that the Halloween series is some deep allegory for the human condition when it has never been about that. It is completely self-serving and takes away from the only reason people would go watch this dumb movie.
The other issue I have with this movie is how inhuman they make Meyers be. This film feathers an immortal, omniscient, and teleporting Michael who terrorizes the town until he gets to Jamie Lee Curtis. They make it a point to show that he is unstoppable, but then he is easily and anti-climactically stopped by an injured woman and her granddaughter. I don’t even have the words to express my disappointment.
I can only hope that this is truly the end of this series, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they reincarnate him for another terrible reboot. I am not surprised that this disappointing reboot got such a disappointing ending, but it does hurt that I wasted my time on it. Don’t watch this movie in theaters when you can stream it on Peacock. Don’t stream it on Peacock because it is a complete waste of time.
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Image Source: By Universal Pictures – https://www.universalpictures.com/movies/halloween-ends, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71346881
Movie Review: Jeepers Creepers:Reborn (2022)
They should let the Jeepers Creepers series die already. We haven’t gotten a good one in years, and Jeepers Creepers Reborn isn’t the rebirth the series was hoping for. This cheap and uninspired sequel is better left forgotten and ignored. If you are searching for a movie to add to your Halloween marathon, please look elsewhere.
The film focuses on a couple that is on the verge of a life-changing moment. While the boyfriend plans a proposal, the girlfriend plans a pregnancy announcement. The plan is to make a big reveal at possibly the worst rave/Halloween festival put on screen. But before the couple can start the next phase of their lives, they must survive Jeepers Creepers. Will they survive? You will never know because you aren’t watching this garbage.
There is so much wrong with this movie that I am not sure where to start. The acting is bad, the writing is worse, and the plot doesn’t matter. I am convinced that whoever wrote this script has never held a real conversation or knows how real people speak. The dialogue is unreal, and a lot of it is used as lazy exposition because the filmmakers aren’t competent enough to show and not tell. The actors seem to be trying their hardest to make it work, but it’s hard to tell because the script doesn’t do them any favors.
The biggest issue with the plot is that it doesn’t exist. You get to sit through a boring rave before anything starts to happen. There is a changing montage in this movie to distract the audience from the fact that there isn’t enough plot for a movie. All this does is make me wish I was watching anything else. When Jeepers Creepers finally decides to come out, you are already halfway done with the movie. There was a convoluted cult subplot that was somehow integral to the film that I completely forgot about because this movie sucks at storytelling. What makes me the maddest about this whole experience is that this movie has the gal to sequel bait. They should just let this series die because they have clearly run out of ideas.
I assume this movie was a tax write-off. I refuse to believe that a group of people’s vision was to make something this terrible on purpose. If you see this movie in the wild, avoid it at all costs.
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Game Review: Lovecraft’s Untold Stories 2
I want to start out by saying that I got this game as a review code and while I am grateful for the opportunity, I will not let that sway my opinion. This will be an honest review of the game.
Lovecraft Untold Stories 2 is a 2D isometric dungeon crawler for pc based on Lovecraft lore. You start off choosing from three playable characters: the witch, the professor, and the detective. Each character has its own unique abilities, armor, and weapons. You control your character through randomly generated dungeons as you try to solve a mystery.
I was very excited about this game. I liked the art, I liked that the cutscenes were comic-like, and I had fun at the intro level. But once you get out of the intro mission, the game becomes frustratingly unplayable. Movement becomes clunky and slow in the cluttered rooms. I was constantly getting stuck on boxes, holes, and trees, making kiting enemies virtually impossible. To make matters worse, I was getting stuck on the invisible boundaries of boxes and trees. The witch has a cool teleport ability that could pass through enemies but would get stuck on invisible artifacts. I died so many times because my teleport was constantly being canceled by nothing. There are instances where I would teleport only to be trapped in between an inescapable grouping of trees. When the environment is more deadly than the enemies, that is bad game design.
I thought the randomly generated dungeons were cool at first, but that view quickly turned sour. I quickly learned that the room generation was quite unbalanced. Some rooms were laughably easy, with only two enemies standing in my way. Others were impossibly hard, with too many enemies and no way to escape. There was one room I couldn’t even complete because there was a wall blocking the exit. I love the randomness of life as much as any other gamer, but this experience was frustrating.
The insanity mechanic is nonsense. If you get hit by an enemy, you slowly get stacks of insanity. If you get too many, you die. The problem is, there is no clear indication of how much insanity you have, nor is there an easy way to clear it. Because the environment made movement difficult, it was impossible to clear a level without getting stacks of insanity. You either got killed because you got stuck trying to run away, or you died because you gathered too much insanity. This poorly designed mechanic made this game harder than it should be.
I was beyond excited about this game because it reminds me of the Arkham Horror board game. I have been desperately trying to find a group to play with, and I believed this game would be my only chance. The disappointment I collected from this game was so painful, I couldn’t muster the strength to finish this game. I forced myself to play as much as I could, but I can only be so patient. This game is broken to the point where you won’t get any meaningful enjoyment out of it. Lovecraft Untold Stories 2 isn’t worth your time as a free game, let alone the $25 it is asking for. But if you don’t believe me, you can buy it on steam.
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Movie Review: My Best Friend’s Exorcism (2022)
My Best Friend’s Exorcism is a horror comedy that has enough problems with it to make it impossible to recommend. While I am sure a much younger audience will have a better time with this movie, I sure didn’t.
Abby and Gretchen are best friends in their last few months together. Gretchen moves in the summer, and they are willing to make the most of it. They and a group of friends spend a weekend at a cabin where an acid trip ends up being the nightmare that puts this friendship to the test. A demon possesses Gretchen and makes her plot against her friends, alienating her from anyone who can help her exorcise the demon. Will Abby be able to save her friend group from this evil in time, or will the demon claim his victim?
My problem with this movie is that it isn’t good at either of the genres it is trying to fit into. As a comedy, it isn’t funny enough to be worth your time. As a horror movie, it isn’t scary. It tries hard to work within the poorly written teen drama it ends up being, but it never does. The acting is fine but clearly held back by the writing. The plot is dumb, but it does have its moments. The best part of this movie is its soundtrack, but it’s defiantly trying to cash in on the ’80s nostalgia that Stranger Things brought back into pop culture.
What I did like about this movie is how it treats its demon possession. The demon preys on the friend group through sabotage and mind games instead of resorting to gore and gross-out scenes. For example, the demon tricks one of the girls into coming out as a lesbian, then uses her sorrow to almost killing her by nut allergy. It was pretty clever and uncomfortable, but this only makes up a small portion of the film. The rest of the movie lacks this creativity.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism isn’t the worst horror comedy I have seen. It definitely is too quirky for its own good, but it is watchable. I can’t recommend it, however, because it is boring. But to the curious and unbelievers, you can stream it on Amazon Video if you have a Prime Membership.
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Movie Review: Significant Other (2022)
Image by Bingo Naranjo from Pixabay
Don’t waste your time on Significant Other. It is a garbage movie that should have never been made. I don’t know what it is about Paramount, but they don’t seem to understand how to make a proper horror movie.
The movie focuses on a generic couple who go on a camping trip. Alone in the woods, they begin to notice that there is something off. They find strange animal corpses, they see shadows, and it feels like something is watching them. Tensions grow high as the couple’s relationship begins to strain. There are aliens in the woods, and they seem to be after one of them. Will they be able to make it out alive?
It’s a shame that these actors are wasted on such a bad movie. The acting is fine, but everything else is terrible. There is no tension in this film, the buildup makes no sense, the twist is confusing, and the ending is disappointing. I had to rewatch this movie because I thought I missed some important details. I was very confused when the twist came, and I wanted to make sure I gave this film its fair trial. I didn’t miss anything. This movie is just that bad at telling its story.
I feel like a broken record at this point, but nothing happens in this movie. The first thirty minutes of this movie is relationship problems the movie. The boyfriend proposes, but the girl has issues with commitment. The film becomes a lot of awkward conversations in reaction to not accepting the proposal. The movie then tries desperately to be symbolically and suspenseful like Hereditary, but it only slows down the plot. There are a lot of scenes where the camera pans over nature to suggest something sinister is going on when nothing is.
I am going to spoil this movie because I need you to understand my frustration with it. If you are planning to watch this, don’t, but if you insist, stop reading here.
The movie suggests that the drama between the couple stems from unresolved trauma the girl is holding on to. I refuse to use the character names because they are generic and flat. The only defining characteristic for this girl is that she has crippling anxiety. This anxiety creates the strain on their relationship that takes up the first half of the movie. Something happens in the woods that makes the girl become distant. The movie suggests that maybe she was possessed by the aliens, and she pushes her boyfriend off a cliff.
The big twist is that the alien can steal the form of other life forms. With each transformation, the alien also gets the instincts and emotions of the form he takes. This will become important later. The boyfriend had been dead the whole time. The girl had somehow stumbled on the body early on and was acting suspicious because she knew. After the big reveal, the alien stands over the girl ready to claim another victim, but he finds himself frozen, unable to act. He can’t bring himself to kill the girl because he is overwhelmed by his love for her. Instead, he decides to save her from the impending alien invasion. The girl freaks out, and a convenient shark helps her escape again.
The alien can’t die, and he traps her again. The alien takes her form, and as he is about to kill her, the girl overcomes her anxiety and stands up for herself. The alien, on the other hand, is overwhelmed by crippling anxiety and has a panic attack. The girl takes this opportunity to kill the alien. As the girl rides off into the sunset, the movie sequel baits. The alien isn’t dead, and there is an invasion on the way.
I am still struggling to make sense of what I just watched. I am so mad that love saved her the first time and even madder that her anxiety saved her the final time. It’s not a good movie. This is time I will never get back. Don’t waste your time when there are better, more competent horror movies out there. But if you don’t believe me, you can stream it on Paramount+.
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Movie Review: Hellraiser (2022)
I was excited about the new Hellraiser because I loved the original, but I have since exchanged my excitement for disappointment. It is time to let this series die since it has run its course.
The movie focuses on a recovering drug addict who is struggling to get her life back together. Desperate for money, she breaks into an old warehouse where she finds the sinister puzzle box. After a relapse, she solves the puzzle and sets into motion the gruesome events that will change her life forever. The Cenobites are back and are looking to collect souls. Will she be able to make the sacrifices required to wish for her brother back, or will she be another claimed soul?
This movie is slow and dull, but at least the monster designs were interesting. I recommend skipping through any part without the Cenobites because the rest of this story doesn’t deserve your attention. What kills this movie for me is the pacing; it is unbearably slow. The original also has a pacing problem, but it is more interesting.
This movie is gore porn, designed to gross out its audience with gruesome death scenes and disgusting monsters. It doesn’t go as far as it can, and a bit of the gore is held back by its technology. Most of the kills are fine, and some are even creative, but there are some that are rendered poorly. Don’t watch this movie if you are looking for proper gore.
I take issue with this movie’s narrative style. Most of the time I was waiting around for the next death scene. The last fifteen minutes or so fair a bit better than the rest of the movie because that is when the most action happens. The ending has a few lazy twists, some poorly designed tension, and some interesting lore dumps, but nothing really goes out of your way to watch. I just wished the rest of the movie had the same energy as the last bit, it might have fared a little better.
If this movie existed in a vacuum, it would be fine. The acting is decent, and the deaths are solid. But it doesn’t, and there are better options out there. If you need horror movies to fill your Halloween marathon, watch the original instead. Otherwise, be prepared to skip around. You can stream it on Hulu, but I wouldn’t bother.
Series Review: The Midnight Club
The Midnight Club is a huge waste of time. Even if you enjoy horror anthologies and mysteries, this is a very weak entry into either genre. I wouldn’t bother with this series even for the morbid curiosity.
The Midnight Club is a collection of poorly written and acted ghost stories that exist within a mystery. In a hospice designed for teens with terminal diseases, a club was formed to help cope with the ever-looming death around them. The teens gather every night to tell ghost stories and blow off steam. But there is something sinister is afoot. The teens see ghosts and hear voices that aren’t there. There is something about a cult, but I honestly stopped caring pretty early on.
The acting is bad, and somehow the writing is worse. Scenes that exist outside of the ghost stories fair a little better, but barely. The biggest issue I have with this series is with the ghost stories. The stories are generic, and often parodies of better horror stories or movies. This would be fine if the intention was to parody, but it isn’t. This is a serious attempt at horror with very little value. Each story comes with an overbearing and poorly read narration that kills any tension the story could have. Some of the stories recap events that have occurred in the series, making this a redundant and uninteresting mess.
I wouldn’t mind if this show was a horror anthology if there wasn’t so much narration. I wouldn’t mind the stories if they didn’t take away from the overarching mystery. This series feels like several different shows, and none of it is cohesive. I often forgot there was a mystery tying the series together. I can’t tell you how many times I almost gave up on this series because nothing of note ever happens. This series has ghosts, tragic backstories, cults, death, and none of it matters.
The pacing is terrible. There is a lot of filler in this series. Most of it comes from the ghost stories, but there is a fair amount of self-service. The ghost stories are often interrupted by snide remarks or criticism from the other characters, and it kills any suspense the stories have. There are minutes dedicated after the stories to remark on how great the story and storyteller are. The main character won’t go an episode without talking about how smart and talented she is. It is infuriating how pretentious these characters can be.
The series does have a few interesting moments. I liked how the kids dealt with their mortality and talked about their illnesses. There are some interesting conversations about the social struggles they face due to their illness, but there isn’t enough to make it worth your time. Other than their illnesses, the characters have no depth to them.
Don’t watch this show because it is bad. The characters are flat, the plot doesn’t matter, and the acting isn’t even good. But if you don’t believe me, check it out on Netflix.
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