Tag Archives: horror movies

Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Slash/Back (2022)

Leave a comment

Slash/Back is a low-budget horror movie that you should at least consider supporting. The acting isn’t great, and the special effects are cheesy, but it tells an important story from an under-represented perspective. I had enough fun with this movie that I feel comfortable recommending it, but I understand it is not for everyone.

In a remote arctic village in Canada, a group of teens lives their lives in their under-resourced community wishing for something exciting to happen. Unfortunately, this dream comes true when aliens start terrorizing their little town. Now it is up to them to save the town and possibly the world.

Slash/Back deals with a lot of important issues that are often overlooked in modern and popular cinema. You have a group of capable female protagonists who struggle with the clashing of their native culture and the invasive culture of colonization. This is a story of an underfunded community dealing with the symptoms of poverty: substance abuse, racism, and feeling trapped and bound by the lack of opportunities. It is a story that is very relatable to me, and one I appreciate seeing every time. I love how this movie blends the monster film genre with Inuit folklore while it makes important social commentary. More importantly, it was cool to see that the actors in this movie are from the represented community and not a random assortment of brown people like they have in movies like Apocalypto.

The biggest issue with this movie is its acting. The story follows a group of teenage girls who don’t have much acting experience. It is fine for the most part, but the effects are clear. There are tense or suspenseful movies that aren’t do not land because the acting range isn’t there. You couple the lack of acting talent with cheesy special effects, and this isn’t the scary movie it wants to be. It doesn’t ruin the movie, I know for a fact that there are worse movies out there, but I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the film’s flaws. It is not unwatchable, but something to keep in mind.

You should watch and support this movie because there need to be more diverse voices in cinema. Flaws aside, this movie is fine that deserves your support. 

Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Apartment 1303 (2012)

Leave a comment
Source

You can watch Apartment 1303 for free on YouTube, but I wouldn’t bother. The acting is terrible, the sound is bad, and the story isn’t interesting. The movie focuses on two sisters who move into apartment 1303 to get away from a drunk and abusive mother. They live in this apartment at different times, but both will experience the ominous presence of the ghosts that live there. It makes me wonder how this complex exists when half the residents are ghosts. 

Apartment 1303 fails as a horror movie in every regard. The poor acting and lack of any emotion kill any suspense this poorly written movie could have had. Its garbage sound mixing means you hear every breath and rustling in the background, and it gets distracting. The soundtrack is played on a speaker one room over, and once from a pair of wireless headphones. The plot is full of holes and continuity errors. There are lines of dialogue that contradict themselves in the same breath. This movie is lazy, boring, and a huge waste of time.

I do, however, want to take a moment to overanalyze the plot a bit. Usually, in horror movies, a character will make frustratingly incompetent choices that lead to their demise, like staying in an apartment everyone says is haunted. In this movie, I don’t blame the characters for not leaving the apartment. Apartment 1303 is a one-bedroom high-rise apartment in downtown Detroit that is definitely nicer and bigger than the one I am currently living in. The rent was only $700 a month with a full kitchen, a large living room, a full-sized bathtub, and a balcony with a nice view of the lake. I could put aside my fear of ghosts for $700 of rent. The sisters were also escaping an abusive mother who was desperately clinging to her failed career as a singer. I would choose the ghost too, especially after hearing her music. This movie is dumb, but living in the haunted apartment is blameless.

Anyways, this movie is free on YouTube, but I wouldn’t bother.

Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Reviews: The Inherited (2016)

3 Comments

I didn’t know Lifetime made horror movies, but here we have the oddest ghost story you probably shouldn’t watch. I had to take multiple breaks to get through this movie, and it wasn’t worth it. The acting is very stiff and awkward. This kills all suspense; horror movies rely heavily on good suspenseful buildup. At least there aren’t any cheap jump scares. If there are jump scares, they are so poorly done that I didn’t notice. This is a very incompetent movie. The story is full of holes, and it never knows what it wants to be. Is this a movie about murder? A haunting? Spousal abuse? It is dumber than you could imagine.

The inherited is about a newly-wed couple who move into a mansion that the husband inherits. There is something sinister in the house, and it is Tom, the husband. The ghost of Tom’s ex-wife still roams the house, but the worst thing she does is try to open locked doors. Tom, on the other hand, is short-tempered and aggressive. There are a lot of red flags in this relationship, and it is not because the house is haunted. There is a scene in this movie where he is on the verge of hitting Eve because she was voicing that she felt unsafe in the house. I was more worried that Eve was stuck in an abusive relationship than anything the ghost could have done. 

This movie never figures out what it wants to be. It sets up an ominous town with creepy citizens like in Get Out, but they don’t do anything. After investigating Tom’s past, it is implied that he might have murdered his ex-wife, but he didn’t. There is a ghost in the house, but she doesn’t do anything sinester either. It takes an hour for this movie to remember it is horror and by then, there are only 20 minutes left. 

Eve is a dumb character. With possible murder on the table, Eve still doesn’t leave a clearly abusive husband. She gets poisoned, and she still decides to stay and work things out.Then there is ghost who roams the halls. You find out that its the ghost of the ex-wife. This is possibly the most helpful ghost in cinema since Casper. This ghost talks to Eve when she is lonely and even helps with the housework. It is no wonder that in the end, after Tom is murdered, Eve decides to co-parent a child with the ghost. Eve wins this movie. She gets a huge train money inheritance, a nice mansion, and a family. What more can a girl ask for? 

This movie is bonkers, but not in a fun way. It moves too slowly and the acting is terrible. It is free on YouTube, but I would honestly skip it.

Watch it Here!
Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Awake (2021

2 Comments
Source

Awake is incredibly disappointing. Awake is a horror movie where the monster is human nature. People are no longer able to sleep, and sleep deprivation is slowly killing humanity. Now the race is on to find a cure before humanity goes extinct. The movie focuses on a dysfunctional family and their survival. You get to watch as society crumbles under the weight of sleep deprivation.

This movie is alright. The acting is decent, the action is appropriate, but the ending is terrible. This is a great example of a movie that uses its run time to build up to nothing. What makes this movie hard to recommend is that it makes some solid artistic choices, but it doesn’t make enough of them to make this movie work. Awake is good at showing the story rather than relying on exposition. For example, in the first few minutes, you are introduced to Jill who is a recovering addict who is trying to give her family a better life. You know this because the son will check the car for drugs or they will make slights at the mom for being late or looking tired. You get a lot of Jill’s back story without the characters having to explicitly say anything about it. I liked this form of storytelling and hope more movies can follow suit.

I liked Jill as a character. She isn’t perfect, some of her dialogue isn’t good, but she has some redeemable moments. Jill is smart, capable, and most importantly, human. Jill doesn’t go into situations guns blazing like she is immortal. Instead, she takes the time to think and only engages when she has to because there are stakes. These stakes give the movie much-needed tension, too bad it leads nowhere.

I can’t recommend this movie. There are parts of this movie that I liked, but I can’t forgive the ending. The movie does a good job of introducing different plausible conclusions. There could be a cure, God’s wrath, scientific mumbo-jumbo, or even aliens. But instead, the movie ends in disappointment. SPOILERS: The movie ends with a baptism. As a way to start over. The kids figure that people need to die to start over so they take Jill to the river and drown her and then the movie ends. You don’t know if the cure worked. You don’t know what happens to humanity. It just ends and I was left bitter about it.

Don’t watch this movie. This is another failed attempt at another A Quite Place clone. Go watch that instead. But if yo don’t believe me, you can watch it on Netflix.

Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Kept Woman (2015)

1 Comment

Kept Woman is a horror movie where the monster is toxic masculinity. The film is about a strong, intelligent, independent Jessica who is kidnapped and forced to live the rest of her life as a 1950’s American housewife in her neighbor’s basement. It is a story about the struggle between modern womanhood and the pressure of an always creeping outdated ideal. Kept Woman attempts to create horror in the mundane, almost like in Stepford Wives or Get Out. The monster isn’t scary, but rather the need for idyllic perfection. As a result, there are some beautiful set designs, but faulty execution.

The movie spends the first half of the movie establishing Jessica as the here. She is a quirky and intelligent amateur sleuth. The movie wastes so much time on her development, that the horror is limited to the last 30 minutes of the film. It is dull and disappointing. I believe the intent was to build up to a powerful moment when she escapes, but it doesn’t pan out as such. It feels rushed and forced. Some cool moments in this movie suggest that a bigger budget and better writing might have saved this movie, but as is, this movie is a waste of time. 

If you want a movie with the same plot done better, watch 10 Cloverfield Lane. It has the same plot done better, even with the whole alien subplot. But if you don’t believe me, you can watch it on Amazon Video with a Prime subscription. 

Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Review: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Leave a comment
Source

The new Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the best-rebooted horror franchise I’ve seen so far. It isn’t going to win any awards, but it is a lot of fun. This movie knows what it is, and it does it well. Texas Chainsaw Massacre goes back to its slasher roots and capitalizes on what makes the genre great. The Leatherface is blood-thirsty, and it makes for some very cool deaths. If you are a fan of slasher movies, this will be a solid revisit to the genre.

Out of the remakes I have seen so far, Texas Chainsaw Massacre has the best pacing. Everything is concise and self-contained to the town. There is no needless back story or lazy tie-ins. There isn’t a whole lot of self-service for the legacy characters or the original franchise. The movie introduces the main characters and starts killing them almost immediately. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to wait through a bunch of meaningless reinvented lore to get to what makes this movie fun.

The characters are fine for what they are, although they are a bit insufferable. You spend enough time with them to care, or not care about them. You don’t get long-winded backstories that add nothing to the plot. The acting is good for the type of movie. The plot doesn’t feel long and drawn out. The kills and action are great, and although some are cheesy, it sets this film apart from the other reboots. Overall, I don’t think this is a movie you can keep coming back to, but if you have nothing else to do, at least it’s not Holloween. You can find this movie on Netflix.

Movie Reviews, movies

Movie Reviews: Scream (2022)

2 Comments
Source

It is tricky to recommend the new Scream movie. Unless your movie ticket is $2, I would not bother watching it in theaters. Streaming it at home would be a better option, but this movie isn’t anything special. The meta-ness of this movie is a bit drawn out. I get that you should rush to see. The meta-ness is a bit much, and the story suffers for it. I get that the meta-jokes are part of the charm of the series, but they get abrasive and overstay their welcome. Sometimes they do work, but more often than not, it is unnecessary commentary about itself. Jay and Silent Bob Reboot does the same commentary better.

I will say that this is a better reboot than the newest Holloween. Scream doesn’t feel as drawn-out, nor is it a vanity project for the original cast. But this movie is drawn out, and a lot of this comes from its meta-ness. This movie will stop often to explain elements of horror movies or spoil itself when all I want to do is watch a scary movie. This movie has potential, and there are moments where the meta-ness works, but it never quite gets there.

The best scene in the whole movie is its opening. While it is clearly an homage to the original, it is excellently executed, and it sets a tone that the rest of the movie never lives up to. It builds some great tension, there is the perfect amount of meta-ness to story, and Jenna Ortega’s performance as the first victim is the high bar that the rest of the movie will continue to fail to achieve. This scene alone gave me the hope that now fuels my disappointment in this movie. 

The main issue with this movie is its characters. The legacy characters are fine, but the new cast is forgettable. The main character is boring. Melissa Barrera isn’t a good choice for the lead. But to her credit, the lead is poorly written. If Sam isn’t dealing with her father being the original killer, she is spouting unwarranted one-liners that never fit her character. I think they were trying to redefine the role of the scream queen to be strong and independent, but there isn’t enough evidence in this movie to support that she is strong and independent. There is a scene in this movie where the killer tells Sam that she “You aren’t strong enough for this movie.” This is the best meta moment in this movie because it is true. Her performance isn’t up to par with the rest of the cast, and the rest of the cast barely does any better. 

This movie is just alright. If you are a fan of the series, it is better than some of the sequels and you might appreciate it more than most. If you aren’t a fan, I think it is better to wait for streaming to be available. I have seen a lot worse, but it isn’t worth the ticket price.

Movie Reviews

Haunted Maze (2017) – Review

Leave a comment

I won’t waste your time with the obvious. This movie is bad. The acting, the production, and the lack of story is all sloppily put together and falsely marketed as a movie. Don’t watch this movie, even if you like making fun of terrible movies, there is nothing here for you. Most of the time if you can’t hear what is going on, you can’t see. I found this movie accidentally thinking it was something else and I hate myself terribly for having to watched it.

Now I will dig a little deeper into why Haunted Maze doesn’t work. The protagonist, if you can call them that, are unlikable and have no presence in the movie. You are quickly introduced to the protagonist who’s only defining characteristic is that they are teens. At least, they are what the director thinks teens are. It is a really poor depiction and it doesn’t help that they all have the acting ability of cardboard. If you get passed the poor acting and terrible dialogue, they are all assholes. None of the protagonist are likable and I instantly wished for the killer to do the great service of erasing them from this movie. Horror movies need a least one good character. A relatable essence that people want to see succeed and survive. Here, you get a brief introduction to a group of friends who really shouldn’t be friends and I would argue that their toxic relationship is more dangerous than the killer clown.

Now the biggest issue with the movie is the villain of the film. It is clear early on that this was a film that started with a concept and a movie was made around it. Worse yet, it seems that the film is a collection of unrelated ideas put together without any clear goal or story in mind. There are too many plots in this movie and none of them are resolved. This also means that this movie doesn’t have a solid flow as it will jump from scene to scene hoping for connections that aren’t there. Worse yet, the plot points this movie feigns to have seem to be quirks that come across lame.

The biggest quirk in this movie is the villain. It is clear of the bat that the actor who plays the killer clown is trying his hardest. He easily delivers the best performance out of the whole cast by far. It is not good enough to merit the watch, but I will give him that credit. That said, this is the worst killer clown you can have chasing you. He fucking talks in rhyme. Why does he talk in rhyme? That is never addressed. In fact, none of his character is explained. There is no rhyme or reason why he has to be a clown when nothing in his past suggest this as a logical personality. He is a killer just because and that instantly makes him such a flat villain. A good villain needs to have a motive, goal, personality outside of just a quirk. There needs to be a reason for him to act the way he acts and him being a killer clown because it is a horror movie frankly isn’t enough. You get tired of this clown so quickly because he talks so much but never once explains why he is hunting teens.

Some might argue that the traumatic experience from his past is reason enough to create believable motive as well as form his personal identity, but this movie brushes past this explanation so quickly and makes such a wild leap to killer clown that it doesn’t work. Had they done like in the first Halloween movie and shown a traumatic childhood, events and actions that suggest that he was leading down the killer clown path, or even made his father a killer clown it would have given the clown a little more depth. I don’t use names because honestly, it is so generic of a concept it doesn’t matter. With out this basic level of character development, there is no reason to care about the villain. With out any motive, any depth, the villain isn’t memorable. Think about all your favorite villains. Even those in slashers extend more than just a quirk and blood-thirst. You work because you understand the motive, they have weight and feel real because they have flaws and goals.

This is too much thought and analysis for a movie that was done with way too little thought. Honestly, you won’t get passed the first five minutes because of how badly everything is done. I did it so you don’t have to. Skip it like your life depended on it!

 

Movie Reviews

Little Red Necro (2019) Review

Leave a comment

This wild ride of a movie leaves more questions than answers as it tries to take on a bit too much with its little budget. It is difficult to put this review into words because I am still unsure as to what I have just experienced. But I will try to explain it as I understood it and pick apart its flaws from there.

The movie takes place in a war-torn London. A war against an evil cult of Italian monsters in an undisclosed amount of time in the future. The story centers around the mysterious disappearance of the main character, a mother dealing with the loss of her family and a mysterious presence that is haunting her. There is also a superhuman killer on the loose.

This movie lacks focus. With its small amount of space and resources, it attempts and fails to create a large world. This movie has too many plots. As a result, a lot of them are left unresolved and are distractedly pointless. The war plot adds doesn’t affect the story and could have been left out honestly. There is also a plot about a cult that is confusing as all hell because it is never clear what their alignment is. Are they evil or the heroes of the story? There is also a infidelity plot that seems to be added to provide some drama. Unfortunately, this weaved around the killer’s rampage is incredibly distracting. As a result, there is no real tension as you jump from scene to scene. You will constantly be working hard to peace together the fragments of plot given to you through lazy exposition that seems to be added to connect all the gore.

It seems the movie started with a costume design, or a group of them. A plot was then written around these designs. This hurts the movie because these designs make little sense and don’t look good. The movie jumps from monstrosity to monstrosity trying to create this world full of monsters, but none of them are memorable. None of them look unique, and instead look like cheap copies of each other. Some are incredibly gross for the sake of being gross and their presence doesn’t feel important to the film. They add very little as they are destroyed by the main monster of the film.

Unfortunately, the narrative doesn’t read coherently, but rather like introductions of multiple stories en medias res. You will jump from a barely audible and unenthusiastic conversation with the main character and her friend to a gruesome murder. It feels as if the plot is left secondary in this movie as you can tell most of the effort goes into the murders because of how muted they are in comparison. Scenes with the main character are hard to understand because she sounds so far away, I didn’t understand who she was or why she was there except for the random bits and pieces that were written. In contrast, murders are loud and accompanied by gallons of blood.

Everything about this movie is over the top and cheesy. Body parts explode, the smallest cuts release the flood gates, and the acting doesn’t help much either. It is hard to take this movie serious, and as a result, all the big reveals are muted. This movie is rich with big reveals as they try to connect the plots together, but they do so poorly. I wish they had instead focused on one idea and one plot point and worked on developing the big plot a little more. It could have helped with the tension if instead of boring conversations of infidelity, they focused on creating the lore for the main monster of the movie.

The biggest issue with he movie is the main monster. They do a poor job creating this monster’s lore. You do get snippets of exposition relating to his lore, but they are incredibly cryptic. You do not see much of the monster in throughout the movie. Instead he is an unstoppable mysterious force and it makes the movie kind of boring. Without too much explanation, his intentions seem to be tied to the narrator’s diary. This kills the tension in the movie as every kill is explained by some girl’s edgy journal entries. You learn early on that he is unstoppable as he kills people easily. Even villains set up as somewhat competent are destroyed comically with a single punch. This makes the movie a bit boring as there are no stakes or any semblance of tension. If nothing hurts the beast, why should I care about the bad ass looking villain he is about to face off against?

I can’t tell you the importance of the film’s name, that is never addressed. I also can’t recommend this mess of a movie because even though there is a lot happening, it has no substance. It does a poor job at explaining anything so by the end of it, you will be trying and failing to understand what the fuck you just sat through. It honestly feels like someone made a bunch of monster costumes and pieced them together with poorly written dialogue. If you like incredibly cheesy horror flicks akin to things like Thankskilling, you might get a good laugh at the goofy monsters and over the top special effects. Other than that, there is no reason to watch this wild ride of a movie. You aren’t missing anything important.

Movie Reviews

Awoken (2019) – Review

Leave a comment

This movie does the viewer a great service by informing the viewer the type of movie experience it will take him on in the first 5 minutes; it’s going to be a generic, slow, painful journey of a movie. Hopefully you didn’t pay for it or seek it out as a brief and cheap thrill to your otherwise boring day because there are better way’s to spend your time. This film hits every generic cliché before the movie even begins to gain any kind of traction as a form of entertainment.

Awoken starts, as these movies often do, in the past. A cheap and predictable jump scare later, it cuts to a bored main character in class. I don’t know why the main characters in these movies seem to know in a class that is extremely relevant to the plot, but here we are, in an incredibly foreshadowing lecture that kind of spoils the movie. Not that you should stick around for the rest of it anyways. It is also here that you learn, through lazy exposition, that the main character is orphaned by some mysterious event that will constantly be alluded till its lazy reveal. And of course her obsession to cure her brother’s insomnia is the driving force to the plot of the movie.

A bit hole in this movie is that everything about this girls life is written to make the plot work. Were she not a sleep scientist, having her life directly effected by the villain of the movie, or even been a sleep major, this movie could never happen. Were she a poetry major, for example, her brother would never be put in the hands of the demon. She wouldn’t even know which demon to research as even this seems to be handed to her as a way to move the plot forward. I understand that there is no such thing as a sleep major and I am leaving a lot of details extremely vague, but I want to break down the movie to its basic elements to show how incredibly generic and forced this plot is.

This movie clearly didn’t have enough plot to the movie. It seems to lazily movie from one moment of gore to the next to achieve shock. You see someone hang themselves because reasons and then it quickly tries to move to the next scene. There clearly wasn’t enough plot in this movie because when you aren’t watching gore, you get to watch the main character work on a failed relationship that existed off screen. If that doesn’t sound exciting to you, that is because it isn’t. There are so many failed attempts at creating character depth in this movie, but all the characters are forgettable. This is mostly because they try to create this depth through exposition dumps. The best part of the film is a weirdly placed Settlers of Catan reference, but that isn’t reason enough to watch this movie.

This movie is without any real substance. There are so many holes in this movie that it doesn’t make sense. The parts that do make sense are done lazily and are rather boring. If you are a horror movie buff, you can find this concept done better elsewhere. This movie is so incredibly predictable that it becomes a chore to watch. Don’t pay for this movie, we can’t keep supporting these generic cash grabs for the sake of a movie date. We need content, narrative, and depth and this movie offers none of that.