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Terminator II (1989)
Good comedy, bad sci-fi
Question: What do you get when you mix elements of Aliens with Terminator 2; substitute schlocky director Bruno Mattei for talented director James Cameron; eliminate any charismatic actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton and replace them with unknown, no-talents; and do it all on a budget? Why you get Shocking Dark of course!
You can call it Terminator II and Bruno can call himself Vincent Dawn, but a turd by any other name will still smell bad. The only redeeming features of the movie are that the creature suits are somewhat amusing and there are some howlingly amusing moments of bad lines and bad line readings to accompany them.
Great film to watch while drinking, otherwise it's a chore.
Gods of the Deep (2023)
Near miss
Taking elements of HP Lovecraft and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and mixing in a tired plot twist from Leviathan, Gods of the Deep tries hard to thrill, but seldom succeeds.
While I enjoy practical effects, and the creature looks good, it isn't effective in its movements and interaction with the submersible. Acting is pretty good, but the script suffers from stereotypical characters who behave in the most incredibly stupid and unbelievable ways. Who fires a machine gun in a sub? And who smokes cigarettes when the oxygen on the sub is running low? This is ridiculous behavior that takes you out of the story. The constantly droning musical score really gets on the nerves after a while.
Not the worst film of its kind that I've seen, and a few fun moments, but overall not great.
The Breach (2022)
From Beyond...again
Pretty good reworking of the Lovecraft tale that was used as the basis for the far better film From Beyond made in 1986. I've read a novel by Nick Cutter, who was the writer/adapter of this screenplay, and enjoyed it enough to give this film a chance.
The acting from the entire cast is decent, and it is nice to see a lot of practical effects used in lieu of CGI. While the final third is exciting, it leaves too many unanswered questions, although it does have a nasty final sting for the viewer.
I'd say it's worth 90 minutes of your time if you don't mind a slow buildup to the third act. I was never bored with it.
Blutgletscher (2013)
The Thing Meets Alien
Despite some indifferent dubbing, the movie begins quite well as a re-imagining of Carpenter's The Thing. The practical effects are fun and suitably icky. The Alien face hugger twist later in the film is effective and a nice nod to that earlier movie.
The problem is that in the final third of the film all the characters start behaving like total idiots, even more so than characters in other films like this. It really takes you out of the story and makes you stop caring what happens to them. Also, there are more flaws in the logic established by the film, such as the mutant flies scene. Why don't all the people stung by these flies become carriers of more mutants like the first guy who got stung?
A near miss that could have been terrific with a better final act.
Bachelor Games (2016)
Monopoly would be a better choice
First, please note that EVERY person who gave an 8, 9 or 10 star review here has only this review on their account in the last 7 years. It is therefore safe to ignore them.
As to the film, it is clearly amateur all the way. The characters are not likeable, and who wants to spend 86 minutes with 5 unlikeable guys? The writing lets them down at every turn, hinting at interesting possibilities and then not exploring them. The characters actions are really unbelievable. Case in point, why give up your cell phones when you're out in the middle of nowhere in a strange place? Who does this? And to add insult to injury, the sole character who is vaguely interesting or likeable is shot by his "friend" and falls down a hill. But he's only shot in the leg and the hill isn't that steep so why do they assume he's dead and leave him? And the end is so rushed that we get no sense of what has been pursuing them or even a decent look.
The acting is fair and the direction is not awful so I'm giving it 2 stars, but I would never want to have to sit through this twice.
Showgirls (1995)
My Favorite Bad Movie
I've waited years to write a review of this train wreck meets a dumpster fire of a film and, having just rewatched it for the 6th or 7th time, I'm finally ready.
There is so much glorious awfulness in this film it's difficult to know where to start. Elizabeth Berkley is way out of her depth playing the lead. She seems to be trying really hard, but just doesn't have the necessary acting chops to pull it off. She is playing it straight but doesn't realize it needed to be performed with an excess of arch campiness. Gina Gershon, who is way better than this material, said in an interview that when she finally realized that the film couldn't be taken seriously (apparently the director didn't convey that too well - more on him later), she got on board and provided the over-the-top archness required, somewhere around Joan Collins level. Kyle Maclachlan looks simply embarrassed by the whole affair; more power to him. The other actors are saddled with paper thin, one note, underwritten characters and deliver appropriate performances for them.
Writer Joe Eszterhas has turned out a script that seems to have been written by a 15 year-old, brain damaged and oversexed boy who is still a virgin. His dialog is ridiculous in the extreme, as if he had no idea how real people might speak to, or behave around, each other. It's an almost surreal experience to hear some of the tone-deaf exchanges in the movie. Joe apparently learned nothing between penning Flashdance and this film. At least Flashdance had some good music in it; this flick just has mortifying, forgettable dance numbers.
Director Paul Verhoeven, who directed some of my favorite films including RoboCop and Total Recall, bungles this film most delightfully. He seems more interested in nipples, and insuring the female cast members show them at all times, than in getting a decent performance from anyone. Those nipples get ice, champagne, sequins and lipstick on them. They are ready to go out and partay! Maybe if Paul could have gotten all the actors on the same page with their performances by explaining the satirical tone of the movie (if indeed that really was the aim of the script - I have my doubts), this might have been a way funnier, though not as deliciously inept and awful, cinematic exercise.
So why can't I go more than a few years without watching it again and again?
Grantchester: Episode #7.5 (2022)
Great series gone to seed
What a shame that this show, which started so strong in its first 4 seasons, should have devolved to this sappy and uninteresting mess by the end of season 7. The mystery in this episode came off as an afterthought by the writers who seem to be writing for a soap opera rather than a murder mystery.
Most of the run time was taken up with Geordie's marriage woes, the Vicar's relationship problems, and Mrs. C's health issues. In between this, they shoehorned in a bland and uninvolving pseudo-mystery plot of no consequence, though it did allow for loads of heart-tugging scenes of seniors trying to find joy in the winter of their years.
I've stuck with the series as it went downhill over the last 2 1/2 seasons but this was the end for me. I won't even be watching the finale.
Unearthly Stranger (1963)
Sci-fi on a low budget.
Looks like I'll be the sole voice of dissent in these reviews. I was not thrilled by this film the way the other reviewers were. It is done on a very low budget and it hampers the effectiveness.
Only 5 main actors and an equal amount of sets give the film a claustrophobic feeling, heightened by the director filming the actors in close-up in almost every scene. The budgetary restrictions may have required this, but it gets tiresome early on, with the movie resembling a tv show. Camerawork is flatly done and becomes repetitive due to the lack of sets and obvious speed with which this must have been shot. In one scene a character shuts the door behind him. It bounces open and another actor in the scene must sidle over to close it.
The premise for the film, being able to visit far off worlds with your mind and actually physically inhabit those worlds is preposterous if you spend any time really thinking about it.
The lead actor overacts most of the movie, and shouts a lot of his lines, which becomes annoying quickly. There's little action throughout which leaves a lot of endless talking, with the viewers far ahead of the actors. There is little suspense to be generated when we know exactly what is going on early in the movie. A good twist in the final scene helps somewhat, but I was half asleep by that point.
While it's not exactly a classic, I would recommend seeing I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE rather than this.
I Want You Back (2022)
Better than I thought it would be.
The movie is a cute romcom, nothing more or less. But unlike many others of its genre, it actually has some funny moments along with the tender ones. Charlie Day and Jenny Slate have chemistry together and Scott Eastwood and Gina Rodriguez score laughs as the supporting players. The final scene is a groaner, but I enjoyed the rest of the film.
Ghost Catchers (1944)
Hold That Ghost Catcher
While some of the reviews here are raves for this film, I am firmly in the opposite camp. I find comedy duos like Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello very funny even today, but Olsen and Johnson are not. Their shtick may have played better in the 40s, however, I don't think it works in this movie at all. Part of the problem is that the paper thin plot seems to take a back seat to far too many musical and comedy interludes. The songs aren't memorable and neither are the slapstick bits. I found the duo's antics insufferable and I didn't care who the killer was by the end.
As a Universal genre completist, I'm glad I finally got to view this little seen film, but I would never put myself through watching it again. Stick with the far better Hold That Ghost from Abbott and Costello, or Ghost Breakers with Bob Hope. 2 1/2 stars.
Evil Takes Root (2020)
Reasonably Entertaining
Mid-budget film that, while it may not deliver any jolts or scares, still manages to be fairly enjoyable. The cast does well with their roles, though the script could have been better and given the viewers more insight into the characters and their motivations. There were some dangling story threads also, and the Exorcist-like ending felt a bit of a letdown. I enjoyed the practical creature effects, and at 91 minutes, the movie never feels draggy or slow. Go in with the expectation that you're going to get some superficial fun involving demonic goings on and you should find it an amiable way to kill an hour and a half.
American Experience: American OZ (2021)
Entertaining but superficial
American Oz tells the story of L. Frank Baum with a heavy emphasis on his one book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Like many recent documentaries, it wastes far too much time viewing its subject through today's socio-political lens, while omitting many details of the man's life that are far more interesting and could just stand on their own without trying to make them conform to the way we see things today and reading much into each aspect of the novel that may or may not have been intended by Baum.
No mention is made of Baum's growing disenchantment with the Oz series and his attempts to end it and move on to other characters and books such as the exceptional Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and The Sea Fairies, among others; and zero mention is made of Ruth Plumly Thompson picking up where Baum left off with the Oz series. How about a nod to John R. Neill who illustrated many of the books in the series after W. W. Denslow?
Numerous clips from The 1939 Wizard of Oz are interspersed throughout, which may appeal to the most casual viewer, but have little to do with the author who had been dead for 2 decades by the time the movie was released. More time could also have been spent detailing his many moves and the effect it had on his family.
Aside from these quibbles, they do cover a good deal of his life but there is nothing new here except for those who know nothing of the man and simply are tuning in because they are fans of the 1939 filmed version of his novel.
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
Disappointing in the extreme
I enjoyed the first Wonder Woman and was looking forward to this sequel. If not for Covid I was going to shell out big dollars to see it in IMAX, but decided to play it safe and watch on HBOMax instead. Boy am I glad that I did. If I had paid to see this, the rating would have been closer to a 2.
The script is a mess. It has no focus and jumps around with too many plotlines. Max Lord doesn't make for a great villain, he is simply a cliche megalomaniac who wants power to make up for a crappy childhood. Been there, seen that. Worse still, after " becoming" the wish crystal, his powers seem to change depending on the needs of the script. Kristen Wiig, an interesting actor, is also saddled with a trite character as the (supposedly) mousy doctor/scientist who instantly goes from plain to va-va-voom after her wish to be more like Diana Prince. Her transformation to Cheetah is undeveloped and unbelievable. I had a frightening flashback to the clip I saw of CATS when I saw her CGI incarnation as the cheetah/woman.
Too little time is spent on Wonder Woman and too much time is spent trying to tug on our heart strings with Max's doe-eyed little son. It began to resemble a superhero movie by way of Hallmark. The saccharine, feel-good ending seems unearned and completely ridiculous. Maybe they were aiming for a very young audience and I am just too old to appreciate that approach.
Hopefully Gal Gadot can get a better script and villain in the sequel to this.
A Christmas Carol (2019)
A Different Carol
There's a lot to like about this version of Dicken's tale, but also, a lot that is unlikeable.
Let's start with the good: performances by the cast are top notch. Guy Pearce does well with the part of Scrooge and Joe Alwyn and Vinette Robinson provide fresh and effective takes on the Cratchits. The sets look wonderful, evoking some of the feel of my favorite version from 1951, and thanks to a decent budget, offer a bigger scope and better set design. The 3 ghosts of Christmas are also handled nicely in the script and by the actors. The dark approach to the tale by the script is generally true to the story, though it does go too far in some instances, which brings us to:
The bad. This take on the novella paints Scrooge as too dark to warrant redemption. Knowing that he is responsible for the deaths of 17 miners is bad enough, but what he does to Mary Cratchit makes him look like a monster. I wanted him punished and agreed with Scrooge when he said he didn't deserve forgiveness. So the viewer is left with a hollow feeling when Ebenezer ultimately discovers the meaning of Christmas and attempts to make amends. It is difficult to accept that any amends and reparations he makes will even begin to undue some of the evil things he has done. Also, the liberal use of the f word seemed forced and unnecessary, as if the writer and producers wanted to hammer home the point that this was a gritty new take on the old material - and simply went overboard.
When this version opted to be edgier and darker than other movie versions, it went too far and painted itself into a corner when coming to the finale. It was hard to muster any sympathy for Scrooge by the final act and so there was no cathartic joy at his enlightenment.
Frankenstein vs. the Mummy (2015)
Better than Dracula vs. Frankenstein
Perfectly acceptable throwback of a picture with more traditional Universal inspired monsters. The film has a good script, good acting for the most part, and does wonders in the set design, makeup and gore effects for a low budget feature.
Damien Leone shows he's capable as a director, though the film could have benefitted from some tighter editing. It's too long at almost 2 hours, and could have been a topnotch, better paced movie at 90 minutes. Also, with the budget restraints we don't get enough wide shots, which gives the film a bit of a claustrophobic feel. Still, I'm going to check out the director's other films.
Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012)
Major Spoilers Ahead
So let me quickly review, and ruin the ending of the movie for you.
A group of unlikeable young people head out to the woods to search for bigfoot. They all get killed. The End. Just saved you 90 minutes of suspenseless annoyance.
Typical found footage nonsense with tons of shaky scenes of people walking in the forest and running away from "something" that we never see, except for a quick glimpse in the last second when the lead screams that it's not bigfoot it's... The flashing lights outside the cabin indicate it's an alien. Whoopie. They even steal a plot twist from Boggy Creek 2. How sad is that?
Strings (2015)
So terrible it's almost brilliant
Prior to viewing this, my favorite bad movie was Showgirls. Well Joe Eszterhas, move over because there's a new sheriff in (Brave)town and his name is Oscar Torres. Oscar has taken elements of Footloose, Flashdance, Step Up and every maudlin family drama from the Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel and clumsily mixed them into this rotting carcass of a script.
Josh, a 17 year old Electronica DJ at a club in the big city by night, is sullen and unhappy because daddy left, and his single and working mom doesn't keep milk in the fridge. Meanwhile he spends his nights partying like a boss at the club, scoring with a hot groupie and getting millions of views on line while popping pills left and right until he overdoses. In an unintentionally hilarious scene, Josh appears before a judge, who reads a long list of priors and then sentences him to spend a year in North Dakota with his estranged dad. Sure, that would happen.
Before you know it, Josh is the toast of little town America with his dance grooves. There are plenty of tear filled side plots about people who have lost family and friends in various wars and can't get past their grief. Until our own little Pollyanna, that's Josh folks, comes into their lives and starts to heal them while he himself is healed. And it's all done so simply and quickly through bad movie magic!
But the real capper is the big dance finale. In a small town that has lost many citizens to various wars, Josh decides to get the dance team, who have made it to the state finals (is this really a thing? I mean, I thought Bring It On was just a fever dream), to dance to his electronica take on the score of Platoon. When my jaw hit the floor, I picked it up so I could stifle the laughter. Honestly, I felt like I had popped one of the pills that sent Josh to North Dakota. It is so cynical and wrong headed of the makers of the film that it would leave a bad taste in your mouth if the whole enterprise wasn't so moronically stupid and ridiculous.
Bravetown works better as a comedy than drama, but really fails even at that. I'm giving it 2 stars rather than zero because it made me laugh really hard at certain scenes throughout.
Winterbeast (1992)
Hilariously Awful
Check in the dictionary under inept and you may find this film listed. I thought Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny was a cinematic abortion, but that's only because I hadn't witnessed the awesome mess that is Winterbeast.
Scene follows scene in apparent random order, characters have conversations that often appear as if the participants are not even listening to each other, and stop-motion monsters pop up every so often to kill a person we've never seen before. The script often has the actors looking at something important such as a picture or item offscreen that we, the viewers, never get to see or have explained to us. The lead actor has a mustache that goes from close shaven to bushy during the course of a day and then back again to close shaven later that night. But the best part is the villain of the piece. How and why he is the villain is never explained but it culminates in the most bizarre and hysterical scene of an already uproarious film. Picture, if you can, an effete man in a tartan plaid suit, who sounds like Harvey Fierstein crossed with Katherine Hepburn, wearing a dime store clown mask and mincing around a group of corpses while a record plays "Johnny, dear Johnny what can the matter be" in a whiny high voice. The sound is awful throughout, particularly in this seemingly endless scene, which just adds to the hilarity.
Seriously, if you like bad films and want to be able to laugh at people who think Plan 9 from Outer Space and Manos: Hands of Fate are the worst films ever released, be sure to check out this complete mess. You won't be bored, it will have you laughing and rolling your eyes throughout, plus you can say you've seen the bottom of the barrel in cinema.
When Darkness Falls (2006)
Well, it's like a film...
So, you just got hold of a cheap digital camera and you asked your parents if you could film at their house and they said okay. Now you get five of your friends and ask them if they would like to be in your "movie" and they say, "But we've barely acted before", and you say, "It's cool, I'll just throw a script together and we'll wing it!" Now you have what seems to be the preparation for this thing.
The miniscule attempt at a plot for the first tale involves a guy and his new boyfriend trying to have a date night at his place in the country, adjacent to a cemetery. At first the guy tries to scare his boyfriend (completely unconvincingly) and the boyfriend gets a little jumpy, so the guy really tries to frighten him by telling him a cliche story about a killer who comes back from the dead if you say his name 5 times. The scriptwriter thinks it's funny or clever to reference other, far better, horror movies throughout. It doesn't work. A couple of male friends show up and try to scare the guys. After repetitive and drawn out scenes of this, it ends with one of the friends turning into a zombie and attacking one of the other guys. The two original guys disappear from the story at this point. The End.
This mess takes over an hour to play out, with people repeating lines verbatim, and the accompanying actions, throughout. There are long, and I mean long, pauses between characters saying their lines. This goes on through the whole thing. The camerawork is flat and amateurish, lots of shots with only one character in frame talking to the other character off camera, and herky-jerky camera movement. There are no special effects other than the guys who are playing zombies putting in contacts (ooh, scary!), and the acting ranges from subpar to wooden. Apparently the writer/director/producer thought that we needed a poor, low budget zombie flick with gay characters. We didn't.
There's a second 30 minute segment, having nothing to do with the first. I could barely watch it, I just fast forwarded through parts of it. It involves a guy killing his ill roommate then burying him. The dead guy shows back up in his sickbed and scares the guy, but not the viewer.
Der Vampir auf der Couch (2014)
Amusing Vampire Comedy
If Woody Allen had tackled the classic vampire theme, just past his prime, it might have played out something like this. The script has some sharp dialog and witty word play which is done justice by some good actors who know how to have fun with their lines while still playing it straight for the most part. The film wisely chooses to keep broad comedy at a minimum while loading on the 1930s atmosphere. Not a classic but quite enjoyable for what it is. If you liked Love At First Bite you should find this entertaining.
Winchester (2018)
More of the same
While it is clear that The Spierig Brothers are familiar with all the haunted house horror story conventions, they, like Rob Zombie before them, do not seem to be able to effectively use them. A fondness for the genre does not translate into the ability to engage and frighten an audience.
Before anyone dismisses my review as being from someone who doesn't enjoy deliberately paced, creepy stories without a plethora of pyrotechnics, let me state that The Haunting (the original not the crappy remake) and 1944's The Uninvited are two of my favorite films. You don't need a large budget or special effects to make a scary film on the subject of a haunted house. Both Insidious and Sinister demonstrated that with good direction and a decent story you can scare the hell out of an audience.
While Winchester boasts some good actors and a wonderful setting that is fraught with possibilities, it squanders both on a tired story of ghosts looking for revenge, which completely ignores the real facts of the Winchester House. A couple jump scares accompanied by sudden music stings work to a degree, but there is no genuine feeling of suspense generated by the script, no growing sense of escalating dread. Instead we get acceptable performances and some nice looking sets as the actors go through their paces to little effect.
It's not a terrible film, but one which fails to raise the hackles and which you will quickly forget after leaving the theater.
Eruption (2009)
Not your run of the mill disaster film
Eruption is a solid film from New Zealand detailing a scientist's attempts to warn the people of Auckland of an impending volcanic eruption within the city.
Don't go into this expecting a Hollywood style disaster flick or you'll be disappointed, as the titular eruption doesn't occur until close to the end of the movie. What is nice about it is that you get to meet and know the people who will be effected by the impending disaster and seeing how they handle the situation, some stupidly (as expected), and others wisely, but all believably.
The plot overall is not terribly dissimilar from Dante's Peak, but the script is well written and the acting is good. And there's a lot less "disaster". The stories of the people involved are interesting and you won't be able to figure out who lives or dies until the very end, and there are some surprises there. I enjoyed it as a small scale disaster/drama film, which rang true, as opposed to some of the ridiculously overblown ones that Hollywood churns out that have ludicrous scripts with absurd and unrealistic behavior by the characters. The special effects for the final eruption are quite good also.
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Outstanding
This was the most moving and magical animated feature I have seen in years. I've seen all the Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks etc. CGI films and feel that this stands head and shoulders above their recent releases.
Using stop motion animation and some CGI, Kubo creates a world that is at once real and fantastic. It has a solid feel to its wondrous and imaginative landscapes that 100% CGI movies still can't quite capture. The story is heartfelt and told without pandering to small children, yet they will still be able to enjoy it, unless their senses have become too deadened by the hyperactive antics found in so many of today's animated films geared toward them. The filmmakers don't soften some of the scary images and situations as we often see in today's PC productions that seem to believe that small kids will be traumatized by a frightening moment in a film.
This is a film that the whole family can enjoy.
Café Society (2016)
Near Flawless
Cafe Society may be the closest to vintage Woody Allen that I have seen in decades. There is so much to like about this film that I am surprised by the low rating.
In Jesse Eisenberg, Allen has found his younger self and can use him to good effect. Eisenberg is likable and fits the part he is playing like a glove: innocent yet not naïve, kind but not fragile. He is the perfect stand-in for Allen. The other performances are also top-notch. Steve Carrell does a great job as the quintessential 30's agent in Hollywood, but thanks to good writing, does not fall prey to easy stereotyping. His character is far more real than simply a shallow, name-dropping big shot; he's human. Allen gets terrific performances out of Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively, as the two loves in Bobby's life, and I generally do not find their acting to be convincing, so that alone is quite a feat.
The entire supporting cast is fine, and given plenty of good material to flesh out their characters, making them all interesting and multi-dimensional.
The cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking, ably abetted by the gorgeous production design and art direction. So many small details come into view that immerse you in this world. It is a pleasure to see a true filmmaker with a cinematic eye deliver the goods this way.
The script has plenty of chuckles, and some outright dark laughs with the gangster brother Ben taking care of all who cross him; as well as Allen's usual ponderings on the complexities of life, love and death. It all comes beautifully together in this thoroughly enjoyable film.
Black Moon (1934)
Voodoo Fun
This is a tense and exciting little film. I was surprised how quickly and effectively the movie manages to ratchet up the tension without wasting time on endless setup, giving us just enough to know the characters and get involved with the situation. There is a very effective and ominous tone struck with the opening frames and nicely developed as the cast heads to an island that is cut off from help. Good performances and cinematography help greatly; for once we have a juvenile who is not annoying and smart leads in Fay Wray and Jack Holt. Dorothy Burgess does a good job with a complicated part. This plays like a forerunner to Val Lewton's classic I Walked with a Zombie, though there are no zombies present here. Worth catching the beautiful print on TCM.