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Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Underrated Campy Horror Comedy
I think this movie is misunderstood. I certainly misjudged it until now. I put off watching this film for a long time. From watching the trailer, I don't think it was marketed as a horror comedy, but it certainly is, and a dang enjoyable one at that. I watched this alone and I laughed out loud several times. It's just the right amount of campiness and it's fun and enjoyable. If you liked any of the old Evil Dead series then you'll probably enjoy this - it has the same goofy energy. If you're looking for a serious or dark horror then this definitely isn't the right film for you today, but if you feel like having a good laugh at a silly stereotypical demonic curse type story, then you should definitely ignore the low rating and put this on.
The Last House on the Left (2009)
Never Would Have Thought I would Rate a R*** Revenge 10/10
I watched the original and then this one, back to back. First time for both. The remake is far superior, which doesn't happen a ton, especially in horror. Everything that I disliked about the original was fixed in the retelling. The characters were flushed out and it makes you feel for them a lot more. It didn't feel clumsy like the first one, and they dropped that ridiculous police subplot. Even the graphic assault scene felt so much more raw and authentic. You really root for the anti-heroes after that, and the villains all got extremely satisfying deaths afterwards. I can't think of anything that I would change about it. I never would have thought I would rate a movie of this subject matter so highly, but it really is a masterpiece.
The Doll (2017)
For a "Living Doll" she is absolutely not convincing as a doll...
For such a bad movie there's actually a lot to say about it.
First of all, as others have mentioned, the film is awful.
Now, I am the type that usually rate pretty generously, which I have here, by giving it a two. I find, personally, even bad movies are enjoyable to me. This one just has me puzzled.
First of all, I am completely stunned that this was directed and written by a woman. It's so problematic that it seems impossible that real women were even consulted, let alone in charge of decisions. The only women in the movie are all built and act like adult film stars, which fine, whatever. They're typecast for a reason. The only women in this film are literally all sex workers, and then the main guys girlfriend. You can kinda dismiss that because it's the story, but it's just somehow not even believable. Like the one jerk best friend guy.. he doesn't work and at one point Ron Jeremy even shows up to the house cause he never pays for the sex workers and he wants his money. Yet, somehow he still keeps ordering more sex workers. At one point, he has 2 sex workers over, and they go to have sex with each other in the back of a car (make that one make sense) and The Doll kills them, but like... he doesn't even notice they are missing? Or he forgets he ordered them? Cause the next scene a new sex worker shows up to have sex with him. What was the purpose of the other two that he seemingly lost track of? What??
This movie is full of plot holes like that. Like why did the latter mentioned sex worker go into the attic when she said she was going to the bathroom? She thought it was weird that the ladder was down but for some reason decides to go up there? Who would do that? It makes no sense.
It's like every woman is just fodder to be killed so they don't need to make sense anyway. To be fair, that's pretty standard for slashers, but this is on a whole other level.
A few other people have already mentioned that the sound design is horrendous, but it's so bad that I need to mention it as well. You can hear their mics rubbing on stuff, when people scream you can tell the mic is too cheap to even pick up the sound properly. It isn't mixed or leveled properly. The music is very unnaturally placed and faded (or not faded rather) in and out. It's just a hot mess.
The acting is so bad that it's painful. The jerk friend is the most believable.
Another major point is that there seems to be some Satanic element to the killings? But all that really means is that she draws pentagrams sometimes and has a voodoo doll. There isn't any actual tie-in, it's unbelievable to the point of being comedic, and it's quite frankly, insulting.
And last but not least, the reason we all are even giving this awful movie a chance, Valeria.. the "Living Doll" as she's called so often in the media. I, like most others, chose to watch this film to see what she actually looks like, and honestly, it's very disappointing. She genuinely doesn't look as doll-like as her photographs, so most of the hype we've seen for her "unnatural doll-like look" is actually just photo editing. She's just looks like every other tall Russian chick. It's a shame that she's spent so much time and money and most of her look is just photo editing software. Also, she can't act, even though her role is to be fake and doll-like which is literally her life's work/goal in life. It's just baffling. The whole thing is downright confusing because I am really not sure who this was made for, other than the director maybe wanting to meet Valeria?
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
C'est Beau <3 It's Beautiful
This movie is a masterpiece, and such a treat to watch. I just got home from seeing it in theatres and I feel like I had a massive psychedelic drug trip. It was absolutely hilarious, and the whole theatre was laughing all throughout. The acting is phenomenal, let's get that out of the way. The camerawork is superb, truly. There are creative liberties taken throughout and they pay off in dividends. I already can't wait to watch this again. It left me wanting more in the end, not because I was unfulfilled, by any means, but because I wanted to explore his world more.
Even though Beau is completely off his rocker, he's somehow still very relatable, and it is easy to empathize with his character, even amidst the chaos of his reality. I kept asking myself every few minutes, "what the heck is happening?" and yet at the same time it somehow still made sense. The world he lives in is intense, and keeps coming at him. The lines between reality, delusion, and straight up hallucination, are indiscernible. I love that it was an absolutely bonkers ride from start to finish. There were several parts that were surprising/jarring (in a good way), but it wasn't scary/horror, like Ari's other works. I'm sure to Beau himself it was absolutely terrifying, but the way it is portrayed is incredibly entertaining and comical. It is a true dark comedy, and it's done very well. The metaphors are visceral, and as we descend into madness and understanding with Beau, they become more and more intense, until we are crushed beneath the weight of them, and are left to sit with the lingering feelings of uneasiness, emptiness, and perplexity that were all too familiar to our new friend, Beau.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
I actually wished for death while watching this.
What is there to say about this film that hasn't been said already.
It's a complete waste of time. It's a sensory mess. I can see that there are some excellent technical aspects to it, but they don't come close to making this a decent film.
I'll start with the good. There are 4 or 5 very beautiful shots. The special effects for it's time are unparalleled, to be sure.
That's about all I can really give it credit for.
Those 4 or 5 beautiful shots are milked TO THE EXTREME. We're talking something that could have been a minute long shot, and would have been perfect, is dragged on for 10-15minutes just so Kubrick could show off his work. It's pretentious on a level that I've never even experienced before.
The first few minutes of the movie are just black. So obviously you skip ahead. Then it isn't really any better because it's just sunrises and scenery until you get to watch some unconvincing ape-suit actors do almost nothing for 20 minutes. They find a monolith and that apparently causes them to evolve, meaning they begin using tools. (bones as weapons)
I should have known by this awful opening sequence that I should have turned it off, but I am a huge sci-fi lover and professional sci-fi artist so I wanted to actually get to the good stuff and maybe be inspired in some way. I foolishly waited it out. I guess it's April fools today so the joke was definitely on me.
Then we get to some admittedly beautiful shots, that go on for far too long. They're just spacecrafts moving about and docking. Ok cool setup. Time for some action and an interesting story, right? Wrong.
A few scenes where some doctors talk to each other on the spacecraft. No meaningful dialogue whatsoever. It's along the lines of
"oh how was your trip." "good."
"how's doctor so and so" "he's good but he's busy" "oh ok give him my regards"
"does anyone want a drink?" "no I'm good thanks"
More shots of spacecrafts. More scenes of people talking about nothing.
Ok cool, now the monolith is on the moon. Maybe we are getting somewhere? The doctors did say they were hiding something from the public. Do I smell a plot forming? Oh.. I guess not. Nothing ever really comes of that.
Then it's a few astronauts on a spacecraft and it shows them eat and exercise and talk about boring stuff for awhile. There is a computer that runs the ship that they also talk to sometimes. They don't trust the computer and it gets paranoid.
Aaaaand intermission.
Maybe it gets better in the second half? -_-
WOW something actually happened. One of the astronauts dies because the computer is going crazy!! The most action we've seen all movie. Except all it shows is him flying through space with his oxygen not attached anymore. That's the most action in the entire movie.
The next 10 minutes are the other astronaut retrieving his body using a pod.
So obviously the other astronaut suspects the computer that was going insane and he goes to disable it. This takes him like 20 minutes, during which he just breathes into the mic the entire time and moves at a snail's pace. The computer repeats the same couple phrases over and over saying stuff like
"no please" "don't do this" "I don't want to die" womp womp womp.
Very annoying voice. Slow and monotoned like everyone else in the film. It made me wonder if this film would be better if watched at double speed. I spent a good 15 minutes daydreaming about that while nothing happened on screen.
Then it basically just does some random winamp visualizer stuff for the next 20 minutes and occasionally flashes the face of the surviving astronaut.
To close the film out we see the astronaut has aged rapidly and is on another planet in a very Queen Anne style room. People say this part is him being studied by aliens or some crap but there's definitely no evidence of that whatsoever. Maybe it said that in the book or something, or maybe people just began to daydream and make up their own plot because this one sucks so hard. Then he's lying in bed and the monolith appears in his room. Next shot he's a baby floating in space with an overused classical piece playing. Roll credits.
So one of the absolute worst parts of this film is the sound. It's always either too quiet or too loud. The best sequences are when it's classical music and nothing else, but even that is just boring and overdone. Maybe for it's time it was pretty cool, but it doesn't hold up well. The worst parts BY FAR soundwise is that there's a solid 45-55 minutes of near silence except for someone breathing into the mic. I watched a good portion of this movie on mute because I was tired of plugging my ears. It's that awful. If you have even mild misophonia, or sensory issues, you'll want to avoid this movie.
Honestly, I wanted to give a couple stars because the beautiful scenes are REALLY gorgeous, and ahead of their time, truly, but I just can't, because they're ruined by being dragged on for far too long. Plus with an extremely awful plotline, horrible acting, and the worst sound mixing I've ever come across, I can't give it more than 1 star and sleep tonight.
I am truly SHOCKED that this has such high reviews. This is exactly why I usually avoid over-hyped movies. It's honestly such a slap in the face.
Los cronocrímenes (2007)
Stupid Protagonist is Stupid.
So I really have mixed feelings about this film.
On the one hand, I love me some sci-fi, especially time-travel stories.. on the other hand, as others have mentioned, a lot of the main characters decisions just don't make any sense.
The first and main glaring plot issue is that it's a predestination paradox. He goes back in time due to actions that he very intentionally performs after he goes back in time, in order to make himself go back in time. This is a common paradox in time travel stories so it doesn't bother me that much. Most time travel stories have at least one paradox, so I can suspend my disbelief.
What bothers me more than that is that after he sees the girl undressing in the woods and goes to investigate, he is stabbed by his future self. That's all well and good but ignoring that paradox, why the HECK does he then run to a neighbouring building, instead of his own house. They were 100 yards away from his house.. but instead of running home where he knows the locations of the locks, weapons, bandages, and a working telephone, he chooses to try to hop a fence and find help at the next building over? Really? He could see her FROM HIS BACKYARD. If I'm a block from my house and something happens, I'm running straight the F home.
There are several other ridiculously stupid decisions this guy makes, but they end up being a bit more convoluted due to all the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. That initial decision though has nothing to do with him being confused by just time traveling. Someone else pointed out that we see evidence that he's an idiot in the first appearance, so I guess it's to be expected, but come on.. I just find it hard to believe anyone would do that when their house is right there.
I know it probably seems dumb that I can't believe that when we are talking about sci-fi where a man literally travels through time, but I don't know, I just can't get over that one detail.
Besides that one hangup, I actually did enjoy the movie. Sure, he's dumb, a murderer, and a lech, but I can get over that. I appreciate there being time travel sci-fis out there for me to even hate on and pick holes in.
Skinamarink (2022)
The Reviews Are More Entertaining Than This Film.
I have so much I could say about this movie, but I already feel like I've wasted too much of my life on it just by watching it. Holy smokes, I can't believe I'm gonna even write this review.
I was excited for this movie, really and truly. I love horror, I love art films, love anything experimental and different, aaaaaand I was basically left annoyed and unfulfilled. I felt ripped off and lied to by everyone that said anything good about this film.
The plot is so thin that you'll end up with a papercut.
The characters have no dimension, and you don't even really see them. You might see an ankle or two a couple times if you're actually able to keep your eyes on the screen. Mine spent most of the time looking around the room because staring at a blank wall was more entertaining than this film. Oh wait... that basically WAS the film. Every other shot is just a corner of a wall, or a lamp in the dark. WAY too many shots are just cartoons blaring on a TV in a dark room. I'm actually kind of inspired to recut this movie and take out all the empty shots and see what we are left with. The shots linger for way too long, and not in a way that seems creepy and unsettling, just in a way that's outright annoying. I kept skipping ahead.
Every now and then someone will speak, but in the most unnatural way that nobody ever speaks. One kid will mumble something that requires subtitles to understand, then there's like 30-45 seconds of silence before the other kid responds in an equally indecipherable way. Funny part is, they're the easiest part of the film to understand. The entity doesn't even really actually speak, it's just weird noises with subtitles that pretend like it's speaking? It doesn't sound creepy or anything, it's just downright lazy. When Kevin finally calls the police, you can't hear the operator, it's just subtitles. Really? I guess the budget didn't allow for an extra voice to be cast. At the same time that you can't hear the operator, his whispering is just WAY too loud.
Seriously, the sound mixing in this is as if it was someone's first time working with sound, or maybe possibly even hearing sound for the first time in their life. I was constantly changing the volume because it's so poorly done.
By the way, everything you've read about this film that makes it sound interesting, is grossly exaggerated. I turned it off at 40 minutes because nothing had happened yet, (and not in the way that other movies have nothing happen as in boring stuff happens, I mean LITERALLY NOTHING HAPPENS) and I googled the ending of the plot. The Wiki plot makes it sound *almost* watchable, but it embellishes a lot. I decided to give it a second shot because it sounded like it would pick up. Not saying they lie per say, but for example, one part of the plot is that Kevin stabs himself in the eye because the entity tells him to, but it's just a blurry shot of the kid sitting there being told to do it, and then it cuts to the next clip. It's implied, sure, but at no point does that actually happen in the movie.
The first time you actually see Kaylee is when her eyes and mouth are taken from her, but like... we never saw her with them, so why the - would we care that she lost them. There's no shock value because there's no contrast, because we've never seen her face before. Plus, you can barely even see her because it's so dark and grainy. It probably sounds dumb to put it that way, of course someone without features would be creepy right? You'd think so, wouldn't you. Heh. Not the case.
Even the jump scares fall flat. All of them are just quiet clip, quiet clip, LOUD CLIP, but the thing is you're just so damn bored that even a jump scare won't rouse you.
Seriously, just stare at the corner of your bedroom if you want to see this movie, because that's basically it.
If you've seen toys that haven't been picked up off the floor then you've seen the movie.
It's boring, it's lazy, it's faked being grainy/low quality, it's terrible sound mixing, it's horrendous writing, it's awful acting, it's everything that you expect to come out of a cesspool like Edmonton.
Holes in the Sky: The Sean Miller Story (2021)
Very Meh. Cool premise, dull watch.
Not sure how to feel about this movie. So I went into it knowing only that it's a found footage mockumentary of an alien abduction story. Sounded right up my alley; I love that kinda crap.
Right off the bat you can tell it's trying to be super cheesey and fake, especially when it shows the filmmakers repertoire. He's done some pretty awful horror movies and not much else. At the same time, you can tell they just didn't really have any budget so they had to go this route and make it seem like it was done on purpose. I was wondering for awhile why it was focusing so much on the documentary filmmakers backstory, but it becomes clear that when they went to make the documentary they experienced some weirdness of their own and that's what the true story here is. It took a pretty long time to actually get to Sean Miller's Story, despite that being in the film's title. I think they should have put his story in sooner than they did because it ends up just kind of getting lost. I found it pretty hard to focus on this movie because most of it is dull B-roll. Because it was hard to pay attention to it I can't tell if it was actually hard to follow the story or if that was just because my attention kept wandering. It's very much a film where if you blink you'll miss the punchline of any given scene, but also, some scenes just don't have a point to them really, so you end up either missing the "good" parts, or having to endure a whole bunch of boring content to get to them. Most of the effects are really cheap and cheesey, which is expected for the most part with a movie like this. There were some actual cool and freaky bits in there, but not really enough.. they all happen very late in the game when you're already kinda over the movie and the characters. I'm not sure what else to say really. I didn't fully hate it and I didn't really enjoy it, so I gave it an average rating of 5, right smack dab in the middle. That might be pretty generous of me, honestly, but I've watched some terribly awful movies this past month, so I'm going easy on this one.
Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023)
Worst Than Anticipated.. and I didn't even expect it to be good.
So, I definitely didn't expect this movie to be good at all going in to it.. but I guess I didn't expect it to be quite as bad as it is. I was still excited for it because I love horror that's basis is twisting a happy fairy tale into something dark. This just totally missed the mark in every way though. The setup for the story was so bad, it was just a voiceover explaining the backstory, then Christopher Robin comes in with his wife and the acting is just awful. They die almost immediately so the rest of the movie is just pointless. There's no story really beyond that. All the acting is awful, the characters are lame. The villains are just two guys in masks that aren't scary at all. They didn't even try. The gore was a let down. The movie was too dark to see what was going on half the time. The sound sucked. The writing was awful. I turned it off halfway through and I almost never do that with films, despite having watched plenty of truly awful movies. I really wanted any little redeeming quality for this movie to be able to throw in here but unfortunately there's nothing going for this film. The ONLY thing that's good is the idea of twisting this classic tale. Hopefully someone else takes the idea and does it better than this crew.
Keep Breathing (2022)
Worst Thing I've Watched In A While. Sad She Didn't Die To The Elements.
This show... yikes. We follow an alcoholic, workaholic lawyer named Liv as she tries to survive following a plane crash, and wrestles with her own inner demons along the way. The thing is, you kind of end up rooting for her to die after a certain point. She's wholly insufferable. The worst trauma she's had in her life was that mommy had a pretty mild mental illness and ended up leaving her and her dad. The worst thing I can remember her mom doing was forgetting to pick her up once. As a result Liv becomes a narcissistic, abusive person, who takes everyone and everything around her for granted. She has a super privileged life and a wonderful father, and she just craps all over it every chance she can get. The ONLY time she's somewhat decent to her father is when he's on his deathbed, and even then, she makes it entirely about herself. She even avoids going to see him as he's dying, choosing work over supporting him in his final days, despite him devoting his life to making hers better. She yells at her assistant for even suggesting she leave work to go see him, stating that he has a nurse with him so why should she be there. It's painful to watch. She gets setup with a guy at work and she's completely emotionally abusive towards him. Not sure at all why this guy keeps trying with her and doesn't take the hint to eff off. She does give him very mixed signals so I kinda get it. She ends up pregnant through this affair, and spends two whole episodes wondering if she would be a good mother. She hallucinates a bunch of people telling her she would be a good mom, despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary. She's abusive, loves to fight, won't let anyone get close to her, works 80 hours a week, doesn't cook meals, she drinks her dinner every night to the point her alcoholism almost kills her, and can only focus on her own self-pity 100% of the time, even as she's dying. She would be a HORRIBLE mother, which isn't surprising given her mommy-issues. Lots of people have extremely horrible parents and manage to not be awful people, but she just can't. She's too wrapped up in herself in all the wrong ways. Even through all her flashbacks and hallucinations, she never actually redeems herself or shows any remorse for how she treated everyone around her. It's just a never-ending, 'Oh, woe is me. However will I get back to my life that I hate?' Seriously, all her hallucinations really do are stroke her ego the entire time, and she can't even muster an apology to them, which means it's very unlikely she would ever do so in real life. If you can't show remorse for your actions as you're struggling to survive, you aren't ever going to.
Then if we get into the survival aspect, this part is just laughable. She makes a couple decent decisions, like diving back into the plane for supplies, and making a compass, but most of what she does is beyond idiotic. She squanders and misuses her limited resources the entire time. She suffers injuries that are played out totally unrealistically, like getting pinned under a rock for an entire episode, but when she finally frees herself she only has a concussion, with no symptoms, even though the entire bottom half of her body was pinned under a massive boulder that fell down twenty feet on top of her. Her leg would have been crushed and she would have massive internal bleeding. Despite that, she decides to leave behind the pain killers she had with her, because she realizes she doesn't need to overdose as a way out. Really? That was your only option? You couldn't use them responsibly to get yourself out of a life-threatening situation and back into civilization? Eventually she remembers that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but she only remembers that on like episode 5 or 6. How she made it through law school on such limited brain capacity is beyond me. Eventually she has this brilliant (sarcasm) idea that she should just jump in the river and try to float her way to civilization. She somehow misses every rapid, despite this being a raging river and having a broken leg and rib from the cliff she fell off. Even after she loses the log she was using for buoyancy, she somehow still floats the entire way and doesn't drown. Then some fishermen spot her and pull her out and she comes to. We see flashes of her having her baby in the future. Gosh, I feel sorry for that kid....
The whole show is just stupid, and pointless, and I'm not sure why I didn't just turn it off. I honestly wish she had died, because then there would have at least been one satisfying part. I'm giving it 2 stars because the camera-work, scenery, and acting were all pretty good. That's being very generous though and overlooking a lot.
Martyrs (2008)
The real torture in this film is the plot itself..
A lot of people said it is one of the most brutal movies they've seen, but I guess I misunderstood what they meant. It's the attempt here that's brutal. It just doesn't really come together well.
At first it seems to start out somewhat strong, but not really, because it just kind of dumps you in, as a young girl (Lucie) escapes from captivity where she has been brutally tortured for quite some time.
She makes friends with a new pseudo-sister, Anna, and it seems that they are all the other has in the world. (It never really explains any of their family dynamics, or why Lucie has no family. I guess she was an orphan when she was kidnapped? I think they were in foster care? But Anna calls her mom on the phone later so... who really knows.. Plot hole, for sure, but we can move past that I guess.)
We jump ahead 15 years to when Lucie sees her abusers in the newspaper and tracks them down. She barges in, guns-a-blazing, and mows down the entire family with a shotgun. I understand her killing the two adults, sure, but when it gets to the kids, I guess she was just in a rage so she didn't think it through. She at first asks the son, how old he is, and he says 18, and she asks if he knew what his parents were doing.. Even though he would have been 3 when she escaped. He doesn't answer so she just kills him. Then she goes and kills the younger sister, so.. not sure why she was asking the boy's age when it clearly doesn't matter. You lose all empathy for Lucie at this point as she has become a child murderer herself. I tried to just explain it away because she's clearly mentally unwell, so of course she isn't thinking straight. Still, another minor plot hole, that we will glaze over.
Lucie for some reason decides to stay in the house with the family she just murdered, which makes absolutely no sense. Why in the hell would someone want to stay in the home of their torturers... especially surrounded by dead bodies. MAJOR plot hole there, which is too big to really explain away. The best I can see it is that she wanted to dispose of the evidence..? But she just walks around spreading her DNA everywhere so it really, really can't be that. Maybe she had nowhere else to go? But like... any shelter or even sleeping on the streets would have been a better option, without a doubt.
Anyway, I digress, she calls her BFF Anna, who may have known of her plans, but may not have, it's never really clear. She was waiting beside a payphone for Lucie to call, so my guess is that she did know? Either way, Anna comes running to her aid, and has to deal with the entire mess herself because Lucie is having hallucinations of a dead girl that she left behind when she escaped captivity, and self-harming in the process. More on that later.
Anna's way of dealing with the bodies is to first move them all into the shower in the bathroom, and then go outside and on her own digs a MASSIVE, like we're talking way too big for the amount of bodies she's disposing of, massive hole for the bodies. She weighs like 90 lbs with not an ounce of muscle on her, so I'm not sure how she managed this on her own, in the rain, in the time it took Lucie to have a nap. I swear, the hole she dug is probably that big because it's made up of all the plot holes in this film. Also, for some reason, the hole has a bunch of pipes and wheels to turn, like as if it's for the gas valve and stuff? So maybe the hole already existed? But like... won't it then need to be dug up pretty soon to get to those? Why was the only access to those inside of a 10 foot hole with no real access point?? I don't know. Nothing about that hole makes any sense to me. Moving on...
Anna discovers that the mother/wife of the family is still alive, which she hides from Lucie, and she tries to bring her to the edge of the forest to let her escape.. even though she has a huge shotgun hole through her body. So this.. just makes absolutely no sense. She went there to help her friend cover up the murders, but she's going to actively do something that will get her friend caught, by releasing a victim, who will obviously call for help if she does get free. Her motivations for coming to Lucie's aid just basically disintegrate as you keep watching. Did she go to help the friend cover it up? Clearly not since she doesn't do much to clean up and tries to release a victim. Did she go to get her friend out of there? Clearly not because they're in the house for at least a day, if not longer. Did she go to console her friend? Clearly not because they barely speak to one another and she just kind of treats her like crap. There's just no making sense of why Anna is actually there. She also calls her own mother at one point to just say hi, which is so incredibly stupid. It serves no purpose to the plot other than kind of muddying the backstories, and would obviously get her convicted if there was ever an investigation.
Again, I digress. None of that matters really, because the surviving victim is killed anyway, and it's never going to be investigated. More on that later. I'm only mentioning these points because it's just more glaring plot holes that totally ruin the viewing experience.
So then, Lucie is hallucinating the girl she left behind again and ends up slashing her wrists all the way up the arms, which barely bleeds?? Then she walks herself out to the mass grave and slits her throat there and falls in. Oooooook? So stupid, but I guess she served her purpose in the plot so they figured they'd kill her off.
Anna is just left there like ok wtf? Then she realizes there's a secret entrance to a hidden basement. But it's not so secret, because it's very obvious it's there. It's backlit and everything. Meaning the children obviously knew what their parents were doing, so I guess it makes sense now that they were killed in Lucie's massacre. God, this movie is so stupid.
Anna, being the clever girl we have grown to love (I say that dripping in sarcasm), decides the best course of action here is not only to stay in the house at the murder-suicide scene, but to actually go down into this dungeon on her own to investigate. Going in, there's a shower, then coat hooks with work clothes, and a conveniently placed ring of keys on one of the hooks. The key is to the trap door in the middle of this room. Let's pause here to think about how unbelievably stupid it would be to leave the keys to a trap-door right beside the trap-door, so that anyone who finds it can go down and find their abductees. You're telling me that this group of people who have dedicated decades to holding people hostage and spent millions on building this underground lair, and they just leave the keys right next to the lock. -_- I can't... ffs
Anyway, she still goes down there for some reason even though she walked through a hallway with photos of tortured and mutilated bodies on the way in. Inside she finds the girl that Lucie had left behind all those years ago. She's in much worse shape. She has a metal chastity belt on, and a metal blindfold that's stapled directly into her skull. She's chained by both wrists to the wall with comically long chains. All that's in the room is a plastic mattress, and a chair with a hole in the bottom with a bucket underneath. One thing that bothered me through this movie is that every time it shows someone held in one of these dungeons, they're sitting on the toilet.. even though there's a mattress in the room. That part makes no sense, so I think that's just for us as viewers to add to the shock value. It's dumb.
Anna takes this battered girl up through to the main house and tries to clean her up by putting her in the bathtub even though she is covered in open wounds. At no point does she think maybe it's time to finally call emergency services. Nope, she thinks the best course of action is to pull out the metal from this girls skull and try to nurse her back to health on her own in the very house where she's been held captive. I don't know about you, but I would still feel like I was being held captive, just by someone else now, in a different part of the same building. The nameless girl eventually freaks out because, as we learn later, she hallucinates cockroaches crawling on her all the time. So she tries to skin her own flesh off, and rub herself on the walls to make them get off. During this episode a group of people barge into the house and shoot her down.
Moving into the second half of the film, the plot just rapidly continues to decline. We get a half-baked explanation by this old lady who apparently runs this secret society who believe strongly that 'martyrs' hold the key to the afterlife. They've seen photos of folks that are within a few minutes of death who are dissociating, and thought, hmm.. that look in their eyes must mean they are seeing the afterlife. Let's just roll with that delusional and idiotic way of thinking, even though it has a very clear scientific explanation. They also have decided that only waify, conventionally attractive young women work well for this. I'm not joking, she actually says that young women make better martyrs. Anyway, there's apparently at least 20 people in this secret society that are all just as stupid as this old broad, and believe they can learn about the afterlife this way. I guess none of them ever picked up a biology book or really learned anything about torture, because none of them see how stupid this whole idea is. They even say at one point, we know it isn't a hallucination or near-death, out of body experience. It's really them seeing another world. We can tell by their eyes. No Karen, you just failed science class and decided to be as loud about it as possible. I could honestly go on for hours about how stupid this whole plot line is, but let's just accept it for what it is, an uneducated persons attempt to explain away the torture porn.
I'm out of characters to finish my review so sorry. Just know the ending sucks and there's no real conclusion.
Triangle of Sadness (2022)
A fever dream of pointless pretentious drivel. At least the title is self-aware.
Well this movie wasn't a TOTAL waste of my time because at least now I have a top new worst movie I have ever seen... and I've seen a ton of movies so that's an accomplishment.
The characters are all super awful, no redeeming qualities whatsoever. None of them really have any backstories except the main couple, which is only a pointless hour of some fashion stuff and them fighting over money. This whole part could have been cut because it doesn't add anything to the film whatsoever. It would have been better to just give them no backstory like the rest of the cast.
Then the unbelievably fragmented story moves to a yacht for the ultra-rich, where it fails at delivering any sort of meaningful narrative, even though it's trying so desperately to do so. Gosh this part was so boring and stupid and just absolutely pointless. There's some scenes with rich people acting superior to the staff, then all the rich folks end up super sick, so we can assume someone slipped something into their food, although that's never fully established. Then the captain and one of the rich guys get drunk and read a bunch of political BS over the intercom while everyone is stuck sick and listening to it while the ship heaves in a storm and the toilets all back up and overflow.
Then the ship is randomly attacked by pirates or some team that was waiting to sink the ship for whatever reason. It never gives a reason, we are just meant to be like 'oh yea, they were insufferable so it makes sense someone wants to kill them.' Maybe it had to do with the fact they were all evading taxes? Although who really knows... Anyway...
Then the third part is about the survivors of the shipwreck, who are all useless except for one member of the staff who knows how to catch fish, make a fire, and cook. Instead of teaching anyone some skills to help, she basically becomes a dictator because she's now the MVP, instead of being the lowest rung on the ladder, and ultimately she forces one of the hot, rich guys to have sex with her in exchange for food. Then they find out that there's a resort on the island within a short walk from where they were the whole time, and the movie just ends randomly.
Antlers (2021)
Better Than Expected
Antlers is a pretty nice take on some classic horror elements. It's very dark and moody. The scene is set beautifully. Amazing camera work throughout. The acting is phenomenal and the cast was really solid. The characters are fairly well flushed out for the most part.
The thing is that it felt like they rushed the ending. I would have appreciated if they had bumped it to a 2 hour film and actually finished the build up with the past trauma that occurred for the cop brother and teacher sister. Any sort of conclusion there would have been nice, or even just more of the backstory to fully bring out their motivations. Something was missing there. The final battle was also pretty rushed and very anti-climactic. The thing felt too easy to kill, but I guess that's because it never really dies. So maybe it didn't really care all that much. Either way, it detracts a fair amount from the overall fear element.
Their take on the creature was really nicely done though. Definitely one of the best wendigos I've seen on screen. I would have liked if they had somehow weaved in more cultural elements earlier though, as it seems like they remembered halfway through that the lore is Native, so they said, 'Wait.. Don't we need to introduce a Native character? Woops.' Everyone else had a well-established back story, but not that vital character? They just kinda threw him in halfway and said "Oh, yea, you remember him right? Cool, moving on." It's lazy, at best. More realistically though, they probably just didn't want to actually research the culture they were working with and write a real character. At least they cast someone who was actually Aboriginal, I guess?? Hard to be grateful for the bare minimum there, but it is what it is.
Ultimately, I didn't have high hopes for the movie so I was pleasantly surprised by what they did right. Most creature features don't do it for me, but this one was enjoyable for the most part.
The House That Jack Built (2018)
A Truly Hatable Villain
An interesting take on the warped mind of a serial killer. I found his point of view to be refreshing, as so many films about serial killers portray them all in the same cookie-cutter fashion. Jack tries his hardest to be self-aware, as heard through his monologues to Virgil, but he's delusional in even that. He thinks he's an artist, and in his own way he is, just not a very good one. His pretension is just as sickening as the rest of him. He even tries to break down his own misogyny when talking to Virgil about it, but he's so far into his delusional thinking that his answer is cyclical and redundant. He self-identifies as having OCD, but clearly doesn't, he just obsesses over cleaning one crime scene. Just one of the many incalculable, compulsive lies he tells to himself and others. He ironically makes a comment about psychopaths not usually being able to identify as psychopaths, but he can, because he's an oh-so-special psychopath. He really nails the narcissism and self-inflation, which is solidified by his laughable moniker "Mr. Sophistication." He truly believes he is a genius killer, even though he himself admits that he has simply been lucky, and we see this time and time again, as he bumbles his way through every impulsive encounter that he brags about, all while he ignores his own glaring privilege. He doesn't ever plan ahead and frequently lashes out when things don't go his way. It's all pretty textbook ASPD.
What I enjoyed was the juxtaposition of an unintelligent and oblivious killer, with the obvious (and just as pretentious) think-piece, Dante's Inferno. There are obvious and subtle references to this throughout the film. Through his narrative we can easily place him in any and all of the circles of hell, but ultimately, he chooses his own fate as his folly once again leads him to the worst possible decision and outcome. This is further paralleled with his eventual final choice of building medium for the House That Jack Built, which ultimately becomes his final resting place and his own personal decent into the bowels of hell where he most certainly belongs.
The Shasta Triangle (2019)
Half-baked Idea.. that someone probably wrote while half-baked.
I'm not really sure what to say about this movie but I feel like I need to review it because it's uniquely awful. The concept was pretty good but it ends up just falling really flat. The whole thing felt very rushed and you can tell there was no budget. While the concept is there, the story does not reflect that. It's very poorly written and there are a lot of things that are never explained. Then at the end it just.. ends.. Super abruptly and with no real finish.
The lines felt super faked and not genuine in the slightest. It was like it was people who aren't actors, doing a first time read through of the script. Also, the sound wasn't cohesive.. like it wasn't mixed or leveled properly. I'm not sure how to say it cause I don't know much about sound, but I know it was poorly done.
All the women are gorgeous but they don't really have any personality or substance. They're just catty for the sake of being catty as a weird plot point or something. I don't know how to explain it. It seems like a man trying to write women.. but hasn't actually ever spent time around women before doing so?
The special effects are really bad.
I watched it because it was said to be a horror film but there aren't really any elements of horror involved. I like sci-fi and fantasy as well, but this just wasn't it.
Shutter (2008)
Worst Movie I've Ever Seen. (I am dumber for having seen it.)
Where do I begin.. This is hands-down the worst film I've ever had the misfortune of viewing in my entire life. I went to see it in theatres back in 2008 with my younger sister. Both of us are huge horror fans. Unfortunately, it was so cliche the entire way through. You'd think since it reused so many elements of classic horror that it would at least have the feeling of a classic horror film, but it couldn't even manage to do that. It was awkward and disjointed. Don't even get me started on the "big twist" at the end. When they did the big reveal, both my sister and I burst out laughing in the movie theatre and couldn't stop. It was THAT stupid. A few people gave us the side eye because we couldn't control our laughter so we just walked out. I've never walked out of a movie before or since. Any time conversations come up about terrible movies I am always sure to mention this one. It's eternally burned into my mind how utterly ridiculous it was.
SPOILER ALERT
The big twist is that his shoulders are haunted by the ghost of his ex. ROFL I can't even make this crap up. A shoulder ghost. I feel stupid even typing it out.