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Video Games 2013: From Best to Worst
Video Games 2010: From Best to Worst
2016 In Film: The Year In Review
Includes up to 10 of the Best Quotes and Scores of the year, along with the Best Performances of the year.
Video Games 2016: From Best To Worst
Video Games 2015: From Best to Worst
Video Games 2017: From Best To Worst
Zombies on Film: A Working Body Count of The Best and Worst
This is a forever work in progress.
Video Games 2014: From Best to Worst
Reviews
Upgrade (2018)
Cheap genre filmmaking done right
This film is basically "Robocop" meets "Death Wish", with less satire than the former and more humor than the latter. And it's a B movie blast. An unrelenting pace, fantastic fight choreography that doesn't skimp on the gleeful blood and gore, and never not fun or interesting to look at.
Yeah some of the one-liner dialogue as delivered by Logan Marshall-Green feels a bit forced and the plot isn't exactly clever or unique, but damn it, it all works and it makes it's own beautiful alchemy out of a bunch of borrowed parts. This is cheap genre filmmaking done right.
Beast (2017)
Promising debut
This movie is somehow slightly worse than the sum of its parts. There is a genuine sense of direction and theme to this film, even if it doesn't really go anywhere all that interesting. The plain story belies the surprisingly adept filmmaking and strong central performances. The two leads have really believable chemistry. The story just isn't up to snuff with the rest of the film and the beast metaphors are applied way too thickly for something so obvious.
Arizona (2018)
Amateurish and exhausting
This is one of those "A Simple Plan" type scenarios where an accident escalates into a heinous catastrophe over the course of a bunch of small steps. It's just not nearly funny or clever enough. It all feels very forced and amateurish and is exhausting by the end.
Hereditary (2018)
A genuine nightmare
This is a bit of an old fashioned horror movie. Something that plays as a dramatic movie first and then slowly becomes something else. Like "Rosemary" or "Exorcist" but without the high profile clout of those directors. This is two hours of an exploration of family tragedy and grief through characters struggling to cope.
To say much of this film is to ruin it, so lashing praise onto certain aspects of it is the best one can do. Not to say this is a film with a big twist, it isn't. Toni Collette is fantastic as is no surprise at this point in her career. All the performances carry their own, including one I was unsure of at first but grew on me throughout -- Alex Wolff. The cinematography, rhythms and pacing, sense of place and space, and sound design are all superb and work in conjunction to create atmosphere and dread -- like a pit in your stomach that continues to grow and grow throughout.
It turns into a genuine nightmare that absolutely worked for me. See it blind, see it as a movie first and foremost (not as a horror show with jump scares), but just see it.
Upgrade (2018)
Cheap genre filmmaking done right
This film is basically "Robocop" meets "Death Wish", with less satire than the former and more humor than the latter. And it's a B movie blast. An unrelenting pace, fantastic fight choreography that doesn't skimp on the gleeful blood and gore, and never not fun or interesting to look at.
Yeah some of the one-liner dialogue as delivered by Logan Marshall-Green feels a bit forced and the plot isn't exactly clever or unique, but damn it, it all works and it makes it's own beautiful alchemy out of a bunch of borrowed parts. This is cheap genre filmmaking done right.
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995)
More of the same, less well done
For some reason the whole Candyman mythos is retconned a bit here. They claim he was born and killed in New Orleans and not Chicago now. I don't know why. I would like to think it's part of the very nature of urban legends in that they change to suit whomever needs them. Region by region, time by time.
Overall this is a standard retread of the original but lacking the verve, originality, and sense of theme it had. It doesn't expand on it in any significant way, or add anything that wasn't done before. It's more of the same but less well done.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Under-appreciated without being a true masterpiece
The most under-appreciated of horror films, the ugly step-child of the Halloween franchise that doesn't deserve its ill reputation. When I think of Halloween (the holiday) I think of children wearing the masks from this film and that incredible, indelible, iconic shot of trick r' treaters silhouetted against the sunken sun, the sky orange going on black, looking out over the low lights of Phoenix from the hills above. Damn that's nice. Oh and that insanely catchy Silver Shamrock song.
So much memorable from such a strange, casually plot irrelevant movie. It doesn't really do one thing exceptionally well - besides presentation. The plot is fine, silly verging on nonsensical. The blood and gore are mostly pedestrian but with glimmers of imagination (if only the family murder scene didn't devolve into snake bites). The main characters are likable ciphers - there are a few insights into them but it's mostly matter of fact without much more than a passing interest.
Without a better way to put it and hating this turn of phrase - they don't make them like this anymore, whatever the hell that means.
Aux yeux des vivants (2014)
Haunting and intense though a bit undercooked
I mostly enjoyed this. The film taken as a whole seems pretty slight, not just in terms of plot (which is standard for the directors) but also in effect. The film is creepy and nasty. There's a horrifying "monster" in this played with great physicality by Fabien Jegoudez. There are scenes of absolute intensity, with beautiful haunting mise en scene.
Yet the whole thing feels a bit undercooked. What starts as a dark side of the Spielbergian kids on a mission story turns into a home invasion thriller and then into something else. It's not enough of any but it's fun watching it try. There seems to be a sociological context to it all that was a bit lost on me. Maybe it's a French thing - this worry about toxic gases from the military affecting the children. But should we fear them or pity them? No matter.
1922 (2017)
Holds it own, could have used more flourishes
1922 lacks the polish and all around cred of Gerald's Game, but it still can hold its own as a nice piece of dark and seedy moralizing late at night. Thomas Jane is kinda terrible in this, but not in a way that ruins the movie necessarily. He's a good enough actor, but his accent is not held in check, he chews every word of every sentence as if it's fried and corn fed and his dirt limned constantly makes him seem like a mud man - it constantly takes you out of the movie. This is a fairly straightforward story for the most part, but these stand out as egregious compared to the rest.
The whole film could have used a touch more of the surreal, more psychology from the imagery and the presentation, but it still works and its minor flourishes are fine. The rats are all professional, and do their parts with aplomb. Not much CGI detected. That's always a win.
Mil gritos tiene la noche (1982)
Good not great in the slasher pantheon
Pieces both did and did not live up to its reputation. That's fair to say of many things with a certain anticipation coming into them. I could see what people fell in love with here, but it didn't win me over. There's graphic nastiness and it's great and all and the plot is all red herrings and nonsense which can be entertaining.
Yet, unlike a surreal giallo or a nasty slasher, it lies flatly in between a bunch of tones. There's not quite enough imaginative gore (there's plenty but it's straightforward in its application) to enjoy is as a piece of visceral entertainment, not enough crazy plot to enjoy it as comedy - it has some interesting eccentric characters and a nasty enough central gimmick but it's good not great in the slasher pantheon.
The Babysitter (2017)
Annoying and full of itself
Man this was terrible. Whatever the hell this was supposed to be - comedy, horror, sentimental growing up claptrap - it failed miserably. Not one joke lands. The whole thing feels written by adults trying to write as their childhood selves but being so good at it that they think literally every single thing they think of is just so clever and couldn't possibly be bad.
This movie literally has a scene where the hot babysitter and the geeky 13 year old kid watch a vintage western in the backyard on a projector while acting out the whole thing in front of it. No irony intended. It's just meant to be a bonding moment I guess? I mean, wtf is this?
Nightwatch (1997)
Pretty much a shock and awe red herring thriller
Considering this film's rather putrid reputation I was pleasantly surprised with it. Or maybe it's because I haven't seen the original. There's a great cast assembled here - Ewan McGregor is all doe-eyed innocence, Josh Brolin unhinged, Patricia Arquette intense, Nick Nolte wizened and charming, Lauren Graham underutilized, Brad Dourif crazed and underused, and John C. Reilly but before he was famous so he doesn't do much.
This is pretty much a shock and awe red herring thriller - with necrophilia and rape and murder of prostitutes. At least Arquette is heavily involved. There's a scene that's either pure genius or tonally mishandled involving the children's song "This Old Man" - it took me so by surprise that it worked for a while, then wore out it's welcome and then became stuck in my head like Stockholm Syndrome. And then in hindsight seemed pretty silly.
Somehow, overall, this worked for me.
El cadáver de Anna Fritz (2015)
Decent thriller with little imagination
The body of a famous and beautiful movie star is brought to a local morgue where some young guys have their fun with it. How could they not? She's once in a lifetime. They get coked and liquored up and have a good time with her. Then the corpse wakes up. Is she a zombie? A metaphor for their guilt? Actually alive? A surreal combination of all those? It would have been cooler if it was.
Nope, she's alive and there's no pretension whatsoever about it. Any theme is lost in this straight laser-focused twist on the kidnapped young woman thriller genre. It's a good twist for the genre, but other than that offers nothing new or of any substance to it.
Oh, and you never find out why anyone thought she was dead in the first place - it's completely inexplicable.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
Mounting atmosphere, disappointing finale
Day 24: Morgue fest continues, this time with one that comes somewhat touted and recommended.
Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox make up the cast and they're both good dependable co-leads. This film begins with a nearly suffocating claustrophobic atmosphere, one in which the outside world can't possibly exist and there's only the starkly lit mildewy wooden paneled interior of an old family morgue. The mystery mounts and the two leads examine an inexplicable body, one in which they can't find a cause of death. The body is untouched and yet her insides show unbelievable trauma.
The mounting atmosphere and tension of the first half is unfortunately mishandled in the second half. The film becomes a rather bare-bones spooky jump scare exercise that leads to a shocking revelation that really does deliver (it's genuinely intriguing and so much more could have been done with it) on the first half's tension. There's no follow through.
There are great ideas here but a lack of focus in the middle, or maybe a fear that if jumps in the night didn't start happening soon the audience would get bored. It's the complete opposite.
Wish Upon (2017)
New mythology leads nowhere fun
The most recent incarnation of the classic Djinni premise, though this one eschews that entirely in favor of a magic Chinese box with a backstory all its own not involving Djinn. I'm not sure why the locality and myth had to change or where this story even comes from - it's not nearly interesting enough to warrant changing up the formula and it's not like anyone cares all that much anyway. Just get to the mangling of wishes already!
Then again, as a result of the changing of the mythology, there are now 7(!) wishes to be granted - 4 more for your guilty watching pleasure. Except that this time, wishes aren't always twisted around. They're applied strongly but hardly in a completely backwards way. The twist is that someone dies every time a wish is granted. That's it. It takes a lot of the fun out of the classic granted wishes premise.
The PG-13 rating neuters it (I watched it unrated but it still felt PG- 13). It's just alright with a solid, interesting cast led by the natural and unassuming Joey King, an unrecognizable Ryan Phillippe and Sherilyn Fenn just for shits.
Boys in the Trees (2016)
Confident and tonally assured work
A kind of coming of age flick set around Halloween in Southern Australia. A kid on the cusp of leaving town for college and better things and leaving behind his friends, family and everything he was. Over the course of a single night he reflects on his past through a meaningful encounter with an old childhood friend he left behind for his new cool group of mates.
This is a bildungsroman that goes through some familiar motions. It's about the ways in which we adapt during high school to survive. It's about the kids who don't and get left behind. It's about choosing what kind of person you grow up to be. It's all approached in a humane and thoughtful way. There aren't caricatures in this film - types and tropes perhaps but still flesh and blood. You might know where this film is going but still that doesn't prepare you for the journey.
There is a great middle segment involving a local girl who also dreams of leaving town for the big city. She's a smart and driven, though clearly taken for granted. She gives the eponymous "boys heads are in the trees" speech that helps prevent the movie from becoming overly serious about its own themes and hang-ups. There's surprising emotion to be found, including an end scene between two characters who have become opposites but still share a mutual love for each other.
There are scenes of mystery, wonder, darkness and humor. A day of the dead festival sequence with a cover of Live's "Lightning Crashes" mesmerizes. The soundtrack and the cinematography are top notch - slow motion kids on bikes set to "The Beautiful People", the color of fireworks as they pop in the night and a giant light-limned tree growing up out of the vast dark. This is a confident and tonally assured work that deserves to find a bigger audience.
Wishmaster (1997)
Sloppy plot and a few good effects
This is the classic 3 wish from a Djinni set up, although there's a strange twist in which the Wishmaster can actually grant wishes from pretty much anyone and take their souls without really telling them what is going on. He basically goads them into saying they want something. The whole thing is meant to be a wink to the audience, but as a universe with a set of rules it doesn't make sense and the whole enterprise feels curiously like there's no way the Djinn haven't already taken over the world.
The central plot is that whomever awakens the Djinni gets 3 wishes and after those are cast all the Djinn take over the earth. Of course, the awakener Alexandra never has to say "I wish" or anything like that and the Djinni can apparently appear as different people and try to trick her into asking for things. Again, the classic wish rules are applied sloppily and as a result it's hard to care about anything that's going on with the plot.
Andrew Divoff is the Wishmaster here and he has a unique presence and an indelible voice. He's well cast. There's some awful CGI that hasn't aged well at all, and a lot of the wishes lack top-notch creativity. There are however, two scenes of pure orgiastic destruction that make the watch worth it - statues come to life, people are torn to shreds (one person has his skeleton literally come to life inside his body, it's amazing), chaos and panic ensues. These scenes are meant to show off the prowess of special effects maestro Robert Kurtzman, who's also the director here, and they work. But as a storyteller, he's not at the same level.
Always Shine (2016)
Outside of the clear theme, not enough insight
Two women who are aspiring actresses and lifelong friends decide to take a retreat to a beautiful house overlooking the woods and the ocean in Northern California to reconnect after time has started to move them in different directions. One is becoming more famous everyday and is close to her big break, while the other is stuck in neutral.
That the woman who is close to making it is also a passive woman, with little of interest to add to any conversation and little in the way of personality, who is prone to saying yes to any man asking her any thing (whether to take her clothes off or to go to dinner with a man her friend clearly likes even though she has a boyfriend she likes) and the other is stubborn, outspoken and "feminist" with a strong personality, is the real crux of the film though. This is a movie about what it takes to make it in Hollywood, but also just as a woman in any walk of life. The prevalent constant sexism under the hood of everyday expectations of being female.
There's a naturalness to both performances that works well, and the tension mounts from meaningful dialogue exchanges and the actor's faces. Then the twist happens and while it's interesting in theory, it also sort of halts the movie's progress and momentum. Outside of the clearly labeled theme there isn't enough exploration or insight.
Happy Death Day (2017)
Ripe premise, neutered affair
Groundhog Day as a slasher flick is such a ripe premise that I'm surprised it took this long to make a film of it. We get to watch the main character get butchered a whole bunch of times in a bunch of different ways by a masked psycho all while trying to solve the mystery of whom is doing it. It's perfect really. The film definitely has its fun with this too, and has a game performance from the lead actress Jessica Rothe.
Unfortunately it's a bit of a neutered affair, what with the PG-13 rating and fairly rote storytelling mechanics. Death scenes are less Final Destination levels of fun - where the surprise is how she will die while trying to avoid death - and more stalk and slash and quick cut away from any good gore. The plot has a twist, and it's not bad, but there were a lot of areas where the film could have become even twistier. It also could have laid off the moralizing about becoming a better woman stuff a bit - this is slasher Groundhog Day, not actually the real thing. We already have that.
The Theatre Bizarre (2011)
Overall, mostly meh
Overall, mostly meh.
The Mother of Toads (Stanley's contribution) is apparently a Lovecraft riff, but I was getting Argento vibes from the witch mother, the medieval European setting, and the music. It's just alright with some icky special effects and a bare bones story.
I Love You is about an obsessive guy who can't stop loving his cheating hateful wife. Also just alright, though the two leads are solid.
Wet Dreams, the Savini segment, is about a cheating man this time who gets his comeuppance from a wife who has been scorned one too many times. It's nasty though also lacking a certain danger or sense of pure chaos. It's kinda funny, kinda gross, kinda alright.
The Accident is completely out of place tonally and even so it's not very good. Airy pretensions and a somber mood don't mean much here.
Vision Stains has an interesting premise and some good moments but isn't exactly great.
Sweets is a nasty, gross, icky flip off of a segment. It's nothing but a punchline but it kinda works.
Ghostwatch (1992)
As history it's indelible, as art it's good enough
Ostensibly a night in a "real" haunted house filmed live on Halloween night that tricked many people who were unaware it was fiction while they were watching it (even though it had writing and acting credits).
There's a lot of fun to be had here. It feels real enough, though if you know to look for it it can feel a bit staged. Some of the best bits involve the studio which has a real "paranormal expert" on hand to explain the goings-ons. The scares are very Paranormal Activity lite, but considering the time and the fact that it was a TV movie one can see how it would have an impact.
As a piece of history this spooky flick is indelible and worth celebrating, as a piece of art it's merely good enough.
Eden Lake (2008)
It all works but to what end?
This is of a theme with the 00's European horror films. A fear of youths. Hoodie horror I've heard it called. Its roots are steeped in "The Last House on the Left" and "I Spit on Your Grave". Men get it here too. Growing up and becoming square is the ultimate evil.
This movie and its ilk are clearly made by men who have grown up and haven't quite come to grips with how old they are yet. They feel young inside but are afraid of the actual young because they don't recognize them or their interests - they have nothing in common anymore. It's all the same from generation to generation but this generation just so happens to be the first truly weened on pop culture - specifically movies and TV telling them how important and special their childhoods were (see the 80's nostalgia parade that just won't end).
There's a lot of good tension here but it's all in service of pure torture (also an 00's theme). Eden Lake is hurtful and mean and unrelenting in its nihilism. This is both good and bad. If it had more to say it might be good, but it's really a genre exercise about a final woman outsmarting these terrible kids (their inexplicable brutality just suddenly happens with little build-up or explanation - it lacks the surreal unknown of "Them (Ils)").
It all works but to what end? At a certain point you just start rolling your eyes when the main character does something like bury herself in a pile of poopy sludge.
The Devil's Candy (2015)
Undercurrent of dread but missteps in home stretch
A film about Satan and the devil, how classic. There's an undercurrent of pure dread to this flick. It works its way through the film's veins using music cues, whispering demonic voices and haunting images. Ethan Embry's performance is superbly crafted. A well-meaning dad, that rocks out to metal and paints pictures all day. He feels very real and not like a caricature. (He also gets ripped for this flick, I guess because he paints shirtless for a few scenes. It seems unnecessary, distracting and unfitting for his character but sure).
He begins to hear voices and see things and paint horrible stuff he doesn't understand. It's all very unnerving and convincing and seems to be leading to some inevitable catastrophe.
But the film lets up in the home stretch. It becomes a bit of a supernatural home invasion flick. The film seems undecided about whether there are real demons at play, which unfocuses the movie and makes it seem unsure of itself. The film isn't exactly about investigating the place demons have in the modern world either. It just knows they are inextricably linked with metal. A lot of the build-up seems for naught in the end and it's a real shame.
Byrne has great ideas, a wonderful grasp of character, atmosphere, tension, but maybe not enough to say?
Vittra (2012)
Great practical effects and yet you feel nothing
This has probably the best mud-blood effects I've ever seen (mud-blood is the modern incarnation of blood that refuses to be red because that's a color and desaturation is all the rage - but in this case there's actual mud which helps). There are really good practical effects and non-stop craziness throughout and yet I still felt nothing.
It's all in service to those who came before. There's no ingenuity or true imagination at work here. It's so indebted to The Evil Dead it forgets to be its own thing and somehow winds up worse as a result. An up the ante riff on The Evil Dead shouldn't just feel like it's going through the motions. I can't quite put my finger on it, but this whole thing is just off in some way and it's all related to that somehow.
There's never a moment that makes your mind jump and heart leap at the sheer unexpectedness, the showmanship, it's just so much blood and splatter and god I hate that that sounds like a bad thing but here it is.
Bodom (2016)
Fun and solid horror filmmaking
Some modern teens set out to recreate the circumstances surrounding the real life Lake Bodom murders down to every last detail and once and for all figure out exactly how this happened in the first place. Motivations are scattershot - they aren't so much character motivated as plot (the two main guys are apparently not friends, though why they're on a trip together doesn't come up) and the one guy's "vision" for the weekend no one seems to want to go along with.
Suffice it to say that killings happen and teens are stalked. There are a fair amount of twists and turns, movies within movies, that make for an engaging experience. Too much exposition and plot mechanics? Probably. But this is fun and solid horror filmmaking.