It’s time for an even older film. Frankenstein is a monster who grew very popular and actually has a lot of fans. Just look at how many films this guy has. It’s quite unbelievable since I’m not a fan of the series by any stretch of the imagination and it’s hard to see how any movie of it could ever be good. I dunno, it just doesn’t have much potential. This one isn’t that bad for most of the film, but it is very boring. There is also one scene which destroys the film and it couldn’t recover from that.
By now, you know the story. Doctor Frankenstein decides to build a monster. Elizabeth, Victor, and a nice old Professor decide to visit Frankenstein to tell him to stop this foolishness. Surprise surprise, he decides to go ahead with the experiment anyway. Frankenstein’s monster is born and now he wants to destroy everyone all around the world. Welllllll, that may not be his total goal, but effectively it is what he is doing. Can the villagers tale this guy down before he harms anyone else?
The monster is supposed to be a sympathetic character typically because everyone treats him really badly and he can do nothing right. The problem here is that this is impossible to do. He murders a little girl and well….you can’t come back from that. The film couldn’t come back from it either. It was a really dark scene that had no place in the film. If she had swam out after he left or been rescued, then it would be fine. Drowning just like that? Nah, that scene was terrible.
Even beyond that, the monster’s just never been an interesting character. He basically invented the strong, but not very smart trope. Not that the other characters were much better. Frankenstein’s the one who caused this whole mishap in the first place. He shouldn’t have tried to build Frankenstein and create life. It was never going to work. The other Doctor doesn’t do much of anything and ends up being more of an observer than anything else. Victor talks tough and tries to stand on even ground with Frankenstein, but when he is told to sit down…he obeys. Elizabeth tries to reason with Frankenstein the whole time, but it is ultimately futile. She never really had an effect on him so there bond wasn’t really all that strong. He would have left them out in the rain if they hadn’t forced the issue by knocking over and over again.
One other issue with the film is that it’s just very boring. The scenes drag on and on and on despite the film being fairly short. By the second half, you’ll start to wonder just what happened. The first half isn’t all that bad. The characters go to the creepy tower. There are some debates. Frankenstein is revived. After that? The film just loses all direction as the monster goes around getting burned by old, blind people and attacks others for no real reason. It’s supposed to be humorous to see Frankenstein get burned and I suppose it was handled better than some of the other plots, but it still wasn’t all that good.
There’s not much more to say about this film because it is the same old Frankenstein story that you have seen a million times. It is the original though so I suppose it isn’t totally fair to call it old. One thing that could have helped the film a little bit would have been to have the monster talk. If he could actually exchange dialogue with the others, then it would at least make the film more interesting. After all, the writing during this time was solid enough where even Frankenstein would have sounded distinguished. It may have been a little tough to swallow, but it beats the alternative. It does make you wonder what would have happened if the proper brain had been given to the monster. I suppose the film would have been more of a slice of life at that point though so it may be moot.
If I have to name one positive thing about the film, it’s that it ages well. At least as far as the effects and cinematography go. It came out before the Wax Museum and yet it definitely looks newer and more polished. That may be more of a shot against the Wax Museum though. Hmmm…even my complements for Frankenstein turn into negatives. What can I say, the concept of Frankenstein is just terrible in my opinion and I don’t see how anyone could turn it into an engaging film without completely rewriting the plot. It just cannot be done I’m afraid. Even Dracula is more engaging as a film and as a character. Just conceptually, I’d rank the popular monsters from best to worst as: Dracula>>Mummy>>Werewolf>>Frankenstein. The Werewolf is close though as that plot isn’t very interesting either. There just isn’t much to it. A guy turning into a monster that looks like a human? Seriously…
Overall, Frankenstein is a more tasteful film than the last Frankenstein adventure that I saw, but not by much. Seriously, the little girl scene leaves a bad taste in your mouth and easily takes off 2-3 stars by itself. I don’t see any reason why you should want to watch this film either as it will just bore you out of your mind. By the end you aren’t even sure who to root for. The angry villagers, the Monster, Frankenstein…or nobody. Regardless, you’ll endure the climax, but I’m sure that the TV will be shut off almost immediately afterwards. If you want to see a good Frankenstein film, then I recommend I Frankenstein. To this day, it’s the only good Frankenstein film. I don’t count films where he just happens to appear as a few more would join the list then. I Frankenstein is a very loose adaption of the mythos, but that’s part of why it is good. Trust me, you can’t go wrong there.
Overall 1/10
It’s time for a retro film. It feels like it’s been a while since I reviewed an oldie, but I suppose it hasn’t been all that long. This film’s a fun take on the whole mind switch concept and you can think of it as being similar to Frankenstein. It’s done a whole lot better than Frankenstein ever was though and the characters are actually pretty likable and endearing except for one guy who goes off the deep end.
The plot involves Ernest, a scientist. He is a genius whose only real friend dies in a car crash one day. To save his life, Ernest decides to do an experimental brain transplant. It’s a success, but the problem is that George (The friend) now has a split personality. He’ll be George one minute and then he’ll be Red Cannon, the gangster. Ernest could help George’s personality pull through, but he really wants to be rich and everyone knows that Red Cannon buried 500 million dollars somewhere in the city. Ernest will have that money and then he’ll save George. Can he really have his cake and eat it too or is something sinister about to happen?
As you can expect, Ernest is the character that I don’t care for. At first, his motives were good. He went pretty far to save his friend and his gamble paid off. Unfortunately, his desire for fame and glory corroded him. It was even a bit cheesy at one point as Red Cannon was afraid of Ernest. I find that hard to believe since he was such a hardened gangster. Ernest doesn’t get away with it which is good, but he put everyone in a sticky situation. He’s certainly not a team player.
On the other hand, George is a solid character. He constantly reminds everyone that he is a Professor of English Literature and that’s why he has a hard time dealing with all of the gangster drama. He’s a very polite guy who simply made the mistake of trusting his old friend. Even when a side effect of the serum caused George to be a little cranky, he was always ready to apologize for it. George is a real stand up guy and that’s why I’m glad that he got a good ending. He didn’t ask for any of this and did the best that he could to see to it that everything went all right. He even gave the Cab driver a huge tip, which was pretty neat.
Red Cannon was an okay gangster, but as I mentioned earlier, he did get scared by Ernest. I’m not really sure how I can take him seriously after that. He did a good job of beating up most of the guys who had betrayed him though. Messing with the boss is definitely not a good move. I mean, he was dead so they won…….lets ignore that for now. The gangsters were fairly confident and since they had Red Cannon’s girlfriend on their side, how could they lose? She actually did trick Red Cannon a few times though so he’s got a ways to go when it comes to running a gang biz. That’s why you’re not supposed to mix work and romance, it makes things risky. I did have to chuckle at the fact that the gangsters were forced to hide in a closet as a last resort. That normally shouldn’t buy you a whole lot of time. Leaving the secret beer cabinet open as well is another critical mistake.
The unsung hero here has to be the cab driver. He’s the kind of guy who wasn’t going to let Red Cannon walk all over him. I like how he calmly walked up to the cops and saw to it that justice was served. Red Cannon was gone by then of course, but it’s the thought that counts. The students were also pretty nice as they helped George out and even when he randomly shape shifted, they took it in stride. They were certainly pretty accepting of the whole thing, despite how strange it all was.
Aside from that, the rest of the film was also pretty realistic. Even the energy drain since George should definitely be tired from living two lives. That’s a lot of exercise for a rather old fellow. The writing was very good from start to finish as well. It had that dignified feel that you really can’t find in a more modern adventure. Not to mention that it’s what helped make George a good character. Bad writing would have made him cheesy or just fake while he felt like a real likable fellow this time.
The fight scenes were also solid. They did a good job of showing why Red Cannon was so feared throughout the land while not going overboard and making the minions look weak. After all, they did keep the gang running well after his death so they had to be at least a little competent right? The film is rather short so the pacing stays quick throughout the adventure. The only slow parts is when Ernest is trying to turn George back into Red Cannon by taking him around town, but it’s more screen time for George so that is always a good thing.
Overall, Black Friday is a film that I can recommend wholeheartedly. All of the characters are either likable or written well as villains. The fight scenes are good and the plot is engaging. Even the secondary characters like the Bellhop are fun to have around. It shows why you should always be skeptical when you’re given a life saving medicine or start to feel tired for no reason. On the other hand, it reminds you that you can always suppress any foreign minds that try to inhabit your body. You may not become a shape shifter, but that’s fine. The film blends together a nice mix of humor and seriousness. There’s really nothing negative to say about the film and the only thing keeping it from being an 8 is just not having enough content to quite get up that high. It’s a solid all around film otherwise.
Overall 7/10
It’s time for a fairly recent horror movie. This one actually managed to be fairly decent as far as horror movies go. Unfortunately, it slipped up towards the end of the film. The ending may not be as terrible as something like The Innocents, but it’s certainly still a Debbie Downer. It may not be winning any awards from me, but you could certainly do worse if you’re looking for a quick scare before Thanksgiving is upon us.
The film starts off in an abandoned toy factory esque place. The assistant notices that someone has broken into the building and warns her boss about this. He basically tells her that he has no time for games so she leaves. Afterwards, he gets ready to leave, but the creature attacks him and the guy doesn’t live through the experience. It’s a fairly solid way to start the film off and it isn’t even all that violent. For once, the scene is actually handled fairly well and the creature’s design was pretty good. Honestly, I felt like the whole film should have taken place in that shadowy store.
Moving along, the creature is named Diana and she has become friends with Sophie, Rebecca’s Mom. Sophie and Diana have become quite close and that’s why Diana wants to murder all of Rebecca’s friends. She can’t let anyone come in between them. Unfortunately, this is having a negative impact on Martin, Rebecca’s brother. Child services get involved and Rebecca decides to keep Martin for a little while. The board won’t have it so Rebecca has to head back. She decides to spend the night, but will she be able to vanquish Diana or is it all over for her?
The film seems to lose its sense of direction at several points, which is where things get rough for it. For example, Diana is shown to be a fake friend. She is just using Sophie because she wants the Mom to feel the same sadness that she felt. Okay…but her plan only works if Sophie ends up being messed up. Unfortunately, that is the case as Sophie doesn’t mind being thrown around since she believes that she deserves it. Sophie’s a pretty terrible character as she puts Diana before Martin and Rebecca several times. She seems to want to be a good Mother, but then back pedals at other points. At one point, she gives Rebecca a letter saying that she needs help before she is dragged back into the darkness. So, Sophie seems to be somewhat aware of the fact that Diana is not her friend, but then forgets it again. I suppose it’s just part of her whole Martyr disposition, but it definitely doesn’t do the character any favors.
Diana’s power level also seems to fluctuate quite a lot. In some scenes, she can’t stand the light to the point where she won’t go near it. By the end, she’s going through the light no problem. It burns her, but she can take the heat long enough to do whatever she wants to do. She has a good amount of super strength as she can throw people around and quickly stab others, not to mention that she is also bullet proof. At the same time, the heroes can struggle against her quite effectively so maybe she’s a little weaker than Captain America. Regardless, she makes for a good villain, but not really a great character. I’d prefer her goal to simply be “Destroy everyone” or something rather than just sparing people sometimes and attacking in others. Going after Martin seemed like a random move towards the beginning when they were watching a film. Wouldn’t that instantly destroy her “friendship” with Sophie? I imagine that it would override her current condition. Diana also took a while to make her move since we find out that she has been around, even when Rebecca was a kid. I guess she just didn’t attack if you didn’t get in her way.
The main problem with the ending is its one of those classic “I can’t beat the villain so it’s time to exit the game” moments. It’s portrayed as the right call of course, but it’s definitely not the best way to win. There wasn’t really any other course of action in this example, but that just makes it all the more tragic. Not to mention the fact that the character’s reputation is going to be slung through the mud now since nobody will know the truth.
As per usual, the cops don’t look so good here. You can’t blame them quite as much this time since they are up against a monster that can easily defeat them, but they still could have handled the situation better. The cops take a while to find the main characters and even once they do, they don’t do a good job of handling the situation. They clearly know that they’re dealing with someone dangerous, but they still don’t watch their distance. They did try shooting at least, but one of the cops just waved the main character off when she tried to give some advice. It’s a good thing that Rebecca had a lot of survival skills earlier because those were more dependable.
I can’t say that I was really a fan of Bret. He does help out a lot and certainly does better than most horror characters, but he’s just not that likable. The scenes with him trying to show Rebecca that she is making the wrong move didn’t really go over well. Taking Martin definitely seemed like the right call although she did handle it in a pretty sour way. He may have been right, but he started off rather accusing so it makes sense that Rebecca would get defensive. Rebecca got to be a decent character by the end although the beginning makes sure to show you why she’s not a good role model for Martin. She certainly went far with the whole rebellious streak.
This is another horror film that doesn’t play out as you would typically expect it to. The body count increases by the end, but it’s more of a slow burner as Diana doesn’t do anything for quite a while. It works well to an extent and as I mentioned, this is technically one of the better horror films. On the other hand, it means that there isn’t a whole lot for Diana to do except give us some fake jump scares. I can live with that if it beats the alternative I suppose.
Overall, Lights Out isn’t half bad. The film never has a gritty moment just for kicks and the whole film is rather chill when it comes to that. The monster is fairly good and the backstory is rather tragic while not being over the top. The characters may not be great, but they are better than their counterparts. On the other hand, the romance with Bret and Rebecca is fairly poor. It just reminds you why these two are going to have a hard time trying to win custody. The ending isn’t very good either and it was hard to really get Diana and Sophie. Sometimes they acted rationally and other times they did not. Sophie really could have handled this whole debacle a lot better and if Diana was serious about destroying everyone, she could have really done it at any time. She waited too long due to plot hax. If you’re a big fan of horror movies then this could be a decent one to check out. If you want a film that I could recommend to everyone, check out Scooby Doo: Zombie Island!
Overall 4/10
Well, it’s time for a horror/slasher/thriller film where the main plot tries to live up to the title. The romance is definitely a contender for one of the worst in cinema and the rest of the film isn’t much better. Without any characters to actually root for and cringe worthy dialogue throughout…where can the film even go? Needless to say, it can only go down from there. On the bright side, the film was up front about itself from the get go, hence the title.
The film starts off with a guy named Kale. His father passed away due to a car accident a while back and he never recovered from it. After slacking through another class and having the professor call him out on it, Kale quickly went for a punch. It landed him in house arrest and he will really be arrested if he leaves the house for longer than a few seconds. He can technically make it to the front and back yard, but that’s it. Kale decides that if he can’t go around beating people up anymore, he can at least be a stalker. He spends his time spying on the main heroine and even invites his friend as well. Unfortunately, it turns out that one of his other neighbors is a murderer and since Kale made it obvious that he knows about this…the group is in danger now. Can Kale stop this guy or will he destroy them all?
Well, the basic premise already starts this film off at a disadvantage. Naturally, the main heroine decides that she doesn’t care about Kale’s antics, or the fact that he crashed or party in a fit of rage because it’s a bad movie it shows that he cares. It’s just hard to watch because you already know that Kale is not a good guy at all. Lets face the facts, he punched out a Professor who wasn’t even being super antagonistic. Sure, he played the Dad card, but the main character had been sleeping through classes and hadn’t even seemed apologetic. After that, Kale did his best to do all the wrong things. He didn’t help out around the house, he would play games all day, then he would watch sketchy TV all day, etc, etc. Kale would always try to make the situation worse.
You can’t feel sympathetic with him at all. Honestly, his situation was pretty lucky all things considered. This is why you should have hobbies. If I had to stay at home for a full month for some reason, it’d be easy. I’d be blogging, gaming, TV watching, and doing all kinds of things. Even card/board games would get a shot. There’d also be a lot of time to do some cleaning as well or at least not adding to the mess. Heading back to the main heroine, it’s also quite telling that Kale would invite his friend over to watch as if she was the afternoon entertainment. There’s no way a healthy relationship can be formed from such a twisted start and it just never gets better.
As I already mentioned, none of the characters are good. It’s obvious why Kale isn’t good and the heroine is simply too easy. Even if it was to get Kale jealous, (Or should I say Especially?) she was getting awful close with the random strangers at the party and things were quickly getting dicey. If she is that free, then the pairing makes a lot of sense, but is still pretty terrible to see on screen. We can’t forget Kale’s friend either. The guy spends his first 5-10 minutes making one looooooooong repetitive dirty joke about how a Spanish word sounds like a sad English phrase. The professor lets him go on and on for reasons unknown. The friend also proves that he only cares about himself several times as he is ready to let Kale take the fall for the false murder accusation. Recording the heroes at the end is just adding insult to injury.
The film doesn’t even do well as a slasher. Now, this part is a little contradictory since the “better” you do as a slasher, the lower your score might be. After all, increasing the body count solidifies the villain as a threat, but will also likely make the film more violent. Well, the villain here can’t be taken too seriously since he keeps letting people go. He didn’t destroy the friend, he spared the heroine, he spared the Mom, etc. I get that it was all part of the plan, but he reeeeally took his sweet time. I’d also argue that the way in which he invites people over to his house and then murders them sounds like a fool proof plan to fail. Nobody noticed any of this? None of the families were able to track the cell phone to that location before the person died? Even if the villain got rid of the phone, they could see it on the trail right? His wig disguise shouldn’t be as convincing as it was. I guess Kale’s eyes are as bad as his personality, but it’s still pretty sad.
The film also throws in some animal violence for good measure as the main villain destroys a deer and also takes down a rabbit. Why? It was part of his master plan to trick the cops and it works super well, but it doesn’t help the film. Back to the cops, they look terrible as per usual. One of them has a personal vendetta against Kale which he lets get in the way of his objectivity. When the main character leaves the house and the Police are sent to take him in, the cop decides to stop by a McDonalds esque place first to finish his Cheeseburger combo. By the time he gets to the house, his reflexes and reaction times are shot. He walks into the house and is quickly murdered by the main villain. It happens so quickly that he doesn’t even get to use his gun. Police are trained for this kind of thing, I’d like to think that they wouldn’t walk through a sharp turn in pitch black conditions without some kind of plan.
Kale only lives through the climax due to plot hax. After all, he makes all the wrong calls. He trips, makes a lot of noise, lies down to make himself an easy target, and a slew of other things. One character who I didn’t mention, but is also pretty bad is the Mother. She invites the neighbor to her house and then even after Kale tells her that he is a murderer, she doesn’t care. Sure, Kale’s not the greatest person to take tips from, but she should at least use some common sense and not go to the guy’s house in the middle of the night when they’re all alone and there isn’t anyone to protect her. She just looks soooooo bad here. The early part of the film tried to make her a tough and independent character, but this nullified all of that in an instant.
Overall, There definitely isn’t much in the way of positives for this film. Originally I was going to give it a 1 because it’s super distasteful, but does it really deserve a 0? Well, after thinking about it a while as this film stayed on the backburner, I think it actually did deserve a 0. It tries to romanticize a pretty bad relationship and doesn’t actually have a moral in place to show Kale that what he did was wrong. It’s never portrayed negatively at all, but rather it happened and the heroine rolled with it. Throw in the animal violence, the stalking scenes, the unlikable characters, and the bad writing….and it all leads to one conclusion. If you want to watch a film with a similar plot, but a much better execution, check out Rear Window instead. Whatever you do, just stay away from this film. There is really nothing good to be found here.
Overall 0/10
Fire Emblem definitely has a lot of manga titles. It’s pretty cool how the series is so big even if most of the various series aren’t all that great. This one is all right, but I’m not a huge fan of Anthologies. Perhaps one will feature a big action scene which will help it out a bit. I shall have a review for the series up when it finishes.
Overall 5/10
I’m on a roll so lets go with another terrible film that I saw a little while ago. I’m actually shocked that this one is PG-13. The tone and everything felt like it was not, but I’ll give the film some slight props for that I suppose. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. This film falls into some deep traps that thrillers/horrors are prone to stepping in and the film’s glum outlook doesn’t help matters either. It’s simply not a fun experience from start to finish.
Mort is an author who hasn’t been doing well lately. His papers won’t write themselves and he certainly doesn’t want to do any writing either. Things get worse when a guy by the name of John Shooter shows up and claims that Mort stole his paper. Mort knows that this isn’t true because he wrote it before John claims that he did, but he needs proof. Until Mort can get proof, John decides that he will destroy everyone close to Mort and will scare him into submission. Can Mort get this guy off his back or is it time to panic and retreat? Lets just say that neither one is an option.
All right, this film’s terrible. We can start with the animal violence. Mort has a dog, but naturally he is destroyed. The film was pretty obvious about the fact that the dog was going to die and this prevents you from ever getting into the film. What’s the point when you know that something so criminal and tragic is about to happen. I didn’t like it…I didn’t like it one bit. It was a distasteful move right from the get go.
There’s also another big problem with the film and it concerns the ending. It’s something that doesn’t happen very often, but certainly gets quite bad when it does show up. There will be spoilers in this paragraph as well as the next one so skip these if you don’t want to know about it. You have been warned so lets go back to spoilers in 3….2……1….Go. It turns out that Mort is insane. John Shooter is a figment of his imagination. What this means is that Mort is the one who destroyed his dog. Mort is also the one who burned his house down and murdered a few other people. The ending of the film also sees Mort murder his wife and her new rebound guy. It then ends with him burying them and living a peaceful life in his house. The police know that it was him, but there is nothing that they can do about it without any proof. I call plot hax on that and it is a very depressing way to end.
There are few things worse than having the villain win in the end. Mort’s a mass murderer and the film ends with the knowledge that no charges can be put on him. Moreover, he still comes to town to intimidate people and everyone knows that he could easily do the same thing again. It’s a very depressing end to an already terrible film. Imagine if Sucker Punch had end….bad example. Imagine if Air had en…..another bad example. Lets go to Poltergeist 3. If the film had ended with Maryanne being stuck in astral world and everyone else just getting murdered and replaced with ghosts, it would have been pretty lousy. You question what the point of the whole film was. It’s possible to handle the situation well and still have the villains win in the end. For example, the Avengers film could have had Thanos show up and destroy the planet and I don’t think it would have affected the score negatively. If anything, it would have been a pretty fun ending. It’s all about execution, but you simply can’t have a psychotic mass murderer end the film off on a high note while all of the other characters get massacred. It just doesn’t work.
None of the characters are particularly likable here. Mort’s annoying and terrible. There’s no real way to like Amy since she is cheating on Mort the whole time. She wants a divorce, but she hasn’t actually gotten it yet so that destroys her as a character. Ted’s no better since he’s the rebound guy for Amy. To make sure that you don’t forget this, the film plays the flashback about 10 times or more where Mort finds this out the hard way. The only character who can be seen as semi good is the private investigator, but he’s not very good. He’s very relaxed about the whole thing and lets his guard down the whole time. He comes across as a guy who is all talk and no action. Needless to say, John Shooter is a pretty terrible villain as well.
The film feels very old despite being a 2000 and later film. Maybe it’s a technique that it used on purpose to achieve a retro affect. Whatever the case, the film looked and felt like a 1990’s R rated Indie horror film. While I can try to respect the fact that the film got this sinister tone, it doesn’t really help the film all that much at all. It doesn’t save it from the perfect 0 and doesn’t win it back any points. How could it? The plot twist at the end just ends up hurting your own trust in the film and it was already going to be a 2 or a 3 max. Add in the actual ending and then the 0 is an absolute certainty.
There isn’t a whole lot more to say about the film. If we ignore the plot twist, then there would have been a lot of plot hax and stretches of disbelief. With the twist, then everything adds up pretty well. I don’t like not being able to trust what I’m seeing though, it feels like a big cop out. I suppose that it’s the only way the film could go with this plot though. The writing wouldn’t have been able to handle it otherwise.
Overall, Secret Garden is a terrible film. It has one of the worst endings in film history, (And that’s saying something) a crippling plot twist, unlikable characters, and animal violence. I don’t think any film could survive such an onslaught of negatives. There is simply too much to overcome and the only mildly interesting scene in the whole film was a very brief fight, which doesn’t even matter thanks to the twist. It’s a shame…a true shame. If you want a film with some semblance of quality, then check out I Know What You Did Last Summer. If you want a film with actual quality, then go watch Space Jam. Trust me, there is a big difference between actually being a good film and having a very short glimpse of potential. Space Jam is the former and the Summer film is the latter. Secret Window can’t even make it to either category.
Overall 0/10
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