Category Archives: 0 Star Movies

The Ghost of Yotsuya Review

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It’s time to look at a well known foreign horror film and unfortunately this one was pretty bad. I was expecting some decent entertainment and all but in the end it takes way too long for the ghost to show up. It turns out to be more of a messed up drama for most of the film and the villains stay really annoying throughout. It’s always one of the risks you run when you have a film built around a bunch of villains. You’re waiting for justice but in a film like this it will be a long time coming.

The movie starts with a guy named Iemon wanting to marry Oiwa. He had a bit of a deal with her father but the guy changed his mind and it’s easy to see why. Iemon doesn’t seem like the most put together fellow around. He has let himself go and is patrolling the streets like a homeless person. Well, ultimately he decides to murder her father and his guards. Then he makes his move on Oiwa who essentially decides to get with him as long as he avenges her father’s death. Iemon wants to keep the charade up forever but one guy, Naosuke happens to have witnessed the murder and begins his blackmail. He basically wants Oiwa’s sister as his compensation and keeps on blackmailing Iemon. The two of them continue to sink deeper into this conspiracy.

Now this is really just a problem with the old Japan type films but the honor system goes way too far the whole time. The fact that both girls are willing to marry guys they don’t love just for the vengeance angle is too much. Oiwa at least doesn’t mind Iemon all that much but the sister didn’t like Naosuke at all and still goes through with this. All of their scenes are absolutely brutal. You’re just waiting for the ghost to show up already.

Unfortunately, the ghost angle isn’t a factor until the film is nearly over. So first you have to see Iemon humiliating Oiwa over and over again as he proves to be a terrible husband and even prepares to marry another girl on the side. His love for Oiwa wasn’t even true which just makes Iemon even worse of a character. Obviously he was a villain/murderer from the start but at least if he really loved Oiwa there would be some sense of humanity left. Instead, he is just a shallow guy who gets bored quickly and then continues to inflate his body count.

He can’t stop himself from murdering more and more people and that does not help his final goals. It just gets him deeper into trouble. Not that you feel bad for him but he takes up an enormous amount of screentime. What really hurts the film is that there are no likable characters. The two girls look naive and too trusting for most of this. They are also far too passive as they just wait for the guys to take revenge for them while they stay home. It’s pretty clear that the guys are getting nowhere fast.

As for the ghost, well she is fun to have around once she finally does make a move but even then it takes her a long time to actually take down Iemon. Also, right before becoming a ghost she did end up finishing off a baby so it’s not like they were shaping her up to be a hero either. The whole film is extremely drawn out even though it technically isn’t even a very long film. Mix that in with all of the characters being pretty bad and this was a recipe for disaster.

I’m not a fan of the old time aesthetic and this certainly wouldn’t change my mind on that. You will be left shaking your head the whole time and I wouldn’t even be able to blame you. The whole honor system just doesn’t work and I want the characters to be louder and more pro active. A guy like Iemon should never have gotten as far as he did. Even at the very end of the film he puts up way more of a fight than he should have. Is this guy secretly an absolute swords master or something?

He got too much hype and too much screentime. I’m rarely going to be able to really tolerate a film centered around a super unlikable villain without either seriously amazing supporting characters or a great hero to root for that takes him out in the end. A film like this one is just too depressing and dreary the whole time. It doesn’t leave you with any hope for the characters and is just not a fun one to watch. At the end of the day it forgets about the film’s main objective which is to be a fun and enjoyable film. There is nothing like that here.

Overall, A film like Ghost of Yotsuya was really doomed to fail from the start. The core plot is already not that engaging and you would need either a good amount of humor or something light hearted to balance it out. This film is taking itself deadly serious and so that means it is necessarily going to be a rather tough watch. You need to either have a really happy ending at the ready to balance the tough journey or for the villain to start getting his just desserts at a much earlier time. If you aren’t able to do either of those things, then the film is always going to be in a rather rough spot. There isn’t really any way around that. If you want to watch an authentic horror title, check out Godzilla instead.

Overall 0/10

Messiah of Evil Review

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It’s time for a zombie type of film and unfortunately I can assure you that it is not one of the good ones. There is no real escape for the heroes and while the film maintains a rather spooky atmosphere throughout, it never ends up taking advantage of this. What could have been a really intense cerebral horror film quickly becomes just another slasher to have to contend with. That is unfortunate but not entirely unexpected.

The film starts with a girl named Arletty deciding to look for her father. He left her a note saying not to do this as well as a whole book of notes but she doesn’t have time to read them in depth. When she arrives in town, the place is rather odd. One of the travelers at the gas station seemed rather off and then the town itself is fairly empty. There is an eccentric guy named Thom who is surrounded by girls and lives a life of luxury but it all seems rather empty. Arletty wants to continue on her mission but it does seem like the longer she stays here, the greater her risk of death will be.

Naturally she should have listened to her father’s note telling her not to follow him. That would have ended things right away and surely he wouldn’t have just sent her that notice for no reason right? She also should have read the whole book right away and planned for the worst. Now it’s not like there is a whole lot she could have done against the crazy zombies that would end up appearing but at least she would have been pretty well prepared. Instead she doesn’t really have a plan and always ends up being at a disadvantage.

She’s also a bit too trusting with letting Thom and his friends stay over right away. She doesn’t even know these people and odds are that they were crazy. Even by the end of the film Arletty is forced to take on more of a spectator role here as she can only wait until the inevitable happens. It’s always more fun when the protagonist can actually do a lot of stuff but in this case you could say that she was just a participant in a conspiracy that was much bigger than her. She wasn’t exactly the central focus this time.

Then we have Thom who is a bit of a space case. He tries to be calm and collected at all times but it can feel like a mask. He is quick to subtly threaten one of the girls when he feels like she has been too rude. Thom does well in the fighting near the end but ultimately it wasn’t really enough to turn the tides.

The characters are battling what is effectively an endless horde of monsters after all. Take one down and a few more will take the original’s place. It’s not like the main characters got a debriefing on this either so they’re going into the situation cold. The zombies are all cannibals, so the deaths are particularly gruesome. The film is going for max edge here and that’s really where you knew the film couldn’t come back from. It’s why I’m generally not a big zombie fan, it will usually lead to these kind of events which is hard to write around.

Since the heroes don’t really stand a chance, it also runs into the issue of the whole thing feeling futile. When the characters literally have no possible way to win, it is harder to get engaged into what is happening. If the film kept the threat vague then it might be able to survive on the atmosphere alone, but throw everything else in and you’re not likely going to come back from that.

The film has the cops show up at one point which made for an interesting addition, but unfortunately they are dispatched quickly. The way it was done was also unfortunate because it underscored that you could be turned into a zombie without being bit previously. I interpreted it as the red moon being able to transform anyone who is caught in its rays but of course then that makes things even more unfair. The villains also have a supernatural leader who has intense abilities of his own. That really doesn’t help the case for the heroes.

So the film ends up feeling rather mean spirited with the heroes having no chance and you just slowly watch as they end up dying. There’s not a lot of fun to be had with a premise like that and the film should have tried becoming an action title instead. At the very least, it does serve as a reminder that zombie films are not often going to be very good. If you see that as a genre then you know that you’re probably doomed.

Considering how dreary the film was overall, I’m surprised the ending didn’t have a little more pop. By the end of the film, we know that humanity is going to be destroyed but it’s handled in a very quiet way. I would have preferred that the invasion begins and that’s how the film ends. You may as well have things end in an exciting way like that right? It would certainly make the ending more exciting and memorable at least.

Overall, Messiah of Evil is definitely a film I’d stay far away from. There are no real positive moments to offset all the negatives here. The characters are pretty bad and the film just gets way too gruesome the whole time. It sets the tone early with the gas station murder. If the main characters could have done more damage and set this up as a more even fight then that could have helped. Have the zombies be traditionally slow or something. By allowing them to move at normal speeds like a human, it just makes them completely unstoppable. I don’t see how anybody is supposed to fight off powerful creatures like that.

Overall 0/10

The Ninth Configuration Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

When you have a movie by the same guy as the Exorcist you already know that you’re going to be in for a rough time. It’s not exactly a vote of confidence right? Well, this one definitely manages to live up to the Exorcist’s legacy so you will want to stay far away from this one. It’s definitely not a movie that you will want to stick around for. You’ll have checked out at least 9 times during it!

The movie starts off with introducing us to a castle where the government has made a safe space for veterans who have gone crazy after their time in battle. Their PTSD and delusions act up in many different ways such as amnesia or complete changes in personality. The place allows the inmates to have the run of the place and they just have guards on the outside to make sure nobody escapes. This does seem rather dangerous and while the idea is probably that they’re all good people who have all just gone a little mad…that’s a pretty big risk. Hudson has been sent over here to be the new head of the place. He will be a doctor who can bring some order to this place but is he up to the job?

I think the most tragic part about this film is that the opening minutes aren’t terrible. We get a solid fakeout in the beginning where a doctor introduces himself to Hudson and they have a reasonable conversation only for the dialogue to start getting weirder and weirder. Well, it turns out that the “doctor” was another insane patient who just thought he was one and the guy gets taken away. It was actually a really solid gag and set things off on the right track. See, the opening of the film is actually more of a comedy with the whole place being rather wacky and silly.

Yeah you could say there are some dark undercurrents here since these people have lost their minds which is really tragic but the film is playing it off in this rather odd way. Like I mentioned, the patients are allowed to do whatever they want so there will be scenes where they storm into the room to talk about painting, movies, drama, etc. Their conversations end up going in circles and don’t really have a point to them. Of course that in itself is the point. It’s a bit on the dull side but it’s mostly inoffensive. I’d probably give the first half like a solid 4 or something like that.

Then things take a turn when the film decides to get real dark and edgy. It all leads up to one of the inmates managing to escape only he ends up going to a really seedy bar where a gang has full control of it. Evidently they have had control of this place for a very long time from how everyone is acting. It’s so close to the army base that you’d figure some soldiers would have gone there during breaks or something right? Maybe they just never noticed or didn’t even care since there wasn’t much reaction to the truck in the opening scene.

Unfortunately the whole exchange is the definition of a film killer. It lasts forever and has the villains getting away with too much. They’re up against a soldier whose mind has been fried for a long time so he’s not able to fight back at all and he’s horribly outnumbered anyway. After he’s tortured for a while, Hudson comes in and then the same thing happens to him. They have him debase himself for a while and by the time he gets up and begins his big Shonen Jump comeback, it’s just way too late to care.

When you have the hero losing, you have to make sure you don’t overplay your hand. You need him to start fighting back while there are still things to fight for and before the villains have had their full laughs. The film really mistimed this and had Hudson put up with way too much. The whole thing doesn’t work and I would argue that even accounting for all of the twists in the movie it doesn’t work. Hudson had shown some aggression in an earlier scene when someone was just grabbing an inmate. Here, way worse things are happening and he doesn’t take that same tone/approach?

He had a security guard be afraid of him during one of the earlier scenes because of how intense Hudson got. So the fact that this didn’t happen here was very disappointing. The film wanted to show just how evil the outside world could be but ended up falling into the issue of too much show rather than tell. If you cut the scene in half and have Hudson start fighting way earlier then it would have gone a long way. Unfortunately the film doesn’t stop there. Hudson’s overall climax after this is definitely real bad.

Ironically his moment is supposed to show the moment of human goodness that the inmate was looking for but i would argue that it doesn’t work. It’s misguided at best and ultimately is never the way to go. There are much better ways to prove that. In fact, fighting off a bunch of villains to save your friend would already be a rather solid moment if you ask me. Choosing a certain method to shock the guy back into reality is definitely not what I would choose. So while the film goes for a happy ending approach in the end, it ended up being more on the sad side if you ask me. There was a whole lot of damage done to the characters here and by the end they’ve lost at least as much as they have gained, if not more.

So far films about insane asylums don’t tend to have a good track record. They tend to be rather crazy the whole time with a whole lot of issues. Either the inmates start to get mistreated all the time or they turn evil and start murdering people. I’m still waiting for a wholesome adventure where the inmates are all cured and the whole process is a lot of fun rather than it being all dark and dreary. The odds of this likely won’t be great though because to an extent it does go against the whole point of taking place in an asylum.

Overall, There are some pretty solid plot twists here that end up getting overshadowed by the film’s failings. Hudson’s character was handled well aside from the bar scene and the gag at the beginning that I mentioned was really good. In general the writing and dialogue were reasonable in the first half. Keeping everyone in the asylum would have been the film’s best bet. I don’t think there was going to be many easy ways to fight off the fact that the film could be rather boring but trying to go the edgy approach really didn’t work. So in the end I would say to definitely give this one a skip.

Overall 0/10

The Company of Wolves Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version of the film would be more negative

Oh noooo it’s time for a film about wolves. Let me tell you something, these films tend to be rather lackluster at best but this one really takes the cake. It was just so bad on every level. From the plot to the violence to the characters, it was all so bad that I had tears in my eyes. You will want to avoid the movie at all costs. Get out of there as soon as possible, it is definitely not the way to go.

So the movie starts with a girl getting ready to go to sleep. She goes to sleep and everything starts moving and getting all trippy but we go back in time for another girl’s sister gets eaten by wolves and then the grandmother of the first girl tells her a story about how men with unibrows are evil. From there we lose the plot further as we have tons of stories inside of other stories with wolves murdering everybody and it just goes to show that you are not safe anywhere. It butchers the little red riding hood story so hard on every level.

Lets start jumping into the negatives here. First we have the obligatory animal violence. The wolves like to eat just about anything of course and so that does include a poor cattle that was simply minding his own business. The scene is surprisingly graphic but it gets less surprising as the time goes by. Why? Because the whole film is thriving on shock value. The transformation scenes are easily some of the most graphic that I have seen. It’s pretty crazy seeing the guy just bleed himself into a wolf. That was super crazy but more grotesque than scary. Then in another one you have a wolf coming out of the guy as if the human skin was just a suit. This one was creative though so I will say that the special effects were really good this time.

Reminds me of when Reverse Flash jumped out of some guy’s body in the CW show. That was weird and spooky without being grotesque so props there. It’s just that the props I give the movie are always very far and few in between. For every decent moment like that there are a ton where you will be shaking your head. Lets go back to the romance angle for a minute. So we’ve got this villager kid who likes the main heroine and he’s always going after her but his persistence makes him feel more like an antagonist than a good character most of the time. He basically steals a kiss at one point and she has to shove him away and he doesn’t get the hint.

They play up the fact that he’s naive but as the saying goes, no means no. He needs to accept the rejection and keep it moving. It does lead to a quick fight between the fathers which was fun but yeah that character was awful. Then in the segment with the grandmother, you’d think the girl would have more of a reaction to her grandmother being eaten. She doesn’t react as you would expect her to which will make you grown as well. That’s not a small offense, that’s literally murdering a member of your family. Pretty crazy you know?

The grandmother is so mean to everyone that it can be a bit funny. She’s constantly intentionally scaring the kid with all of these violent stories and generally being a bit of a jerk about it. My only problem here was that when it came time to actually prove her abilities, she got folded immediately. Yeah she’s old but where’s her gun or at least some kind of a dagger? She was completely unprepared despite being the expert and that was disappointing. Felt like the whole plot was rather useless as a result. At least that’s the way I see it.

Now it is clear what message the film is going for. Don’t let anybody take you away from the straight and narrow path. Don’t trust anyone since all strangers can be evil. The grandmother throws this message in constantly and you can assume the wolves are basically a metaphor. The problem is that a big message can’t save a film and it’s really just an excuse to have all of these stories. At the end of the day it doesn’t help to make them be any more connected and the film is a real bore as a result. You know that the humans can’t do much here. Yeah they can shoot one but usually it will have bit someone else who can transform.l

The humans will always be on the backfoot here and due to the anthology format, it’s not like they can get a final win anyway. All in all, this film definitely did not do anything to make me all that impressed with it. Instead it just did the opposite. I don’t think that it would have been much higher if it was all one story but probably would have been better than a 0 at least. Maybe we could have stayed in the modern day which is an infinitely better backdrop than the olden days here. The olden days with werewolves is a super bad combo.

Overall, This film was pretty bad. At no point in the film was it cooking up a good story or developing any good characters. Everyone here is on the annoying side, the romance is dreadful, and the violence is definitely over the top. I didn’t really get what the point of the whole thing was. Surely they could have thought up a better script than this right? I think the movie got a little too ambitious with all of the stories inside of a story. Having it all be chronological would have helped but even then, anthologies are always the worst kind of format. You should really have more confidence in telling a complete story.

Overall 0/10

The Vanishing Review

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All right, it’s time for a rather brutal stretch of film reviews so get ready folk! First up we have a title that hits rock bottom. Films about a kidnapping need to be pretty careful as it is. You don’t want to get too grim and especially if you are going for a more realistic angle rather than stylistic. If you have a lot of thrilling fight scenes and a hype climax you can do some things with the genre but the ending is really a huge component. This film fails in all of that and especially with its decision to have the villain appear so often. You really don’t want to see that guy and yet he doesn’t want to get off of your screen.

The movie starts with Rex and his girlfriend Saskia driving towards their big vacation spot. Unfortunately they run out of gas in the middle of a dark tunnel so despite Saskia begging Rex to stay with her, he runs off to find some help/get some gas. He eventually returns and she’s upset but they agree to move on. Unfortunately she is kidnapped immediately afterwards and it happens so fast that nobody even noticed. Years later, people still don’t know what happened but Rex is determined to find her. The kidnapper has been taunting him with letters and Rex is ready to finally catch him.

However, the viewer knows who the murderer is right away. That’s because a massive part of the film is from the villain, Raymond’s perspective. This was a massive mistake if you ask me. Who wants to see this psychotic villain reveling in his victory? We see him go through the process of learning how to kidnap people and how this was all premeditated. The guy wanted to commit the ultimate evil to prove that he could and it’s all pretty twisted. So the movie spends a large chunk getting back to the present where we see the events play out from his point of view. Will Rex be able to catch him?

Well Rex is one of the biggest suckers I’ve seen so that’s going to be tricky. You have a guy who has been sending him notes and when he finally shows up, Rex doesn’t take him down? I’m not saying you murder him of course since you need answers but you definitely knock him out first of all. Then you either take him to the cops if you are confident that you have enough answers or you take him to a secluded area where nobody will bother you and get some answers out of him. Either way in no scenario should this guy be calling the shot anymore.

The usual hostage type defense doesn’t work in this case since it has been years and the odds of her being alive are basically 0. So at this point you’re avenging her. I dare say you don’t even need to find out exactly what happened, just end this guy but if you must know, find that out first. No, Rex decides to just get in the guy’s car and listen to him monologue for hours about how genius his plan was. Can you really imagine listening to the guy who murdered your girlfriend go on for hours and hours without doing anything?

I really didn’t like Rex the whole time but it started even earlier than that. Ditching Saskia in the tunnel was a really lousy way to start things. How could you ever dream of doing that? She easily could have been murdered right there and then. I also feel like that’s the kind of thing that you never really forget. Years could pass and you would still remember that. Of course you would, because that shows what will happen when the chips are down. In a stressful moment he did end up leaving her.’

It’s too bad because she seemed like a nice character. Saskia doesn’t actually get to appear much at all though. Rex ultimately gets a new girlfriend in Lieneke which is very questionable at best. I don’t see how you move on before you’ve got any kind of closure. Particularly with how tragic the ending was here. It just doesn’t make sense. The film seemed to be focusing on how Rex was also going rather insane like the odd scene of him staring at a computer screen and sort of playing something like Pong with Saskia’s names jumping all around the screen and bumping into each other.

I’m all for a character being persistent in something like this. He should never quit and should keep on obsessing until he has answers. It’s just the fact that he makes all of the wrong decisions and lets himself be manipulated. There’s a scene of him essentially offing himself with how ridiculous it is. I dare say that it’s the single dumbest decision I’ve ever seen a main character make. It’s a pretty bold claim but I would absolutely defend it. Lets play this out for a minute.

A guy who self identifies as the murderer and who is clearly insane says he is going to drug you so that you can find out exactly how your girlfriend died. Are you actually going to drink the drugs that he gave you? This guy could not have been any more clear in exactly what was going to happen here. I won’t spoil the ending in case you ever want to watch it but I would advise against that. This is a bottom tier, z grade film and the ending is pretty awful. It makes perfect sense given the scene that just played out but that’s the problem. It’s hard to picture anybody possibly making this decision. It’s flat out nutty!

There’s just nothing to enjoy about this film. It’s a really dreary, dark film with a very small cast and most of the screen time is about the main villain. All of his scenes are just nauseating. I’m glad the film didn’t try to make him sympathetic or anything because that would have really been insane but the ending is completely unsatisfying. It could have done more to condemn the character rather than just doing nothing. We just don’t need to see this guy. Psychotic villains like this don’t deserve to be getting that level of screen time. We know he’s crazy so there’s no other context needed. If you have to show off his ideas then cut all of his screen time for the flashbacks and have him explain things in the car. It would still be a royal chore to listen to but it’s better than seeing that guy.

Overall, This film will have you shaking your head all the way. At no point in the film’s run was it ever enjoyable. Even before the kidnapping the whole scene in the tunnel left things off on the wrong foot. I can’t say that I really had much hopes for the film but even with that, this manages to go under them. A film needs to be enjoyable at the end of the day. That’s the whole point of entertainment and this one was not fun. So stay as far away from this one as you can. There are no benefits to checking it out. Try something a bit more intense like Justice League or something like that.

Overall 0/10

30 Days of Night Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

So what’ve we got here? Vampires? Check! Ultra violence? Check! Horror movie??? Check! Yeah this is a recipe for disaster and I’m here to report that the movie holds absolutely nothing back. It’s going for the Gold Trophy in overall edge and violence and absolutely earns it without any real competition. There’s not much positive to say about this movie so strap in folks because we’re going for a ride!

The story takes place in Alaska right before the ominous 30 days of no sunlight. Most people head out to wherever they live during these times while the rest prepare to brave the cold as they always do. These guys have been able to survive in these temperatures for ages and are confident they can pull it off again but things change when a mysterious guy shows up and causes trouble. The heroes lock him up but it’s unclear how he even got here. Also he says his crew is coming by soon to take everyone out. See it turns out the vampires are real and they are descending on the town to murder everyone. The heroes will have to hold them off for 30 days….yeah this won’t be easy.

Now there are some interesting things you can do with a plot like this. The concept of a survival film of the heroes using the terrain to their advantage and trying to survive is quite sound. But…it doesn’t work against vampires. See this movie should have either gone with normal humans as the enemy or creatures. I’ll explain. Lets say World War III happened and a bunch of enemy soldiers came into Alaska to murder everyone. It makes sense that the heroes would have the advantage with the cold and hiding in the houses. Likewise if you’re fighting a bunch of creatures you can also set up traps and such.

None of this applies to vampires because they all have super strength, speed, and endurance. You can’t really set traps for them when they can smell you from a whiles away and hear every little sound. When they attack the humans there isn’t even really a fight because they just tear them to shreds immediately. The whole survival aspect quickly becomes moot because the humans just get slaughtered each and every time. I felt like the film threw away the most interesting angle by making the enemies vampires.

Instead a good portion of the film is the heroes just hiding in a balcony as different characters get impatient and are eaten one after another. There are so many scenes where someone just gets attacked by a group of vampires, over and over again. The most annoying scene had to be when one of the older guys just had enough so he runs outside which forces others to go after him and then things go badly for the various characters. You’re putting everyone at risk when you do selfish stuff like that. There’s no way that would ever be worth it but in the moment the character just doesn’t care.

The film tries to throw in a quick romance subplot with Eben and Stella who had been going through a rough patch but this situation forces them to have to be together for a while and potentially get past their issues. It doesn’t really have much of a purpose in the film and there’s no real time for it anyway. I’d say I just wanted to get back to the action but in a way I guess this beats those parts.

See, the film is trying to be as violent as possible so the vampires biting people is actually a lot more explicit and dragged out than normal. I already don’t like blood sucking and this is more like Werewolves with how they chomp on the humans. They even toy with/torture some of the humans before murdering them. There’s certainly a whole lot of blood throughout the film so this isn’t for the faint of heart. We do get a true fight scene near the end which was a nice change of pace. Even this one couldn’t resist a Mortal Kombat type finishing move but at least we did have true combat for a second there. The victor makes no sense given the power gap but hey the movie had to end at some point. I would have just written in some kind of extra weakness or an additional advantage that the human would have to shake things up. Now that would have been a good move.

Outside of everyone being murdered the film also adds in other dark themes like choosing to murder your friends and family or let them get eaten alive. Obviously it’s a lose-lose situation at that point but the idea is you’re basically pressured into a decision there. It’s always a rough one to have to watch. Then we also have the classic animal violence here as some animals are destroyed quite violently. Yeah there’s a story reason for this but it’s still an awful moment all around that should have been cut out.

The film won’t even let heroes get a painless death. One guy has the bright idea to blow himself up and a whole building rather than letting the vampires eat him. I completely get it too because that makes a lot of sense…then he ends up surviving the explosion. The character was shocked and I was as well. Like seriously guys? Naturally that gives the vampires time to gloat and then finish him off. The whole point was for him to avoid that so the film felt extra mean spirited there. There is no reason the character should have survived that, just give him the dignity of a quick death. That should have been on the table for him.

That’s just the tone of the film though. It’s not enough to slaughter the humans but it always has to be done with such ferocity and hopelessness for the humans. The vampire designs are intense I’ll give them that. You would absolutely feel intimidated to see one out in the wild because aside from the stats they just look really scary. The film delivers on that part and the atmosphere is definitely really intense.

I would even go as far as to say that the very beginning of the first act isn’t super bad. Before the animals die which is still very early in the film I’ll grant you that much. But we see everyone leaving and know that something is approaching. It’s a very ominous start but ultimately the film overplayed its hand of making the enemies basically invincible next to the main characters and that was the end of the game. All you need to even the odds is make it so that they are not bullet proof. One or two bullets can destroy them. Do that and suddenly we’re looking at a movie where the humans have a real chance and things can get interesting.

Overall, If you want to see a bunch of vampires slaughtering a bunch of defenseless humans then this is the film to check out. It reminds me a lot of pre arc Attack on Titan but at least there they had some semblance of a chance. The humans here can’t do much since guns don’t really help do anything other than buy time. The vampires are too powerful and also there are just too many of them. They really needed some kind of extra weakness to make this a lot closer. Something that would actually make this a very valid hunter vs prey type movie. Ultimately the movie isn’t able to make this premise work and is relentlessly brutal. Definitely skip it!

Overall 0/10

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Review

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It’s time to take a look at one of the meanest spirited films you’ll see in a minute. I remember reading on Reddit how you can measure how mean/good spirited a film is based on the percentage of characters who end the film better or worse off than how they were when starting it. In this film all of the characters end off worse than they began so that is a pretty good indicator all around. Trust me you’ll want to skip this one and go take a walk instead.

The movie begins by introducing us to the main character John who is mute which is definitely not an easy condition to live with. Still he has done all right for himself and he is even trying to help out his friend who is mentally disabled and having a much tougher time of things. John even moves to a new town in order to stay close to the hospital where his friend will be observed and so he moves into a house with a family that’s going through some tough times of their own. Will he be able to solve all of their problems and get a nice existence for himself or is it all over for him?

One thing you will notice right away is that the film loves throwing in a lot of unnecessary subplots just to make John squirm a bit. For example it turns out that the town’s police force is corrupt and racist so they decide to violate human rights and basically do whatever they want inside the station. There’s really nothing that can even be done about it by the main characters. One doctor tries to protest and that doesn’t end up working. So ultimately this results in one of John’s friends losing his leg, the doctor having to be miserable for a decent portion of his last days, and his daughter hating him for a long while.

That didn’t go very well for John but there are other people for him to save right? Well you have the family he’s living with but the father is crippled and unable to get more work. Unfortunately there don’t appear to be any prospects there so things don’t work out. Then you have the mother who completely destroys her relationship with their daughter by not encouraging her in the school ventures and limiting her opportunities. The daughter ends up having a one night stand with someone she doesn’t even know just to spite her family and the situation that she’s in. It’s something you can’t really take back either so John wasn’t able to help these folks out. The film also makes it abundantly clear just how young she was here to add that extra edge and grit to the film to sink it even lower.

Things take a pretty dark turn for the friend that he came over here to help so that was pretty rough too. A new friend he made over in this town had started to turn things around but it all ended up going sideways on him after trying to stop a fight so he had to split town. Basically everything went wrong in the end and so John ended up losing all hope which ends with his plot going down a dark path as well. Basically the body count in this film is rather high all things considered and it’s a drama that doesn’t leave any room for hope in the end.

Part of why the film’s so bad is because there’s just nothing positive about it in the end. Each character just kept going through tragedy after tragedy until the film finally ended with every character being completely broken inside and out. I was even surprised about the final person who died because I was sure it was going to be a fake out. The film wouldn’t actually go there would it? Well, in the end it did and that was definitely not a good idea. The film would have still been really bad, don’t get me wrong. But it could have maybe at least avoided the flat 0 with a quality ending to leave things off on a good note. The film was just too determined to have the characters in a never ending cycle of suffering. Whenever you’d have a moment where something bad wasn’t happening, you just knew this meant the film was setting up the next tragedy.

At best the film does show you how tough some people have it in life and why you should always give others the benefit of the doubt. It’s why they say not to judge someone on your first encounter since they could be having a bad day or something like that. You just never know after all, these characters all would have been having some really bad days that’s for sure. From the 5 senses, losing my sight would probably be the scariest. It’s just tough not to be able to see anything but all 5 are known as critical parts of you for a reason. Losing any one of them immediately makes life a lot harder so I have a lot of respect for those who forge their paths ahead despite that. It’s also why a happier ending here would have also been a lot more satisfying.

Overall, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a movie definitely trying to convince you that at the end of the day you will not be able to help enough people. There will always be more problems and they will eventually consume you. It’s definitely a very sad way to look at things. Of course it is not possible to solve all problems which is why they say it’s best not to look at the news too much so you don’t get tragedy fatigue. Just solve the problems you can and keep moving forward. One first step to doing this is to completely skip this film. At all costs you do not want to check it out. Whether it’s the big tragedies that happen in the film or the little ones like spoiling a party and losing all of your friends in one shot, this movie loves to pile onto the main characters.

Overall 0/10

The Beguiled Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version of the movie. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

If I saw this film in the theaters my disappointment would have been immeasurable and my day ruined. Look at this poster above? It’s a great poster and would get you hyped up for the movie. Now this is an excellent wild west adventure with some action right? Well the movie is anything but that. There are no true fight scenes here and instead we have a super awful main character and a bunch of bad side characters as well. Definitely a film that you will want to stay far away from without a doubt.

The movie starts off with John getting injured and a little girl notices him outside of her school. The headmistress reluctantly takes him in and they figure they should nurse him back to health before turning him over to the authorities. This film takes place during the civil war and the school is in the south while John is from the North. As a result their duty officially is to turn him over right away but they feel like this would not be just. So instead they are keeping him around and John figures that this is his chance to get away. His grand master plan is to seduce all of them and take over the school. The problem is…he’s succeeding. Can anyone stop him?

This is just a very mean spirited movie from start to finish. All of the characters are either corrupt or get corrupted as the events fly by. John isn’t a likable character and to the film’s defense he is the main antagonist so they’re not trying to make him likable. Whenever he shows up you’re just going to groan and he’s around for the entire film. Basically the guy has absolutely no shame in manipulating the emotions of the women there. The film is also going for the extra gritty points here by adding in two crazy additions to the plot. The first is that one of the girls is only 17.

Yeah the film went out of its way to confirm this just to make that whole plot even more awful. The film was morally bankrupt by this point. Then we see that Martha had an inappropriate relationship growing up and the less said on that the better. None of these additions do anything to improve the film or service the plot. They are only here for shock value and to remind you of what a trainwreck this movie is. At the end of the day that’s all this is and a film isn’t going to survive with this low level writing.

Shock value doesn’t work for more than a second but does lasting harm to the film. Just like that, all of the characters are ruined. John would have been ruined either way with how exaggerated he is and all the affairs he’s pulling off. The guy lies, cheats, and does whatever he can to survive all so he can avoid the war which makes him a true villain. Then the movie isn’t satisfied and also has him murder an animal just to let this all sink home. Oof that was bad.

The film really made sure that it fell into every possible cinematic landmine. The worst part is that despite this, Edwina doesn’t totally go against John. Yes she gets mad at him during several points of the film but by the end she seems to have actually forgiven him. I was shellshocked. See, the whole time I thought she was planning some kind of grand murder scheme and was just acting the part. See, that would actually make a lot of sense but the film doesn’t go this route. No, instead she got stockholm syndrome I guess and actually liked him.

At least the ending of the film is very satisfying. I got really worried that there would be a cop out at the end like the girl didn’t pick the right mushrooms but fortunately that doesn’t happen. Everything happens as it should and in a way John probably gets off a bit lighter than needed. Still, I’ll accept the outcome and while the film may have been beyond saving by that point anyway, it was a start. I was still glad to see this outcome at least.

It goes without saying that Martha’s a pretty bad character too despite trying to have a holier than thou attitude. She had a lot of issues of her own and a very troubled past. Martha also went out of her way to get even with John despite all of the excuses that she had afterwards. She absolutely knew what she was doing every step of the way and I don’t think anything could convince me otherwise. This is just who she was through and through. Edwina comes across as incredibly naïve and too emotional. The ending of the film hurt her big time as a result. Then Carol was also really annoying in her constant attempts to seduce John. This even eventually went all the way up to blackmail which was crazy and made her a full antagonist as well.

Yeah this film’s definitely no fun and you should stay far away. The film even has the southern soldiers show up at one point and then heavily imply that they were creeps as well. The scene that almost happens which the film kept hinting at was really not needed. The movie is so concerned with being edgy that it forgets to have a real plot and that’s the worst part about the film. You definitely could have tried to make a decent flick out of this even after you changed the basic plot and made the characters more likable. Instead it’s all just absurd and not in a fun way.

Overall, The film may have a satisfying ending but that doesn’t take away from the unlikable cast and all of the unnecessary elements of the film. I’s hard to get past those and ultimately the movie doesn’t have any fun. It’s definitely a hard film to finish and has below average pacing. Stick away from this one and watch something a lot more fun like the Tom & Jerry movie instead. That one will keep you entertained.

Overall 0/10

Rabid Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

There are some movies where right from the jump you know it’s going to be a miss and this is one of those. You’ll be shaking your head the whole time here because this vampire type film just isn’t it. The world doesn’t handle the threat very well and the whole film is going for grim violence the whole time. It’s basically a B grade slasher film but in all the wrong ways.

The movie starts with Rose and Hart driving down the road at massive speeds. They are defying destiny to try and make them crash and sure enough they run off the road and do in fact crash. Hart has a lot of broken bones but he’s mainly okay while the same cannot be said for Rose. She is taken to a nearby hospital where they run a very experimental surgery on her. Basically their justification was that she was not going to last otherwise but the head also needed quick results because funding wasn’t going well. Unfortunately while the surgery was a success, it came at a great cost.

See, by mistake the surgery gave Rose a giant stinger in her armpit which she could now use to destroy everyone in her way. She no longer has a taste for real food and only seeks to consume the living. Whoever she drains becomes a zombie and this infection continues to spread. Basically she is patient zero and the only silver lining of this is that she keeps some semblance of free will while everyone else becomes mindless zombies. She’s always hungry now too so she bumps a lot of people off and then afterwards it is unclear just how much she knows about it. See, she knows enough that she wants to always get away from her friends to murder a stranger instead but then seems to have headaches and isn’t totally sure of herself. It’s almost like a split personality but that may be giving her too much credit and she was just trying to make the whole situation look like that.

Regardless that is basically the entire plot in a nutshell. Rose goes around murdering everybody and nobody can figure out how to stop her because nobody even knows that she is the one doing it. She always waits until only her victim is in the room and then she makes her move. Whether it’s a poor girl just trying to have a refreshing swim or a doctor who leans in too close, Rose takes them all down. Often times the people she’s destroying aren’t even bad people which is the most tragic part like the truck driver who was just trying to help out. They all meet rather gruesome ends before the adventure concludes.

The movie is rather unrelenting in that respect. There is always something sinister or dark happening at all times and so the viewer can’t catch a break. There is no time for lighthearted banter or any really happy scenes to be honest. Instead we just see the world descending into chaos. They also squeeze in some animal violence of course as Rose goes after a cow or a horse. I forget which but of course she can’t control her hunger again and this is why she has to be considered as one of the main antagonists here. In the end she could not control her abilities at all and that was a big problem.

She also makes some very bad mistakes like at the end deciding to prove her innocence by trying a blood transfusion with someone. It’s great to test out a theory but she didn’t have any kind of safety precautions and so it’s really as if she just blew herself up. There was never going to be a positive outcome from all of that and that was the problem here. It just makes for a really dark ending and ends the film on a super sour note. Not that the film had any hope left by this point mind you but at least having a decent ending would have been nice. Instead the film is doubling down on making everything as tragic as possible which is definitely unfortunate. Not what you want to see from a title like this.

Hart also has almost no point in this film. Rose may as well have been driving by herself in the intro. He barely appears until midway where he runs in to call her a monster and runs off. By the time he cools down it’s already too late for Rose. Rose’s roommate did a better job of being there for her and even then she was doomed from the jump. In this film nobody is really safe and all you can do is make a run for it or you will probably be devoured next. Now is there anything I can say in favor of the film?

Unfortunately no, but I can at least say that the concept of having a stinger in your armpit is unique. Not even sure if I would say it’s unique in a good way but it’s a premise I had never thought of before and will probably never think about again. It’s just so weird but that’s the kind of idea that can make you rich if it’s handled right. This one just wasn’t and the film gets lost in the sauce really quick.

What the film should have done was to focus on the world at large a bit more and how they were handling it. Of course one governor just said they should shoot the infected while a lot of other people were panicking but focusing on the government a lot could have been fun. Lets see what they think about all of this. Sure, the virus is spreading fast but the zombies are really slow right now so you don’t figure that they should be a big threat at any rate. Just take them out and all it a day. I want to see a zombie invasion film from the start of when it was happening for once and how the government handles it. I think there is a whole lot of possibility there. Perhaps it will be negated by all the blood sucking and zombie eating but maybe it could pull this premise off.

Overall, Rapid is a film to stay away from without a doubt. The whole time you’re watching it you will be realizing that there are much better films to check out. Nobody has heard of this film for a good reason. It’s just not that good and certainly ahs not aged well either. This is not the kind of film you would ever rewatch either and so in the end what that means is that you will be shaking your head here the whole time. I don’t know where I would start in trying to tell someone how to do a good remake of this one so instead I’ll just say that the whole premise is probably doomed and you shouldn’t even attempt to make a movie like this.

Overall 0/10

Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Wait we’re back to the Exorcist again? Not to be outdone by the third film, this one adds animal violence, nazi’s, and an evil tribe here to cause some trouble. Now I would say that the third film is nothing if not competitive when going to the bottom and still does end up surpassing this one as being worse but Dominion put up a good fight and nobody can take that away from it. There aren’t many exorcisms here at all as we’ve come to expect from the series since that was mainly focused on in the first but we still get a dramatic finish with a lot of yelling.

So the movie starts with the Nazi’s rushing in to terrorize a small village. First they make sure to break father Merrin by having him choose 10 sacrifices and it was all a cruel test to break his spirit and resolve. Merrin changed paths to being a travelling architect as he digs around in ruins that may have some religious ties. Well this time he is accompanied by Father Francis as the group is worried about Merrin. Turns out that they should have been worried about the whole village. See the temple was protecting them from the devil demon and now he’s here to destroy them all. He decides to inhabit Cheche, a guy who can’t really talk much and suffered a grave injury but is healing really quickly. The heroes are going to need to watch out now.

It’s hard to know where to begin with this one. Almost immediately when the film starts up we see a bunch of people torturing an animal to weaken him up for being a sacrifice and it reminds you of what a cruel practice that is. Any cruelty to animals is always awful and so right away you’re not really rooting for the village at all. Merrin and the translator Chuma try to defend the practice but to no avail. It’s definitely something that should be completely outlawed by force if necessary. There are animals dying and being injured throughout the film and that definitely serves to ensure that the film never gains any momentum. It is quickly stripped away whenever that may be close to happening.

There also aren’t many likable characters here at all. The only one who seemed decent was father francis but of course he is powerless to stop the demon. The holy water doesn’t do much and when he tries to read the scriptures he is promptly taken down. You would think that he would have moved faster with the water when the demon was waking up though. Just push his head into the water or something, don’t want and dramatically drop a few driplets on him. I always thought this is something the heroes should do more of, forget the small sprinkling and just chug a gallon of the stuff at him. It would be way more effective in theory.

Unfortunately a big part of the movie is about how the demon’s influence eventually catches up to everyone and that happens here as well. Basically just by existing the demon turns people evil and so the humans start to turn on each other. There’s this whole subplot where the British come in with an army and start shooting the tribe members to enact revenge on them. The divide between the two gets worse as the film goes on and then at one point a tribe member murders a bunch of kids so that they can’t learn from Father Francis anymore.

There aren’t really any winners here. By the end of the film everyone is really broken. There’s the main heroine Rachel who stays strong for a while but then also gets corrupted. One of the worst scenes for Merrin is when she shows up and effortlessly seduces him while he was on the trail of the demon. Not the best time to be tempted and you’d think that he would have held strong here. Well, actually I’m not sure how much confidence I really had in the guy to be honest but he still disappointed me there.

Merrin gets to sort of relive the past thanks to the demon and try some other things out but ultimately there was no easy way to get out of the situation. He definitely shouldn’t have sold the 10 people out though. It was a really bad situation but honestly the best thing to do there is make a play for the gun and hope for the best. Sometimes there are no perfect ways out of a scenario and you just have to try your best. By the end of the film Merrin gets his confidence back at least.

The character you probably feel the most sorry for here is Chuma the whole time. It’s rough being a translator because half the time you are having to translate messages that are no fun for anybody and as a result you’re in the line of fire now. If I was him I definitely would have gotten out of there real fast after a while. Unfortunately there probably aren’t many opportunities in the area so leaving is a risk all on its own but anything surely has to be better than staying there right? At least it feels like that would be the case.

This film does remember that it’s supernatural and isn’t trying to hide it most of the time like in III so we do get some decent visuals at times. The green light as everything got trippy near the end was pretty intense. I also liked the clock that appeared in one scene but I have to admit that the effects were so bad that the scene was unintentionally a bit funny. Just a bit mind you but I was starting to crack up. It just made for a really funny visual even if that was not the intent.

The demon’s final form was also the opposite of intimidating even when his face would turn pale like a true demon’s. It’s just not easy to take him seriously as a great villain but they never are in these films. If the characters would just grab some guns and rock the guy you feel like he would go down. Temporarily I suppose since you can never seem to truly get rid of them.

There just isn’t much to enjoy here as with the other Exorcist films. The whole thing is so dark, dreary, and relentless. The heroes don’t have much of a chance at stopping the demon for a while because they don’t even know that they’re fighting one. By the time they do there are so many dead bodies that the heart of the village is gone.

Overall, This is another film to avoid for sure. An exorcist prequel just didn’t need to exist, much less two of them. At least this one has a decent ending, in fact I would say it easily beats the rest since it’s actually happy if anything. I suppose that’s the benefit of being a prequel since you can’t just bump everyone off or ends things rather grimly. I suppose they could have and suddenly the film wouldn’t be canon but that’s a very risky move at best. In theory it’s all uphill from here but we’ll see if that’s actually the case or not for the series.

Overall 0/10