Category Archives: 1 Star Movies

Baron Blood Review

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It’s time for a movie that you could tell was going to go off the rails almost immediately. The characters are pretty bad and the whole film is one of the biggest compilations of self inflicted wounds that I have seen in a very long time. Definitely not going to go down as one of the next big horror films and I can see why nobody talks about this one. The baron is not a winner.

The film starts off with a guy named Peter deciding to visit his relatives. He wants a break from the usual routine of school work and what better way than by learning about the legend of Baron Blood? This guy was an ancestor of Peter’s after all. It doesn’t matter that the Baron was known to be an incredibly evil man. Peter is curious to know more about him. So when Peter learns about a spell that could summon the Baron back to life, he doesn’t hesitate to use it. Everyone warns him about this but he doesn’t care! After using the spell, mysterious things begin to happen. People begin to get murdered but surely this isn’t because of what Peter did right? There was another spell to destroy the Baron once more but due to a lot of carelessness, it ends up being burned. Is there any way to stop the Baron?

I think the biggest problem right away with Peter is that he has virtually no remorse for what he’s done. People are literally being murdered in gruesome ways and he’s still interested in how the spell worked. He continues to act fascinated and excited by what is going on even after the negative effects have been well under way. That doesn’t sound like a good character to me. In fact, that sounds like a pretty bad one. He’s more focused on seducing Eva and getting more scientific experience under his belt than saving the day.

For that reason, he was definitely never going to rank. I would also say Eva takes some guilt here for going along with this. Peter may be crazy but she doesn’t have to follow his lead. She could have just said no instead of letting herself get seduced immediately and going against her better judgment. It certainly didn’t go very well for her, that’s for sure. She was a big believer in the supernatural events going on so that’s even more reason why she should have taken a step back there.

Then we have Karl who isn’t as bad but he probably could have taken a harder stance in telling Peter to knock off his interest in the occult. I just can’t put a lot of blame on him because these are all adults so you have to trust in some common sense. Karl went about his life as normal and then once he found out about the threat, he got to work. He certainly felt more prepared than the other two and could at least talk with the cops without sounding crazy while the other two would phrase things in the craziest possible ways.

It’s a tried and true trope of the characters talking to the cops about monsters and actually thinking they will believe it. No shot, and I can’t even blame the cop there. It is a tough tale to swallow. As for the Baron, yeah he doesn’t have a ton of character or anything like that. He likes torturing people, that’s about the extent of personality that he has. He goes around wrecking everyone as much as possible. I guess he also seems to like Eva quite a bit so he has that trait as well which doesn’t really help matters.

You won’t be remembering this guy for very long. I suppose he is at least smart enough to be able to use a disguise and trick the heroes but that doesn’t take a whole lot of skill here tbh. Just about anyone would be able to pull the wool over these fighters! Even aside from the characters, the film had a bunch of issues though. For starters, I found it to be way too mean spirited. Since this guy’s whole thing is torture, he goes around torturing everyone.

All of the deaths are pretty brutal and the film comes across as rather mean spirited There isn’t much of a story beyond the carnage and even though the film’s runtime is fairly short, this will feel like a rather long experience. The movie actually could have been a bit better if the baron had pretended that he’d turned over a new leaf or something. That would have been far more interesting and then you would have an excuse for less violence in the meantime.

I suppose I’ll give the film credit for having some fairly good effects here. Everything is very practical and that can be a lost art at times. Meanwhile the script is fun enough with everyone talking all proper. It doesn’t make up for the writing of course as that is still a lost cause overall but at least that is a silver lining.

Overall, Baron Blood is definitely a film that I would advise you to avoid. In a way it almost feels like the original blueprint to a classic slasher film. The whole film is about the kills and the heroes being unable to do anything here as even they are captured and outmaneuvered. There aren’t any bright spots to raise the film up from the lower levels and you can do better with even the average horror film. Now that’s saying something since the whole genre tends to be on the lower side. That’s just how bad this film was. You can absolutely pull off a jerk main character but in that case I need a more satisfying ending for him. It felt like this guy wasn’t intended to be written like an antagonist, even though he absolutely was one. Never forget that the entire murder spree was 100% his fault. The Baron had been trapped by an immortal spell to suffer forever thanks to a witch and Peter ruined it just for kicks.

Overall 1/10

And Soon The Darkness Review

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It’s time for a film that really reminds you to follow common sense and to be careful when travelling in a strange land. There are all kinds of things that can go wrong when you’re in unfamiliar territory after all and that becomes apparent very quickly. Unfortunately the film is going to rather extreme methods to point this out and the film quickly ends up going for the low hanging fruit here. Certainly one relying on cheap tension to keep you at the edge of your seat and so that’s not going to be a winning strategy.

The movie starts by introducing us to Jane and Cathy who are biking across France. They don’t really speak much French but this seemed like a fun way to spend the holidays. Unfortunately Cathy wants to take a break in the middle of nowhere and the two were already off the beaten path. Jane points out what a terrible idea this is as it will be dark out pretty soon but Cathy doesn’t care and goes back to sleep. Jane is forced to go on without her and sure enough, Cathy vanishes and is presumed dead. Jane doesn’t want to give up on her but night is approaching soon and a mysterious guy keeps on following her. This feels like trouble.

I am going to blame Cathy for a lot of this right from the start because she was being completely unreasonable. You can’t just decide to go to sleep when the place is already dangerous. That doesn’t make any sense and she resists all of Jane’s efforts to make her get up. So when Jane eventually leaves I could not blame her because staying there would have just resulted in both of them being dead. Yeah leaving your friend is always rough but it’s not like Jane could physically force her to get up. That would be an even fight at best and then you have to drive both of them with the bikes.

Cathy also didn’t seem to have much of a sense for danger with how she was encouraging the weird stalker throughout the opening. You probably want to be keeping your distance at that point instead of thinking about how cool he looked. So yeah she played every part of this as badly as possible and definitely made Jane’s life a whole lot harder.

As for Jane, she was a good friend the whole time. She went out of her way to try and help Cathy by taking a lot of risks and doubling back to find her. Jane would have been all the way to safety immediately if she hadn’t had to go back. Jane also studied so she knows at least a little bit of French which helps out. It may not be enough to speak the language but she can tell when a translator is lying about what is going on at least. Ultimately she was much sharper about her surroundings and wouldn’t make anything easy for the villain.

As for the mysterious guy, Paul, well he definitely does a terrible job of trying to look normal. He tends to be very quiet for large parts of the film and when he speaks it is always to say something that just makes him look more suspicious. I can’t forget how he asked Jane if she wanted to search deep in the woods with him during their first real conversation. That’s something only a possible serial killer would say right? Throughout the film we learn about how he’s lying to her on several occasions and in the past another woman was murdered around this spot.

The film very much enjoys its misdirects and twists but does so in a very low effort way. Basically it makes people act very suspiciously and in ways that do not make sense in order to help trick the audience. So it’s basically cheating by that point and will have you shaking your head. There is a very small cast here so you’ll probably see through it pretty quickly but it doesn’t help make the experience any better.

Meanwhile of course the film would immediately not be satisfied with just murdering the heroes and so the threat is very quickly escalated into being more than that. So now as the audience you have to hope that even if Jean dies, at least it’s quick because the motive for the villain is going to be rough. It’s what I would call cheap tension here. The film isn’t confident that it can actually make you nervous on the basis of the writing or characters so it has to add on extra elements.

The villain gets away with a bit too much here and I definitely wouldn’t have minded missing out on the details. Even the climax of the film has to go on with this rather than just having a quick fight. Yeah this movie was definitely doomed and it’s a very dreary affair. There aren’t many lighthearted moments ere at all and the film’s pacing isn’t always great. They don’t translate any of the dialogue in order to help you experience how lost the main heroine is. I understand the goal here narratively but it also means there are just more scenes that are effectively gibberish.

The film will also probably hit harder for people who have ever been tempted to do something like this. Biking across the country as a way to explore the unknown does not interest me in the slightest. It’s not something I would ever want to do and even if it was guaranteed to be safe, it’s just not my cup of tea.

Overall, This is one of those films that definitely feels rather mean spirited. It’s definitely collecting all the things that can go wrong if you wander into the wrong area but you don’t really need a whole film about that. A simple disappearance or getting lost in an unknown territory could make for a good suspense film. Once you add in the threats of being assaulted by creeps and other elements like that, then it just feels like one of those cheap thrillers you might come across on TV. It’s not a film that is seriously trying to impress you with a good message or anything like that. I would definitely say to avoid this one as much as possible.

Overall 1/10

The Rage: Carrie 2 Review

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

It’s time for the return of Carrie. Unfortunately this film is definitely no good and tries too hard to be like the first one which is not a good idea. The only real amusing part here is that the main character looks like a debater that I’ve seen on Youtube a handful of times, but that’s really it. This one just embraces being real mean spirited the whole time and never actually gets good. The whole climax also revolves around the main character not really being very smart.

The film focuses around a girl named Rachel who isn’t a super big people person. She tends to be very goth and her best friend is the most social one. Unfortunately her friend destroys herself after being used by her boyfriend. Most of the guys in this school are unfortunately bad people as they keep score of who they get with and it’s all a game. Unfortunately they all tend to have high scores so there is a lack of morals on both sides. To be clear though, the guys get more blame on this for starting such a terrible game in the first place.

One guy in the group named Jesse begins to like Rachel so he tells the others to back off but they don’t plan on stopping. Rachel’s friend may have taken a photo of the two of them together before she passed and so now they want to scare Rachel into submission before she does something that can ruin their chances of winning the big football game. So they aim to take her down but what they don’t realize is that she has supernatural powers capable of slaughtering an entire town. Will Rachel be able to stop these guys?

That is ultimately the main problem here, this is just a slightly altered version of Carrie. Initially Rachel isn’t the one being bullied, but that ends up happening to her anyway. There is one person who is sympathetic to her (Jesse) but he isn’t in a position to help anyway. It just follows the first film to a T and it’s not like that one got a particularly good score. This one proceeds to double down though like randomly having Rachel’s dog get hit by a car. She’s also brought up by two abusive foster parents who don’t even pretend to like her, they just like the money that comes in for looking after her.

Another problem which I alluded to in the beginning is that the film relies on Rachel not having any common sense. Lets look at the series of events her. Rachel’s best friend dies, all of the guys start to bully and terrify her constantly. Suddenly, all the cool girls in school who never liked Rachel invite her to a big party and all the guys will be there to apologize. Why would Rachel honestly think this is on the up and up? It’s probably the biggest red flag I’ve ever seen.

That sounds like a good way to be vanished if we’re being honest here. Going to a rowdy school party after hours where there will be no supervision? Yeah that’s a bad idea. Even if on the off chance they were being legit, that would not be enough reason to go. You’re just asking for trouble at that point. Alas, it goes about as you would expect as they mess with her for a while until she is eventually able to take them down. It just takes way too long for her to get these abilities activated.

The whole humiliation scene as they put her on the big screen and everybody’s laughing just reminds you how none of the characters are likable. They’ve all got to go and so you’re not particularly upset when Rachel starts destroying everyone. Yeah, not all of the kids were super guilty in there. While I doubt any of them were all that good, just hanging around a bad crowd doesn’t mean you deserve the death penalty. It’s particularly rough for the lady who was trying to reunite Rachel with her mother because she gets taken out without even being able to say anything. The actual mother also looks pretty bad but she was literally crazy so I guess that’s to be expected.

The film would have just been so much better if Rachel could actively use her powers and it could have been framed as a foil to what happened with Carrie. Rachel would instead be ready to do what she needed to do. Also I’m not really going to let Jesse off the hook here. I’m glad that he would defend Rachel but it doesn’t change the fact that he hung out with such a terrible group of people for so long. I would also say he needed to break things off with the other girl much more officially and obviously he shouldn’t go to her house where she is going to try some things.

He put himself in all of the worst positions and also came off as naive when he started falling for what the bullies were selling as well. As someone more or less on the inside he definitely should have sensed that this was a trap. He gets off easier than the rest, albeit he will have to live with daily jump scares. That’s just the price of surviving an evet like this.

The ending is rather weak though. As far as jump scares go, it may be one of the weakest that I’ve seen. Seriously there is just nothing impressive about it and barely even works as a twist ending. So it’s ultimately a pretty pointless moment. They may as well have brought back the comedic music from when the mother escaped the asylum.

The film isn’t too violent for the most part but it certainly makes up for lost time with the ending. That part gets extremely violent for the entire duration of the scene. So you’ll want to watch out for that. Mix that in with some fanserivce from all the affairs for the game the guys were plying and this was really a recipe for disaster. The film goes out of its way to make everyone super unlikable and it really succeeds. Even most of the adults ultimately fall before the power of bribes and politics. It really makes for a jaded experience.

Overall, I recommend skipping this one unless you really don’t mind sitting through an intensely mean spirited film. Everything that could go wrong for Rachel certainly did here and ultimately it’s not like the ending helps her out either. We do get a big twist (That you might have gotten spoiled on from the opening scene) that helps to explain the powers but it’s not like that does anything to save the experience for you. This needed to be a superhero origin story or something to have at least given you some hope for future installments.

Overall 1/10

Cape Fear Review

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It’s time for one of those films that makes you wish the main character was someone different. The whole film revolves around the main character not being willing to make the tough calls until it’s nearly too late whereas other leads could have ended this really early. The film even stacks the deck by having the lead be friends with the chief of police along with having a super long, clean record. Yeah there were definitely ways to avoid the fallout that ensues and I dare say it would have been a much better movie as well.

The film starts with Sam working on another case when an ex convict shows up. This guy’s name is Max and he’s pretty upset because Sam is the one who put him away for a long time a while back. Unfortunately, Max was let go after only 8 years due to good behavior. That’s not good news for Sam because this guy is completely unrepentant and wants to take his revenge. He basically tells Sam that he’s going to take down his wife and daughter. Sam has an easy out here, he could murder Max. However, doing so would tarnish his social reputation. So in that case…what can he do?

Well, the answer should be clear here, he’s gotta take this guy down. Sam knows that it’s no bluff since this guy was put away once already. It’s not like he’s just trying to scare Sam. So I would argue that Sam has a moral duty to go as far as he can in order to protect his family. This is a fairly seedy town to the point where there are gangs running around who can be hired to beat people up. So in that case you dispose of Max and cover it up along with the help of the locals, the cops, or just do it yourself and don’t tell anybody.

There are a lot of methods for this but the main point is that you can take care of the villain and hide the evidence. Sam is too worried about doing things by the book here and that just puts everyone in danger. Before the film is over Max gets at least two more victims and also really traumatizes both the daughter and the wife. Yes, he was stopped but it was at a really high cost and Sam cut things really close.

Sam did hire a gang to help out at one point but that was still the half hearted approach. I mean, he couldn’t have known that they would all be defeated but that’s why you gotta do the job personally. To their credit, the cops at least do as much as they can to protect Sam. There’s just going to be an obvious limit to what they can do here. Especially in an official capacity.

I would say Sam’s wife also comes across as looking very naive here. For a good chunk of the film she isn’t taking the situation quite as seriously like when she lost sight of the daughter or when she tells Sam that he better not even think of murdering Max. She’s acting like this isn’t life or death stakes and doesn’t really change her tune until the very end of the film. It was definitely more than a little annoying because this concerns her just as much as it does Sam. In some ways more since she is one of the active targets.

Naturally Max is one of those villains who isn’t made to be likable so pretty much any scene with that guy is going to be super annoying. He’s always very smug because his opponents are going to be pushovers here. He keeps on pushing Sam because he knows that nothing is going to happen and so you’re just waiting for the tides to turn but it takes a really long time to get to that point. You’ll be shaking your head the whole time.

Of course this kind of plot is always going to limit how good the film can be and unfortunately it takes the low road at each opportunity. If Max was just aiming to murder the family that would be one thing but he wants to do more than that and he has a history of it as well. He also gets another lady midway through the film and so he ends up getting away with way too much. That kind of Sword Art Online plot is always going to doom any movie with it. It means this film’s going to make for a very dreary watch the whole time.

It’s going for easy tension with the threats of what could happen which always comes at the expense of a good time. The fact that the villain gets as far as he does only serves to further hurt the experience. Additionally, the film wasn’t satisfied with just doing that and so of course we have to have the death of a dog in here as well. It’s just one of those things where you can immediately tell that this is the kind of film that will go there. The villain obviously has no qualms about it and unfortunately the heroes aren’t able to watch the dog at all times. So you have to watch as Sam doesn’t do anything about this because he’s legally stuck once again.

I know you wouldn’t have much of a film if he acted quickly but that would have made so much more sense. Even at the bar when Sam was being threatened, you could just shoot him there and explain that he was reaching for the gun or something. If there was ever a time to commit a crime, this would be it. You commit one to save your family and you have the knowledge that they will be safe. At the very least this film is a good example of what not to do if you’re ever in a situation like this. Sam also talks about how leaving isn’t an option but honestly if you aren’t going to fight, it’s worth a shot. This was in the days before advanced technology after all so you would have much better odds of vanishing than you would otherwise. It’s not the best strategy but it’s better than doing nothing right?

Overall, Cape Fear is definitely the kind of film I’d highly advise you to avoid at all costs. It goes out of its way to step into every cinematic pitfall possible and it doesn’t even have any real positives to fight against this. You probably can’t cobble together 10 minutes of happy moments because there is always the underlining threat that is looming. The heroes keep letting themselves be backed into a corner throughout the movie and the ending isn’t the most satisfying. Yeah one character is trying to get the ultimate win here but at the same time you can’t help but think that he will now have to be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. It’s not like that would have saved the film at all but I still would have enjoyed a more positive ending.

Overall 1/10

Final Destination 5 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

Final Destination is back once again to remind you that the heroes never stood a chance! This one at least ties back to the original compared to the last stand alone one but in the end it is a marginal victory at best. This is not the kind of film that is going to end up ranking for you at all as it is still suffering from all of the usual issues. It feels bad, but what can you do right? At least we do have a big fight scene here against an opponent who can actually be stopped.

The film starts off with Sam and his coworkers all heading into the company bus. Sam has been slacking off at work and his friend/supervisor Peter gives him a warning. Unfortunately they are all brutally murdered on the bridge as the whole thing collapses. Things were not supposed to go like this and so they all have regrets. Well, there was one survivor, Molly. Sam was able to save her at the last second but then he wakes up right before the accident happened. This time he saves a handful of them but the coroner shows up to remind them that Death’s going to slay them all one by one. Sam doesn’t want to die, but how can he stop it? The cast are given one clue, they can murder someone to switch destinies with but that would make them no matter than a common criminal. What should they do?

Now obviously this is Death’s rigged game so do you think murdering someone would actually let you off the hook? The film makes sure to answer that question and it should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. The whole point of these films is that Death just wants an excuse to mess with a bunch of people for no real reason. The coroner acts like Death is upset but no it’s all part of the game and I bet this guy is in on it. I like how smug he always is as he warns the characters of their impending demise. Not because there’s some way for them to get out of this, but because there is no escape. They are doomed to all die violent deaths.

Poor Sam seems like a reasonable character. He’s not particularly noteworthy or anything but at least he’s trying to help out and do the right thing. I would argue that he can appear to be dangerously naive at times though. In particular the scene that calls out to me is when a drunk Peter appears at the entrance of his restaurant in the dead of night. This guy has been acting rather crazy and violent for a while now and you really think it’s a social call? Naturally it’s not and that takes us to the next life or death moment. It just feels like that’s a point where you need to already be ready to fight and he seemed shocked by the whole thing.

The same thing is true for Molly who is very slow to react to Peter’s long speech about those who don’t deserve death. It was pretty clear what he was driving at there but she didn’t put the pieces together. It’s the little things like this which meant that the heroes would have a harder time surviving. Sure, they can’t beat Death but perhaps they can at least beat the human antagonist running around right?

Of course I have no real sympathy for Peter. Yeah he got a raw deal with what happened to his girlfriend and it was particularly brutal but jumping into murdering other people is immediately a step too far. He needed to rage against the system, like find a way to defeat Death, not take it out on the other victims. He just went crazy too quickly. It’s not surprising and unfortunately it’s probably realistic that a good amount of people would do that but it certainly hurts him as a character.

As always the film has an issue with being over the top violent. All of the deaths are pretty intense and definitely are ones you will want to avoid if you aren’t big on violence. The deaths continue to do their best to top the previous films and while it’s hard to say if they succeed or not as it gets relative after a while, they certainly do their best. The special effects are certainly out there.

I will give the film credit for probably having the best of the shock endings. You sort of see where it’s going as soon as the scene starts out. I would argue that the main characters look a bit naive here. I was half expecting Sam to say something like: “Wow what’s wrong with that guy? Lol” Now granted, the film tries to spin it like he didn’t hear what the guy said but after what he’s just been through, he should be taking everything 100X more seriously than usual. Ultimately it would have been futile. I know that but you gotta try to last as long as you can in these things.

Overall, This is definitely another Final Destination film. There isn’t a whole lot to it story wise and while the characters are better than in the last one, I wouldn’t say that any of them are super likable either. My favorite would either be the cop or the manager who was working with him but both of them go out in rather unfortunate ways and you were rooting for them to be able to put the pieces together. Instead, they’re really just here to spin their wheels and not actually make any real progress. The sad thing is that you could cut them out of the film and literally nothing would change. They ultimately had no impact on the film which is a real shame. This could have been something for sequels to build off of.

Overall 1/10

The Final Destination 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

It’s time for another Final Destination film but unfortunately the series has yet to turn the corner and manage to deliver a solid experience. The films just don’t have much of a hook here since the heroes have no shot at winning and can only wait for their inevitable demise. At that point there just isn’t much left for you and it ends up being a film where you’re just waiting for everybody to meet with sudden and rather grim endings.

The movie starts with Nick and his friends at a Nascar event. It was supposed to be a fun time but they are all wiped out in a tragic accident. Fortunately this accident was actually just a dream of the future and so Nick is able to get a few people out in time. It’s seen as a miracle although some are upset that he didn’t save more people. Unfortunately what they are about to find out is that dying at the racetrack would have been the easier path. Death isn’t happy now and plans to make them pay for this with really prolonged deaths.

The films never make it super clear on who gives Nick the visions. Is it Death just to make things more fun or is there some kind of counter force trying to help out? I hope it’s the former just because if someone is trying to help, they’re doing a rather bad job of it. In most of the films it’s mentioned how Death isn’t happy when people escape his wrath so that would imply he’s not the one doing it but I choose to believe he’s just trolling. The other explanations just aren’t very satisfying.

As the main character Nick isn’t terrible but there really aren’t many likable characters here at all. Some of the other characters make him look good in comparison but he’s in a rather toxic friend group and that’s a red flag in itself. He does have the makings of a detective with how he is able to make large leaps to figure out what’s about to happen but it’s not like he’s ever able to make a difference. He can buy some time but at the end he realizes that he was playing right into Death’s hands either way. You can’t win a rigged game and so all of his efforts did not help.

The film is as violent as you’d expect with the films continually trying to top themselves. Each death is really dragged out to the max so they last forever although this does make it easier to avert your gaze for the moment of impact if you don’t really want to see it all. At the end of the day that is supposed to be the film’s appeal after all. The anticipation of the murder coming up and how intense it’ll be. So you’re out of the target audience right away if you’re not trying to see all that.

The film certainly puts a lot of budget into the special effects and it shows so I can give the film credit there. It would be nice if they could have sneaked in some good characters as well though. Hunt seems to pretty much be a bully the whole time and actively looks forward to seeing people get murdered which isn’t cool. Janet decides to deny the obvious truth that they’re all being hunted and stays in an area that would only speed up her death. The theater itself isn’t inherently dangerous but when everyone’s telling you to leave, it’s probably time to go. I guess at least she had one of the quicker deaths.

Then you’ve got the poor security guard who got roped into this and ultimately gives up, only for death to give him hope before taking it away. There was a mom who seemed nice enough but she isn’t spared either. At the end of the day, whether you’re a nice character or not, you’re going down all the same but it’s particularly rough for the characters who have no idea what is going on. I guess it’s not like that knowledge would help them out though.

There is just barely a plot here as the characters run in circles reacting to death other’s deaths until it is all over. The film does continue to leave us with a rather sudden ending though and they usually try to land a little dark humor here. I’m not sure if this one is completely going for that or not but it’s so sudden that it works either way. While it may not be super satisfying, it is expected and was handled better than expected. At least the X ray vision helps to make things a little less violent.

Maybe if they put the whole film in x ray vision it would be better, although even then I don’t think it would be by a wide margin. The film would still come across as mean spirited and going too far out of its way to make every death as disturbing as possible. If the kills could at least be normal and quick it wouldn’t be as bad. Make it more of a thriller to stay alive and just tone down the slasher/horror elements. At least they’re so crazy that you won’t get paranoid about your every day appliances as you figure none of that can actually happen in real life.

Overall, Final Destination is not going to succeed in being a good film until it fundamentally changes something about how these titles play out. Whether it is in establishing a weakness for Death or in allowing some kind of other entity to show up and fight him, there needs to be more than just a long adventure about everyone dying in the end. Without more substance to the film, it just ends up being an overly violent, edgy mess. I’ll be reviewing the next film in the saga soon but needless to say, not much has changed.

Overall 1/10

Piranha (1995) 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

It’s time for one of those films that feels like a waste of time. Why would you make a film that is essentially a 1-1 adaption of the original movie? If you’re going to do a remake of something, it should be with what you envision as improvements to the source material or perhaps just fixing a bunch of plot holes. When you just copy over most of the script and everything, it comes across as just plain lazy. Unfortunately it’s not like the original film was any good either.

The movie starts with two teenagers deciding to share some bad decisions as they jump into a body of water and get eaten by piranhas. This takes us over to Maggie who has been hired to find out what happened to them. This area is in the middle of nowhere so she asks for help from Paul, a guy who prefers to be apart from humanity and their crazy shenanigans. Well, that’s not in the cards now as the two of them discover a huge conspiracy involving government funding and powerful piranhas. Will they be able to stop these creatures?

Yeah if you saw the first film then you basically know how this one plays out. Mainly this one is just edgier the whole time but that’s about all it has to offer. The deaths all tend to be extremely violent and brutal. Additionally, the film has to resort to cheap fanservice on multiple occasions. It really has nothing to do with the story so this is just here because the writers are not confident in their own scripts to pull this off. Additionally, they don’t even bump off the creepy director as he somehow lives through the experience in one of the film’s few gag scenes. Bit of an odd choice.

Maggie is a decent main character. She may come off as a bit hostile to start the film but considering that there are potentially dead teenagers around, I get why she would not be in a particularly good mood here. She doesn’t do well in the opening action scene against Leticia but the same is true of Paul. That was actually a pretty decent fight as Leticia cleverly used the surroundings to her advantage and was easily dominating the 2 v 1. She just underestimated them in the end.

Leticia’s definitely not a great character though as she easily could have explained things instead of immediately entering a murderous rage. While her character arc is meant to end on a rather heroic note, it fell flat for me because it just didn’t make sense. Hopping into the water was a guaranteed death and they were better off trying to paddle a bit faster to the kid who was still on the surface. If anything they could have destroyed him accidentally by tipping it over.

Then we have Paul who is rather jaded and you could argue that the film proves him right here. He doesn’t care much for people and then he has to enter a world where there are giant cover ups and lots of corruption everywhere. It’s no wonder that he wanted to live on his own so he could at least try and avoid it. In the end, he did his best once it counted so he was fine as the reluctant hero type. Not a character that really stands out but he wasn’t bad.

Finally we have the main villain Randolph and I actually thought that they did a good job with him. This guy doesn’t play around and embodies being as evil as possible right from the jump. Not every character would be able to pull that off after all. Yeah he’s a bit cheesy and perhaps over the top but that’s the best way to handle these rich types of villains. If they played him too seriously then it probably wouldn’t have worked as well.

He’s the right blend of competent and sarcastic throughout the movie. The way he goes out is rather underwhelming though. Of course, the film could have 100 amazing villains but it wouldn’t save it when you consider all of the prior negatives as well as the fact that they squeezed in a dog for a particularly violent death. Yeah that scene meant that the film was absolutely going to be doomed. There is plenty of violence everywhere in the film as it is, why add the dog to the mix? It’s the kind of scene that feels like it’s just there for max shock value.

I can’t say that there are many positives to be had about the film at all. The main villain might be the biggest rain of sunshine here. Otherwise, I suppose the film isn’t terribly long so it doesn’t really drag on. The pacing is all right and I wouldn’t say that the writing is particularly awful. It just has to throw in way too many distractions and annoying moments at all times that continue to chip away at the movie from start to finish. Hopefully one day we will actually get a good Piranha movie but I have my doubts.

Overall, Piranha is still a terrible movie. I would highly advise you to stay away from this one. It’s just too mean spirited and nothing about it ends up being a satisfying watch. Instead the longer the film goes on, the more you will end up shaking your head this time. There aren’t very many evil animal films that I can even recommend because almost inevitably they end up faltering. They just don’t have a whole lot of potential right from the start because the evil animals will usually bring a whole lot of animal violence with them. Then you have to factor in that this is basically a slasher film and those never end up being very good anyway.

Overall 1/10

Old Yeller Review

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Old Yeller is one of those films where you immediately know that it’s not going to be very good. Nothing about it particularly stands out for good reasons but there are sure a lot of bad ones. When a dog is a prominent character in a film, odds are that the movie will not be able to hold itself back from having bad things happen to it. That’s just the way that these things go.

The movie starts with a man leaving his family behind as he has a job to do and so his older son Travis vows to protect the family. The problem is that he is out of his depth from the start as he constantly panics and blames everyone else for his shortcomings. He goes as far as to threaten the local stray, Old Yeller. Travis never appears as a reasonable character for a large chunk of the film and even lays an intentional trap to try and shoot Yeller. This kid’s not above throwing rocks at the dog either. All in all, a sad excuse for a main character. You’re absolutely waiting for him to get humbled the whole time and admit that he never had a good plan.

As the film goes on you never get to be a fan of him. He’s rude and immature for the duration of the film. Meanwhile his younger brother Arliss isn’t as bad although he is so young that he does manage to get into a lot of trouble on multiple occasions. He’s just not old enough to know what’s going on and has a habit of disobeying authority which doesn’t help. You’ll be cringing at several of his scenes.

Meanwhile their mom Katie does her best to keep a hands off approach but sometimes you feel like she should be doing a bit more. She calls out Travis when he keeps making mistakes in the intro but perhaps it was her time to take charge by this point. She also has to play nice with the annoying neighbors who come to visit. I won’t be as harsh in this instance because it’s probably the smart play while they’re all alone. It’ll just make you annoying at Arliss again for making them have to cook dinner.

Some would say that the kids in this film are realistic but all that counts is how annoying they are here. Yeller does good, he’s probably the only high quality character in the film. He fights hard at all times and really dominates. The only time he’s on the losing side of things is when the pesky humans get in the way. So that’s not really something that would be his fault.

The supporting characters were not all that good either. In particular, Yeller’s old owner stands out. You would have expected him to have been ready to fight for Yeller the whole way through. Why would you let some kids keep him? That just doesn’t make any sense and makes the guy not look like a good owner. Yeah some kids would be sad about it but you’d be even sadder to lose your dog. It’s really no contest.

Of course the biggest issue the film has is the animal violence. You probably guessed that by this point though. There is quite a bit of it as animals are hunted left and right while of course stuff happens with Yeller. The film has no shortage of making sure you don’t have a whole lot of fun with this one and this absolutely sealed the deal for the film. It’s not like I find the old west to be a great backdrop in the first place. So it’s not like the film had any backup there. In the end the deck was absolutely stacked against it.

I don’t even think a remake would be able to do a whole lot of good here. Ultimately what would hold that one back is that even if they change the ending, I’m sure there will be a lot of turmoil with the dog and they will probably want to keep the other animal stuff present as well. Lets face it, this is the ultimate lose-lose kind of situation. It’s why generally my advice to filmmakers is not to include animals in their movies at all. Yeah sometimes you will get a harmless one but those are exceptionally rare.

I suppose a remake could at least make the kid less annoying though. Maybe age him up so he’s already an adult and doesn’t have to be trying so hard with little results this time around. Maybe it’ll be more of an invasion film where he’s attacked by Indians or something. Now if there’s one positive I can say for the film, it’s that the runtime isn’t super long. If this film were 2 hours then it would have definitely been really rough. It would have been dragged on forever, so I give the film credit for showing some restraint there.

Overall, Old Yeller is not a film that I would recommend to anyone. It fails the basic lesson of all films which is that they’re supposed to be fun. A film that does not provide any entertainment value is one that was doomed from the start. This is definitely a film with 0 replay value and you will want to stay far away from it. If you need to watch a quality film with dogs, I’d say to grab a random Air Bud film. Those usually have a tendency to be pretty solid all the way around.

Overall 1/10

Rambo: Last Blood 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

If you walked up to me and told me that Rambo: Last Blood was gonna be a terrible film…I would have just nodded. I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that the film didn’t go well. When a thriller series goes on for too long it gets tempted to throw in a bunch of tragedy and call it a day. A cheap revenge thriller will always cost a film a lot of points and this one just feels hollow by the end of its run. Too much damage had already been done.

The film starts off with Rambo trying to live an ordinary life. He lives fairly isolated on a mountain with a nice lady and her grand daughter. Unfortunately the girl really wants to meet the father who ditched her as a child. Doesn’t seem like the best thing to do and Rambo warns her against this. Her father wasn’t a good man and he lives in a very shady part of Mexico. Just going over there is courting death. The girl doesn’t care and heads over but things don’t go well and she goes. Now Rambo is on a big revenge tour to destroy all of the people responsible for what happened to her. Can even Rambo take on an entire army though?

Rambo gets a lot of hype in these films and he is tough but the guy definitely bought into his own hype here. He shows up at the villain’s base without any plan and gets absolutely dominated. He doesn’t even put up any kind of fight and it’s definitely one of the more embarrassing showings for a guy like this. At least later on he gets some prep time and pulls off some Home Alone tactics. It takes a long while to get to that point though. One of the big problems with the film is it feels like the whole first half is just to set the tone and show how messed up everything is.

The fights don’t really start until the climax when it’s Rambo against everybody. That part is certainly fun although the film definitely does go out of its way to be as graphic as possible. Each death tends to be like something out of a slasher type film as the characters are all ripped to pieces. The film makes sure to remind you how evil they all are first so you don’t feel bad for them but the film definitely could have handled itself in a less extreme manner. This whole film is going for the extreme angle and so of course it’s just not a particularly fun watch.

The granddaughter makes a ton of terrible mistakes and isn’t particularly smart but you still don’t want to see her going through so many trials. The movie is just way over the top mean spirited throughout so you don’t even get a breather. There is virtually no characters around so there isn’t even any chance for banter. I mean the film’s overall tone might have made that impossible anyway but with only Rambo around there just isn’t much for the film to do. He goes around murdering everyone and that’s it.

To fix the film, you’d need to completely rewrite the plot. Remove the first half and definitely tone down all of the violence throughout the movie. You definitely don’t need any of that. Maybe have at least one villain with actual goals and aspirations beyond just being super evil. I don’t need a sob story and I definitely don’t need a full subplot but maybe something about money or power. He’s basically just trying to spite Rambo by the midpoint which isn’t even a real goal. He’s just doing whatever he wants without even thinking it through. Not the most interesting kind of villains here. They just exist to die.

Also you do have to suspend a good amount of disbelief for Rambo taking everyone out. Yeah he is legendary and everything but he takes out dozens and dozens of fighters while running through the tunnels. everything had to go perfectly for him in order for this to work like them going through specific entrances and always triggering the traps on time. It’s a thriller so this kind of thing is definitely to be expected but it also means that the fight scenes aren’t as good as they could have been. Mainly there aren’t fights as it’s just the villains getting murdered by traps.

At no point do you feel like the film even has a real purpose here. It’s just going through the motions and then it’s not even doing that right with how long it takes for the fights to start. I’d say that the film was disappointing but for the most part it’s not like I went into it with any high hopes anyway. Just about everyone agrees that the film is pretty weak so this wasn’t a surprise. The film just ended up living up to its own hype and in this case that was a bad thing.

I think it’s fair to say that it is time for the Rambo series to end. There’s just not much more to do with it by this point. He’s already lost so many people and he’s also really old by this point. You can only have so many Rambo hype moments. After all, that’s why most of this film has him with homefield advantage picking the villains off. in a straight fight there would just be too many of them.

Overall, Rambo: Last Blood is definitely not my kind of film. If you want a super edgy, grim dark title then check this one out but otherwise you should stay far away. It’s one thing to make a darker film where things don’t always go well but this one goes too extremely in the other direction. Nothing goes well and the heroes just keep on getting farther and farther away. You have a reporter around who lost someone to the gangs but if you take her out of the movie then virtually nothing changes. I still find it hard to understand why you would even want to try and find a parent who ditched you, seems like that will end poorly 99 times out of 100. Meanwhile the cops are corrupt and while Rambo is saving people related to this immediate danger, it seems like this is a huge syndicate. It just paints a very bleak picture of life for everyone involved. At least I can appreciate that Rambo does not have a no kill rule since that would have made the situation even more difficult.

Overall 1/10

Puppet Master 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

It’s time for one of those disgraceful movies. This one never even got to start on a high note and so you knew immediately that it wouldn’t be any good. Puppets can make for interesting villains at times but this one is definitely just going for shock value the whole time with no real substance at play. Throw in a bunch of annoying characters and you have an absolute recipe for disaster.

The film starts off with the Puppet Master bumping himself off instead of fighting off the evil villains. We then cut to the present where a group of psychic power users are summoned by their old “friend” Neil. These people are the best at what they do. Whether it is seeing the future, seeing the past, or being able to use wards, they are ready for anything. You might call them something like the Psychic Avengers! When they all walk into a room you will be shocked at what little aura any of them possesses. It’s almost as if they drain it from the room. Here’s the strange thing though, Neil is dead and has clearly been that way for a long while. How come none of these psychics sensed that? How did Neil summon them while dead? Well surely it wouldn’t hurt to stay in his mansion for one night?…….can they survive the puppets?

I mean maybe you could feel a little bad for them if they were upstanding citizens but they all look terrible from the jump. Frank and Carissa are way too self absorbed as they mess around when this should be serious business, Dana seems rather desperate and Alex completely wastes his future ability by not actually doing anything about it. It’s clear that they are all out of their depths and completely unprepared for what is about to happen. These psychics are all about to get exposed.

Neil’s wife Megan is rather suspicious the whole time. She is easy to offend but also seems to know more than she is letting on with Neil. The film shrouds her in mystery the whole time but she still never manages to be all that interesting. She gets to spend a decent amount of time with Alex but of course she was just married so you hope there is no romance brewing. Alex just seems oblivious to all the danger throughout the movie though. Even in the dream where we see the future, he just mindlessly walks into a trap. Yes, it was a dream but it is treated as something he would have done if that was the situation. Cmon now.

Frank and Carissa are some of the worst because they know they are in imminent danger and decide now is the time for bondage play. Really? Reallllly? That’s one of the most contrived kills I’ve seen in a long time, especially as Carissa has several minutes to free Frank but panics instead. The whole scene is just soooo bad and drawn out. They were going for max edge on both of the kills here and it was all so overdone.

Then for Dana, she seemed like the weakest anyway. Aside from her only noticeable trait being that she was crazy, she just didn’t handle this very well. I’ll get into this more later on but the puppets are really weak. At least for Frank and Carissa you can make a few excuses even if they are weak ones. Well, Frank has a legit excuse, the rest are dicey. For Dana she is just flat out defeated which is crazy.

These puppets are nothing like Chucky or Talking Tina. They don’t seem to have infinite regen or teleportation. We see characters tossing them around and plucking them apart like actual toys. They look so weak (Thanks in part to the low budget) that they should have lost immediately. For example one of the puppets is like the Thing. He does the “It’s Clobbering time!” barrage of fists. His fists don’t hurt too much as different characters eat a few punches and then toss him away. The main problem as always is they don’t finish the job. Rip the puppets arms off, keep the head detached, etc. Instead they just wait as the puppet very slowly puts himself back together.

Yeah the small hits will add up eventually so just take them out. Near the end we get an extended fight scene where somebody takes on multiple puppets at once and you just can’t help but feel like he could have done a lot better. The movie never actually makes the puppets look all that scary. I mean they were scared of humans with guns in the opening scene after all. They are fighters but not particularly good ones.

I’d also say that the ending is rather rushed with the puppets doing a 180 for no reason. You’re not sure why the main villain is suddenly afraid of them or why Alex suddenly wants to help the villain. Did he think the death would be too gruesome? I just don’t see why, if Alex frees the guy then Alex will quickly be murdered. It again makes Alex look dumb as rocks here. So not only is he making all of the wrong decisions over and over again but now he’s actively going out of his way to help the villain?

The writing throughout the film is terrible but that’s par for the course. The villains aren’t very intimidating at all and the characters are really bad. The violence is extremely over the top and so the movie doesn’t really have much of anything going for it. It’s not very long at least which I can say is a good thing. That may be the only real good thing I can say about it. There was a lot of potential here but the film used none of it.

There is one good thing I can say about the film and that is that I liked the designs of some of the puppets. The one with the knife was rather scary and I also liked the one with the big fists. The sound effect every time he would punch someone was intense. Maybe a bit funnier than scary but it worked well. The puppets could hold their own in a survival setting. The movie just didn’t execute on anything around them.

Overall, The idea of a bunch of psychic people getting together to solve a mystery of their dead enemy is really interesting. You could have done a lot with that but instead they don’t actually get to interact a ton before they split up and start getting picked off. None of them have any survival instincts with how they drink a lot and get tied up. Different members felt danger and evil when they walked into the mansion, did they just forget that? They underestimated the dummies to a painful degree and I’d argue the only smart thing to do would have been to leave the house immediately. If not, at least stay together and it would be hard to be defeated. Their overconfidence got to them and I still find it hard to believe that the franchise got so many films. Maybe the sequels will be better but this was a really rough start for the franchise. It was just L after L and you want to stay very far away from this one.

Overall 2/10