Category Archives: 2 Star Movies

Rings Review

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It’s time for another Ring movie and this one is the weakest yet. It’s time for a whole lot of exposition to things that we already know about. There aren’t any real great characters here and the film falls into the usual issue of the whole thing being futile. The main characters have absolutely no chance of claiming victory here and will only continue to be absolutely crushed. The film desperately needs to introduce a villain to fight the demon or something because the humans are not cutting it.

The movie starts with Samara crashing an airplane filled with people because at least two of them had seen the video. Everyone is now doomed and upon their death we cut to the real main characters. Julia is the heroine here and her boyfriend heads off to College but they swear to stay together. They will make the long distance relationship work. Unfortunately he stops returning her calls early on and the last time they spoke he was surrounded by other student who didn’t seem like good influences. Another girl shows up on his computer and starts acting crazy so Julia drives over to find out what’s going on. Unfortunately she is not entering the middle of an ongoing death experiment.

There’s already a lot wrong with this. Holt just comes across as a terrible character. So he willingly joined an experiment about death, knowing full well about the risks. He bought into the explanation that this can help humanity learn some knowledge or something but with the risk it’s not worth it. Basically Professor Gabriel has a lot of students watch the Ring video. Then before the week is up, they get other students to watch it. You can keep on passing the curse along so that nobody dies but the professor waits for a long time to get a tail on this and so people still keep on dying anyway.

Holt’s excuse here is that he left Julia in the dark so that she wouldn’t get involved. It’s a terribly thought out plan. For starters this would make her nervous and want to come over anyway. If she didn’t, then she probably would have just straight up dumped him. In either case, there is no real winning on this one if you use that strategy. Instead he could have just acted like all was normal and at least texted her back once a day. Even letting her know about the experiments and just hiding parts of it would have worked better. So he’s just not very smart.

He’s also not likable for even getting involved with this in the first place. I’d also throw in that if he had roommates with him, he should have warned Julia in the call before she started stripping. Obviously that’s putting her in a really embarrassing situation otherwise. I can’t say that I was a big fan of Skye either because she was quick to watch the video and then was ready to pass it on to someone else. Not a very nice thing to do and it makes her as guilty as the other characters.

How come nobody suggested just making this into a Daisy Chain? Person A gives it to Person B who gives it to Person C who gives it to Person A, etc. You could do that every 3 days and in theory nobody would ever die. It would certainly be a lot safer than their current plan. Perhaps I missed one of the very sketchy rules about copies here but as far as I know this would work. Now admittedly, I still have to stretch some disbelief to understand how Gabriel found out so much about these rules. I guess you could say through a lot of trial and error but it’s always weird to have someone figure out so much about this.

Unfortunately that doesn’t save us from the exposition as we still have Julia and Holt travelling the world to learn more about Samara and her past. This is basically retreading a ton of old ground that we have already went through so I can tell you that this was incredibly dull. We already know that Samara is evil so it’s not like finding out more is going to help. The film introduces another big villain in her father but Samara is not some random victim.

She has been murdering dozens of people for years and has already said that she would never stop. While the father was crazy and evil himself, you knew that he didn’t stand a chance. He was blind so perhaps he figured that would be a natural defense against her curse but what he didn’t realize was that Samara has the ability to restore someone’s eyesight. Checkmate! I know that sounds pretty ridiculous but as long as you keep in mind that she is all powerful then it works out.

So you don’t really have any likable characters here. Gabriel should be treated as another big villain here as well since he was a mass murderer by showing the video to so many people. He may claim it was for science and stuff but that doesn’t give him a free pass. When Samara messes them all over by stopping the video from being copied, you can’t even feel too bad because people were already dying anyway. At least this will stop all of the experiments.

There just comes a point where you wonder what the point of this all is. Samara cannot be defeated or even slowed down at this point. She can take anyone down and even possess others whenever she wants to. You can try to burn the tapes but she will return right away and ignore every attempt to stop her. She seems rather slow so you could in theory run away from her but then she’ll just have you choke from bugs or be in some Final Destination type explosion. There is no escape and there is no way to beat her so everything is absolutely brutal.

I guess I can say that the film is at least not ultra violent. It certainly has its moments but isn’t on the same level as something like Final Destination or Halloween. The film makes up for this with a lot of disturbing imagery and just dark themes in general. This is definitely not what you would call a feel good movie nor does it have much in the way of replay value. There aren’t even a ton of scares to be had. Yeah we get some jump scares and all but the exposition part of the film is reallllly long. Honestly there is no easy way to save this franchise. Giving her a weak point would be a good start but it doesn’t seem like that is in the cards. Maybe at least give us a likable character.

Overall, Rings has more pertinent things to say about long distance relationships than actual lore about Samara. It’s all recycled at this point so you just don’t care. Her father has a good voice for exposition but the character himself is just randomly evil without a whole lot of development. I would definitely recommend staying far away from this film. It doesn’t meaningfully upgrade the Ring series and just takes a few steps back instead. Maybe the next film will be better…one can hope.

Overall 2/10

Sniper 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

When you hear of a film with the title of Sniper, you’re definitely expecting something really intense. It pretty much comes with the territory right? Well, this movie does not disappoint so if that’s what you’re looking for then you are in the right place. There is quite the body count here and you will see just how difficult the job is. The sniper position is really a unique one in the army and has its own set of dangers.

The movie starts with Tom and his partner completing a routine sniper mission. Unfortunately the partner dies and Tom is forced to head back alone. Now he has one last mission to complete before retirement. It’s an assassination mission with 0 backup and heavily behind enemy lines. His new partner is a rookie named Richard who has no in field experience but is a skilled sniper in non combat scenarios. Richard is technically slated to be the boss for this mission and was even given authority to murder Tom if needed. Will his lack of experience be a major liability here?

Right away you will be able to see that the answer to this question is Yes. Richard is constantly panicking and doing things by the book. Tom is someone who has been in the field a whole lot and so he knows what actually works and what doesn’t. It’s a massive difference in approach and leads to a lot of inside fighting among the two. The problem is that there is really no time for that. As a sniper you have to be able to trust your partner 100% and vice versa. If you don’t, then things are not going to work out.

I should note right away that I put 100% of the issues on Richard. There weren’t any arguments where I thought that he had a point. He spends a lot of time whining but he’s the one falling into traps and missing his shots. Richard misses a key shot that results in a lot of extra lives lost because naturally the target ended up being extremely vindictive. This was completely avoidable so Richard should feel bad about it.

Instead Richard gets defensive every time which isn’t helpful to anybody. Then by the end of the film Richard completely cracks and becomes more than a simple liability. He’s the kind of emotional loose cannon that you really don’t want out there. Tom is easily more patient with him than I would have expected any character to be. By the end you’re meant to find Richard likable again and be able to root for him but that didn’t work for me.

As for Tom, he’s a good main character. Richard tries to psycho analyze him a few times and explain how messed up Tom’s life is, but to me Tom is handling this all in a fairly mature manner. He has a tough job and he sets out to do it without any issues. It does look like retirement will be tough for him but I like to think that he would handle it lie any other mission. The fact that Tom hasn’t broken down after all of these missions is another testament to his strength of character.

He has good reason to be upset right in the intro when his partner dies because the helicopter came way too early. Is it possible that the stalker would have gotten them at night? Sure, but it would be a much more difficult shot and there are more variables at night. Tom took care of business with that guy later on as well. If I’m in the jungle, I’d want a guy like Tom to have my back. He may be rough around the edges but he absolutely knows what he is doing.

What does keep the film back from being better is the excessive level of violence though. You’ve got full blown torture with what happens when they catch Tom. It’s expected considering the situation but you just hope they could keep it off screen or something. You’re seeing a whole lot more than you would like to there. The film is definitely not shying away from the general violence either with all the headshots and fights going on.

The general combat violence may not be super crazy but then you also have the collateral damage like a villager who is murdered during the crossfire at one point. The film is showing you what a dreary world it is for the average sniper and does succeed at that task. It just comes at a huge cost. This isn’t the kind of film that has a whole lot of replay value. Nor is it the kind of film that you would say is generally happy. It’s not really meant to be and so that means it’s not really going to be my style.

I would have liked to have seen more of the government back at home. I enjoy all the tough talk and corruption going on there. Everyone acting real slippery and all that. Those set up scenes were really good. The army scene when Richard gets to base is more of a nonsense scene though. I understand the whole sizing each other up part but why were the soldiers acting downright evil? It seemed like Richard was about to have to fight for his life there and hat just seems to be pushing the tough army stereotype a little bit too far.

Also should you really be making the sniper upset when he could camp out at a distance and end things? Yeah he’d be in trouble but if you’re tough enough to be a sniper in the first place, you’re not going to have the same levels of worry. It’s why you always hope that the snipers are extremely resilient because even a single rogue sniper can cause a whole lot of problems.

Overall, Sniper is a very direct film. I want to say that about 90% of the film is the two guys in the jungle getting ready to take the shot and moving through tough terrain. The film doesn’t bother with any cutaways or side plots. There is only one story to tell here. So I applaud the focus but it’s definitely not my kind of film. It goes too hard on the violence and overall dread. That said, if this film seems like it’s up your alley then you should check it out. There are no fakeouts here so if you want a film about sniping, it’ll be hard to be more realistic than this one.

Overall 2/10

Prince of Darkness 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 really spooky titles. With something called “Prince of Darkness” you already know that you’re not exactly in for your normal film experience. This one dips into sci-fi as well as the horror genre so that really makes this an unforgettable experience. The movie gets serious props for managing to get a really intense atmosphere within the film but also does tend to go a little too far with all the gross imagery and violence. At the end of the day I would call it an elevated slasher but make no mistake, everyone is being taken down.

The film has a professor bring along his most talented students to a church for some kind of project. They’re going to be here for days so they have their own beds and everything. They all specialize in different kinds of science so whatever is going on here has to be really massive. They are all being kept in the dark on what is going on here. See, it turns out that in this world, the Devil is actually an alien that has been trapped underneath the Church. Unfortunately he is slowly breaking past the seal and if he escapes, the whole planet is lost.

Honestly they should have told the students this from the start or at least a similar story to get them motivated. It’s not like most of them would have believed that anyway right? It would have at least given them some urgency though as they are initially really chill about the whole thing. Since they are each experts of their field, it probably would have helped them to target more specific solutions as well.

As the film goes on, we see how slowly the situation is getting worse and worse all around. The Church begins to get surrounded by the homeless who all seem to be affected by the evil influence. The Devil is able to shoot out his energy whenever he wants and mind controls people too. So even though he was technically still sealed for most of the film, it seemed to be because he was allowing it. He takes over the computers and begins to start hunting the humans in earnest later on.

That felt like cheating the premise a bit here. You’d think that the humans are at least safe until they run out of time or the container breaks. Letting the villain be able to bust through that just made the situation even more unwinnable. Now based on the cryptic dreams of the future, it may not have mattered but you should at least afford the heroes some hope.

I will say that the main characters do act like classic horror characters in the sense that they do not make the smart decisions even when their lives are on the line. Forget the evil supernatural stuff for a minute. You’re in a rather rough neighborhood, why go outside after dark into the back alley? I think he was going for a smoke or something but naturally he is surrounded and then murdered. The people who got destroyed by their mind controlled colleagues get a little mercy from me because that’s not something you could really predict.

Going outside like that was not smart though even if the whole thing is tragic. Then you have the priest who is someone you can pile a lot of the blame on. He is putting the characters in a really rough situation without proper context so they have to figure it all out slowly. Even when he sees all the signs that they are running out of time, he mainly just panics. By the end he finally has his moment in the final hour. So he ends strong but it would have been nice if he had a better role in the first half. Perhaps he could have helped with some supernatural support right? Although his faith was clearly shaken from the start.

The movie has a lot of weird visuals the whole time like a pigeon being crucified and different people melting into worms and shooting up ooze. So needless to say, it’s the kind of film that could make you a bit queasy. It’s also traditionally violent at times but the bigger focus is definitely on the weird elements here. You could really cut all of those out and that would make the film work better.

There’s also that sense of claustrophobia here as the heroes technically are in a big building but have no way to get out because of the sheer number of enemies outside. When the enemies want to get in, there will be nothing to stop them. Then with each member of the research crew starting to go bad, even the indoors is no longer safe. I have to give the film a lot of credit for how big the main cast was. You even start to lost track of some of them after a while which is intentional because even within the film that happens to a few of them. When someone is gone for a while you have to wonder if something might have happened to them. That slow feeling of dread works really well.

If the film had just stuck to that instead of going more for the edge then it would have worked out a whole lot better. Perhaps the approach of trying to create that authentic evil atmosphere is ultimately what really backfired here. I think it would have been interesting if the film had delved a little more into the ramifications of the devil being an alien too. There is a good amount of dialogue and pondering in general but not usually on that angle. The writing is solid though so the film will hold your interest the whole time.

Overall, Prince of Darkness is a really intense film to be sure but it’s not one that I would recommend. It gets a little too grisly as the film goes on and the heroes were never given a proper fighting chance here. If anything it felt like they were being toyed with and depending on how you interpret the ending, there was never going to be a path to victory. So it makes for an intense watch but one that ultimately ends up feeling futile. I’d like to see another try at this one with the characters gradually vanishing or being pit against each other but without the devil actually being able to control them. As long as the seal holds, his main weapons should all be that of trickery and manipulation. Any direct action just widens the gap way too much.

Overall 2/10

Puppet Master II Review

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The Puppet Master is one of those films where you know it’s going to be bad right out of the gate. The question becomes, just how bad is it really? If it’s only normal levels of bad then it could be a lot worse but if it’s terrible like the first film then you’re in trouble. Well, I can safely say that this one is in the terrible category. There isn’t much good to say about the film and ultimately it doesn’t justify the purpose of having a sequel in the first place. There aren’t really any new ideas and once again the characters are all losing to a bunch of tiny puppets. A true skill issue if you think about it.

After the events of the first film, the puppets go and bring the original Puppet Master back to life. Unfortunately this guy has now become looney after his death and thinks that the reincarnated version of his wife is here. We then cut to a bunch of researchers who are at the murder house to find out if psychic phenomenon is real or not. The psychic they hire definitely thinks that this is the real deal and prepares to leave but gets bumped off by the puppets. The rest of the group are also in danger now and may be picked off as well if they can’t find a way to take these puppets down. Can they actually defeat them though?

Now one thing you have to remember is that the puppets are not very powerful. They are small and weak, while also lacking any kind of true offensive capabilities. All they can really do is rely on sneak attacks. There is one exception, which is the Darth Vader looking puppet which has an active flamethrower. With this firepower it can easily destroy any opponent. Whenever a human would lose to this guy I would them a little slack. The other puppets are all much weaker though so you should be able to defeat them rather easily. Even the flamethrower isn’t too tough if you are expecting it, but the real tricky thing is if you don’t know that the weapon exists in the first place. In that case, it is definitely fair to fall beneath its overwhelming might.

The humans are all rather unlikable once again though so that’s a shame. In some ways they may not be as bad as the psychics from the first film who were all really looney but these guys can’t manage to stay focused for long either. There is a lot of flirting right out of the gate and the main characters don’t really know how to stick together against the villains. As soon as the first puppet is found (shortly after murdering someone) they should have all been on high alert. Yet, they still split up a lot.

A very mysterious guy in bandages shows up and while the heroes think he is weird, they are not overly concerned. This is now a murder scene so surely anyone who claims to live here should be a massive suspect right? I dare say that a citizen’s arrest should even be in order here. Don’t give this guy any kind of freedom or you will end up regretting it later on. The characters here aren’t the brightest but at least they aren’t actively tying each other up like in the first film so that is some progress.

A big problem that they all make it taking too long though. Like when the psychic finds out that the place is evil, she doesn’t immediately leave and instead plans to go either late at night or in the morning. Plenty of time for the puppets to take her down and unfortunately, she was unable to put up enough of a struggle to get the others involved.

Then you have the next door neighbors who are rather mean for no reason. The lady does pretty well for a little while there but then of course she ends up getting overconfident and makes a big speech before going down. This is the kind of film where you know that resistance is futile and so it does take away from the struggles. While that may be true for a lot of horror films, it is the movie’s job to try and get you to feel like there is at least some kind of chance. If you don’t think that there is any chance…well that takes the fun out of it right?

As you can expect, most of the murders are rather violent. Since the puppets are small, it takes a lot of hits to finish off the main characters and usually that means the kills are really dragged out. You’re just waiting for the film to mov on to something a bit more creative but it doesn’t happen. That’s because the movie isn’t trying to do anything too creative or subversive. It’s just going through the motions in a rather soulless way. No quality writing to help you out here.

I think if the series wants to have any chance of being better, it needs to move beyond the house in the next film. Yes, we had the next door neighbors up the road, but that barely counts and naturally the cattle started dying for the main villain’s plans which didn’t help matters. Have the puppets go into the city and then we get a war against the army. Sure it would be rather campy but that’s the case for the main movie as well. At least this could give the film some entertainment value because as it is now, it’s not even funny.

Overall, This is your average slasher from start to finish. It’s really violent with most of the characters existing only to get bumped off. It was nostalgic seeing some of the puppets from the first film but it’s not like they have grown much stronger since then. It’s still hard to take them seriously as villains at all. The whole time you are just shaking your head. I would definitely recommend giving this one a skip. There is no real reason you need to watch this movie and I doubt the sequels are really going to raise the bar all that much anyway.

Overall 2/10

Raw Edge Review

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I suppose a title like Raw Edge might already get your guard up but I can assure you that the film is even worse than you might think. The plot is annoying and the characters are all terrible. The movie really drags on and the whole time you’re just hoping that some of the villains will get bumped off instead of being spared for the 5th time and you know they will show up again before long.

The film centers around a town with a very rough custom. When a guy dies, his wife becomes an available product to be claimed by the first guy around. As a result you are incentivized to bump off a lady’s husband if you want her. This has been going on for a long while now and the head’s wife isn’t thrilled about this but you don’t worry about stuff for too long when you’re that powerful. One day she is attacked and so the town murders a guy who insulted her a while back and his wife is claimed. Now the brother of the victim has arrived and intends to murder her husband. This is trouble because everyone in town has always wanted her and now’s their chance.

I mean the story is so absurd right from the start. A town where women are literally property to be traded like this? Man, leaving this town seems like it would have been a slam dunk and at the very least you won’t want others to come up here. The victim actually recommended this as a place to live, can you believe it? Tex, the victim’s brother arrives and for starters he should definitely be upset at the fact that his brother would have even thought about him living here. Well, he intends to get revenge which will be hard to do since the head has a lot of followers. On the other hand, at least 3 are helping him out since they want a shot at the wife.

The whole film is using this kind of tension to get the story moving and it’s not the way you want to make a proper film. It’s dark in a distasteful way and of course it makes all of the characters look really bad. One lady tries escaping the village to go to the Indians, only to be hunted down and the Indian is murdered. Nobody tries to help her and instead they are fighting over her. It’s all about power here and everyone is only fighting for their self interests.

I’m guessing the reason why there are no real good guys here is because the ones with any kind of moral compass were probably stamped out years ago. So now you’re stuck with all of the corrupt folks. So of course that’s already bad enough but then even aside from that the writing is just really, really bad. Everyone is super dumb and naive at the same time. One guy in particular has been after the heroine for a while and got caught several times. In each instance someone gets the drop on him but lets him live. This happens over and over and over again until eventually he is left alone with her. Then he tricks her into leaving her horse to check on his and to ride with him? She really made things way too easy for the guy.

When Tex shows up and saves her again, he turns his back to the crazy guy with a gun??? She has to point out that he’s about to shoot for him to turn around. In a world like this where everyone is out for themselves, it should be common sense not to trust anybody. You have to take your opponent down for the count and keep your gun active all the way up until that point. If you lower your guard at all then it’d all over. Then you had the older guy who kept on doing some betrayals of his own and he somehow thought the other villain would forget? Near the end he turns his back to the other villain and talks about sharing again, as if he hadn’t just betrayed him 20 minutes ago….another dumb move.

The card player also took a whole lot of risks the whole time and is a really slow draw. It’s no wonder why he tries to use strategy to win the whole time because when it comes time for a gunfight he really doesn’t last very long at all. Meanwhile the head of the town isn’t the smartest guy either. After allowing a girl to be captured and forcibly remarried, he believes her when she says the Indiana just need to talk to him briefly? You don’t feel bad for him at all but the fact that he didn’t question this at all is crazy.

The film just had really bad writing all throughout the movie and the whole film needed to not have included the town’s weird rule from the start. Throw that out entirely and the whole film gets way better. Otherwise the fact that every guy there is just obsessing over all the women and waiting until they are in the market is wild. It’s just not a fun film and the whole thing just reeks of shock value. There were way better ways to handle this one. I guess it serves as a general reminder on why living back in the days of the wild west would have been brutal. Not to this crazy extent but it would still be bad regardless.

Overall, Raw Edge is a film that is trying to be rather brutal the whole time and it succeeds. It’s all just so corrupt with nobody to root for. It feels rather contrived and no amount of songs that the film would throw my way could change that. Even the song at the end is going for a rather upbeat/chipper tone and it just doesn’t work with the rest of the movie. I couldn’t buy into the romance at all but you could interpret the ending as a strategic move in order to get out of there and I couldn’t blame the heroine for that. You need to leave the place asap and can think of the long term plan after that.

Overall 2/10

Insidious: The Red Door Review

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Insidious has definitely fallen onto tough times over the years. I wish I could say it ended with a real bang but unfortunately this film was not even remotely good. It falls into pretty much all of the big horror traps you can think of. Annoying characters, a lackluster story, etc. There was really nothing about the movie that would really attract you to it and by the end it just feels like a waste. There isn’t even a really hype end stinger to leave the film off on a high note. They came close because I thought one character was about to turn evil but surprisingly this did not happen.

The film starts off with showing us how strained the relationship with Josh and his son Dalton is. Dalton is a super spoiled kid who is a jerk to everybody, but especially his father. The kid has really checked out and just wants to go to college to be away from his family. Josh ended up going through a divorce so he’s not doing great right now but is convinced by his ex to drive Dalton to school. The problem is that the hypnosis placed on both of them to forget their old memories has nearly come undone. The door to the Further is opening again and the demons are waiting by the gates. This could end up being fatal for the main characters.

One of the big problems this film has is that Dalton eats up the majority of the screentime and he never gets a whole lot better. He’s super annoying throughout the movie and seems like the kind of character who is easy to manipulate. His roommate ends up being a girl named Chris who teaches him all about going to the dark side and becoming a total delinquent. Unfortunately for her, she is now roped into this death battle against the demons since Dalton wants to try out his astral projection ability. I have to agree with Chris being upset about this because it does put her in a lot of trouble right out of the gate. Not a very pleasant thing for a friend to be doing right? Dalton doesn’t really put a whole lot of thought into her safety at all.

Until the ending you could also say there’s not much reason for Dalton to be messing with this ability. If anything, all of the signs point to this being a mistake like how he keeps drawing doors and even injures himself from drawing too hard. These are massive signs to stay away from the supernatural. At least in the end he gets to bond a bit with his father but it was a long road to get there and basically any scene over at the school was a rough one. Meanwhile Chris was at least taking things in stride a lot more but I still can’t give her many points because of what a bad influence she was. If you thought that sorority/frat parties sounded bad, this film won’t change your mind.

Josh’s story is a whole lot more interesting which is why it should have gotten more screentime. Basically the hypnosis did a lot of damage to his life like contributing to his divorce and in the years since then his mind has been really foggy. The hypnosis did a number on his brain after all and so he was really put in a tough spot here. Now I don’t think it’s earned when he is mad at his ex though because he did try to murder her while possessed. At that point I think you do basically lose any kind of argument for how things could have worked out. It was also apparently partially his idea to be mind wiped.

Ultimately Josh just needed to do a better job of resisting the demons and I know that is easier said than done. Still, at least he feels like a tougher character than Dalton and is just more fun. You won’t see him being pressured into doing anything too crazy. The plots take a long while to converge though which is unfortunate. Also one of the most jarring exposition scenes is when Chris randomly finds a video about people discussing astral projection. The odds of her finding these guys in particular is one thing but they act like this is a fascinating new concept. Everyone knows what Astral Projection is, I don’t see what was so shocking about this. Believing that it is real would be shocking, but not the concept itself.

As for the scares, it’s basically your average kind of jump scares. The film relies a bit too much on gross type horror like one character puking and a lot of the demons just looking really ugly. It’s more grotesque than scary and the iconic villain only has a cameo this time around. The human possession is also one of the less scary kinds of horror villains because you’d rather be seeing the demon try to fight them. This doesn’t seem like final film material, it could have been the threat for any of the films in this series.

The writing is okay I suppose but without any real likable characters that does limit the film’s potential right off the bat. Then the film can also feel a bit on the long side as a result. I gotta say, the movie could and should have been a whole lo better than it was. The way it turned out, it’s not a film I would be interested in re watching.

Overall, Insidious: The Red Door suffers from being a standard horror film. It doesn’t come close to matching the visuals of the original Insidious and it’s lacking anything all that memorable. It’s not the worst Insidious film but you will struggle to find any real positives about it. Horror films seem to be allergic to good characters most of the time but they would do the genre a whole world of good. Next time they should spend more time on the characters and less on the horror setup. We don’t need Dalton to draw the same things numerous times and calling his brother to confirm that something weird is going on. The scenes never go anywhere until the very end.

Overall 2/10

Mass Review

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All right it’s time for a film that is the definition of being dialogue based. There is a whole lot of talking here and the characters don’t really get to leave the room once they’re inside. It’s an interesting concept but the execution is done in a way that prevents the film from being all that interesting. Each of the characters has to try and navigate their way through the conversation carefully so the pacing gets shot immediately and it all goes downhill from there. Now it’s hard to say if the positions themselves are a spoiler or not but since that is the focus early on, I’m going to lean on not. Throwing the warning out early though because if you do feel that’s a spoiler, then you’ll need to skip the whole review until you watch it.

The movie starts with a room being set up in a church. They are expecting 4 guests and the church lady is extremely stressed the whole time. We get a lot of awkward dialogue the whole time but finally the 4 people arrive. They are two couples and they are here to talk about a recent school shooting. Their conversation is going to get pretty intense because one couple are the parents of one of the kids who got shot, while the other couple are the parents of the school shooter who was then shot by the authorities. Can they come to an understanding?

Well naturally just from the premise you can see how this isn’t exactly a popcorn action flick. It’s all very serious and dreary the whole time. I think the idea of a debate of sorts would be pretty interesting but this isn’t really a debate. The parents of the first boy just really want to hear some regret from the other parents and try to convince them that their son was a monster. Meanwhile the other couple is doing their best to be pleasant but don’t want to back down on their position that he was still their son and otherwise was a good person.

As a result, it’s not like there is much of an end point that they can have here. The second couple has been taking heat from everybody around the world and may have even had similar conversations with other parents. Meanwhile the first couple can talk a lot but it won’t bring their son back so if anything it means that the conversation may just stir up old wounds even more. They all hope that this conversation will help provide some closure but will it do that? In my mind that seems like a pretty impossible task. I could see having conversations with other people but reaching that far across the aisle is probably going to be a bad idea 99% of the time.

Again I do find conversations like this interesting but typically the features I watch online are done in a much more aggressive ways. Think of something along the lines of Piers Morgan where the panelists are always yelling over each other and calling each other names or any Youtube debate with folks like Destiny, Asmongold, Haasan, The Crucible, Peterson, etc. They tend to be one dimension removed from the situation so they can go on TV and start yelling real hard as they press on the positions. You get the slightest fact or detail wrong and they will absolutely pounce on you right away.

In some ways that kind of conversation will tend to yield more results since you can try exposing the other side. Of course in this movie nobody is really in it to expose the other. Perhaps a little at first but again it’s more for closure. It’s just that it takes absolutely forever to get to any of the points. Anytime they start to get into some interesting topics like gun control, psychiatry, etc. they are cut off by one of the other characters to try and make more emotional arguments instead of looking at things logically.

By far I would say the couple who raised the shooter were the best characters here. They both did their best to be sympathetic and proper right from the jump. They said all the right things while also refusing to back down from their positions or relent on any point that would make their son seem like a monster. They kept strong here and just did a solid job. They were also able to look at the situation a whole lot more analytically and didn’t have as many emotional bursts as the first couple. Considering that they went through a whole lot as well, that was impressive. Whether or not they suffered more than the second couple will be debatable but ranking different traumas is ultimately pointless. Everybody suffered in this film which is the point that the film is trying to establish here.

Of course the first couple has a lot of reason to be upset but they were the ones mainly breaking the agreed upon rules like going into interrogation mode and launching into personal attacks. They were consistently more aggressive and having to walk around the room. I give the first couple a lot of credit for agreeing to meet up as well since this easily could have been a trap or some kind of surprise attack. Once they were all alone in that room, any number of bad things could have happened before any kind of backup would arrive. So the first couple also showed a lot of bravery.

The scenes with the church folks from the beginning and ending may have been a little too dragged out but I appreciated the attempt at trying to have a little levity in here. I wouldn’t have minded that as a subplot of them running around and maybe bumping into the room once or twice. It would have been a good chance to have a few cliffhangers too with one side landing a solid zinger as we cut away and then return.

At its core, I suppose the main issue here is that the conversation gets fairly boring pretty fast. You basically know all of the stances that the characters will take before they make them. This is of course because the film is trying to go for a lot of realism. You could picture this being a real conversation between two families with all of the crying and pausing that was implemented in the film. There are probably talks like this that go on every day but in a film you need to do some kind of enhancing to make it interesting. The film could have probably had its runtime cut in half and still preserved all of the core ideas that were brought in.

Overall, Mass may be realistic but it’s not particularly entertaining. I really think they should have had the lawyers from both ides involved. That way you have them being aggressive the whole time while the family begins to see the others’ side of view. The lawyers get kicked out in the climax and then we get the quick wholesome ending. That would definitely work well for making things a little intense. All in all, if this is a topic that you find interesting then you may enjoy the film but otherwise I do think you can find better movies that touch on the themes of forgiveness and moving past trauma like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Overall 2/10

Donnie Darko 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 where the main character is slowly going crazy but you have to determine if this is actually what’s going on or if there’s more to the situation than meets the eye. You’ve got the classic delusions and even a giant 6 foot Rabbit so this film isn’t afraid to get supernatural. Unfortunately the build up is rather large to what I would consider to be a lackluster climax and getting there is rough with the characters all being super annoying and terrible for the most part. There aren’t really many people to root for here and so that’s something sequels will need to try and fix.

The film starts off by introducing us to Donnie who has been having some mental issues for a while now. He takes pills to reduce the effects but sometimes he skips them and starts to crash out. He’s been wandering around the city at night and seeing a large rabbit man named Frank. Frank tells Donnie that the world is going to end in a few days. Donnie might even believe him but officially tells his therapist that he doesn’t think the world will end. Donnie actually has two friends and then even gets a girlfriend in Gretchen but for the most part has trouble connecting to people. Even the famous motivational speaker gets on Donnie’s nerves. Will he be able to stop the world from ending or is Fran really just a figment of his imagination?

This is one of those films where you will definitely need to stay focused because we jump from day to day. There is a timer about how many days are left until the end of the world and so sometimes there are whole weeks left and then there are just a few days in others. So you have to read through these carefully because the film isn’t always linear but the events are normal enough where you might not even notice at times. A engine fell through Donnie’s house but fortunately he wasn’t hurt but the cops are acting a bit weird about the whole thing.

Like I said before the main problem here does come from the characters though. Donnie is extremely hard to root for. He shows up with a bad attitude from the start and never really gets any better. From insulting his sister and mother to crashing out during lessons, he just isn’t a very heroic figure. During his therapy sessions he has a hard time focusing and it doesn’t seem like anything really interests him. He’s very odd the whole time and you can be odd without being a jerk but he never really chooses that option. I would have liked to have seen him resist Frank’s influence more as well.

Donnie seems easy to manipulate and always tends to choose the worst outcomes. Even through to the end I don’t think he made the right call. He basically decides to give up, at least that’s how I would frame it. He could have tried a lot of other paths but he chose the easiest one which doesn’t even guarantee a happy ending. In fact you could say that in some ways this is now the dark ending but it depends on how you interpret it. I’ll go into my interpretation near the end of the film.

For the most part I’d say the film has a generally dark tone. Everyone’s been through a lot and there is another tragedy along each corner. You’ve got Gretchen’s backstory which is naturally dark and then gets even darker with what happens in the present. You have the motivational speaker’s secret which is again super dark and so the town doesn’t seem to have a lot of hope with it. One girl is bullied a whole lot and naturally the main character doesn’t do much about it. Just about everyone is needlessly mean spirited like when a bunch of kids make fun of an old lady.

There’s quite a bit of language here and none of the characters seem like someone you would want to be friends with. Of course the characters are not responsible while the parents are away and throw a big fight as well. People are doing drugs, the romance is rushed, etc. This film definitely takes itself very seriously but this kind of grim title needs a bit more of a hook.

That’s where Frank really should come in. Lets get some more answers out of this guy and learn about the end of the world. Well, for the most part he just talks cryptically the whole time and isn’t very helpful. Sometimes he helps out like when he had Donnie burn down a house that exposed a villain. That was good but is takes him a while to get to that point. Before that Frank just seems generally demonic and it’s still hard to tell what his actual goals are. Is he just here to spread chaos? Because I could definitely believe that.

Okay now to discuss the ending. Skip these next two paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film yet. My main theory here is that there was no real time travel per say and instead we got taken to a new dimension. Throughout the film they talk about time travel by going through a ship and entering a portal to go back. Well, we get to see Donnie arrive back at the start but he chooses to stay in his room so the engine crashes through and murders him. At this point all of the characters across the film wake up, seemingly very startled. Some are panicking, sweating, etc.

It seems like they all regained their memories of the lost time here. So even though it’s the past, the events all seemed to happen. For that reason I would say that Donnie was able to open a portal through dimensions. In this way it’s like a parallel universe where everybody is around but now events are playing out a bit differently. Unfortunately because Donnie won’t be around to burn the house, that means the speaker will still be up to his criminal activities. Then again if everyone remembers, maybe they can shut him down quickly. That’s basically how I interpret the ending and so it’s a pretty sad one since Donnie gave up and just let himself get blasted. He should have gotten out of there and used his advanced knowledge to really make a difference. There are a ton of ways you can change the world when you have an early start like that. It also seems like this kind of thing has happened before with the old lady who wrote a book but Donnie should have checked in with her right away. The whole alternate universe would also tie in with the planet ending like Frank said. In this way it really did end as that universe/timeline no longer exists.

Well, there are a lot of ways to look at the ending. The film is definitely weird enough for it all. Unfortunately it’s just no weird in a good way. You absolutely could have pulled this off if the characters were better but this cast? Yeah they were definitely not even remotely ready for this. A good surreal kind of film needs to have quality characters, a really engaging plot, and of course an interesting climax. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is an example of a really weird film that works after all.

Overall, Donnie Darko is held back in a lot of ways by Donnie Darko himself. He isn’t quite the lead character that you need to make a film like this succeed. Instead he just keeps the film from reaching its true potential. The rest of the characters don’t really help matters either though. Frank had potential here but the way his character goes out is pretty lame and he lost all of his aura the instant that the mask came off. There just isn’t much that is appealing about this film. I give it some props for trying to have a very unique story but it did not work.

Overall 2/10

Fall Review

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Fall is one of those films that basically just has one location and the challenge is to try and keep the film captivating for the full runtime. I think there’s a decent amount of potential in that kind of idea but this premise in particular was pretty limited the whole time. There’s only so much you can do with the tower the whole time and this movie had to resort to some desperate tactics the whole time. Needless to say, this film was not a winner.

The movie starts by introducing us to Becky and her best friend Hunter. They both like climbing a lot but it is a rather dangerous sport and Becky’s husband ends up dying during one such adventure. A year passes and Becky has not been able to recover at all. So Hunter shows up and tells Becky that it’s time to face her fears by climbing an incredibly dangerous radio tower that was decommissioned years ago. Naturally that means it is not up to code anymore and so climbing it is going to be pretty rough. Hunter needs the views for her social media though and Becky is weak to peer pressure so she agrees to go on the mission. Will this be a fatal mistake?

The first thing you’ll notice here is that the film loves going for shock value. We see a dog being eaten alive early on in the film in such a gratuitous scene that it dooms the whole movie. At this point there was literally no way the film was going to redeem itself. That just doesn’t happen. Then later on we have a bird getting eaten alive and so the film really wasn’t holding back on the animal violence. Those were 2 really poor options and yeah the film never did even come close to recovering.

I also feel like the movie wasn’t particularly confident in its own plot. For that reason one of the characters wears a fairly impractical outfit which she says is to appease the viewers and get clicks. It’s sadly realistic but still not a good thing for the movie because it’s just taken to the extreme. I would say live action movies don’t generally have a big fanservice issue but this is an actual plot point and the camera angles are always at the ready so this is another thing that is not in the film’s favor.

Going 3 for 3, the film also has a pretty big writing issue. The script is super low effort with the characters swearing up a storm and so they forget to ever make them all that likable. Hunter is being way too pushy about Becky climbing this super dangerous tower and is then irresponsible as well. Forgetting to pack any food is an absolutely massive oversight. Then we also learn more about their past and it turns out that Hunter was no true friend at all. That was really unnecessary and just added extra drama for no real reason. You really shouldn’t do that, it’s another desperate move on the film’s part that doesn’t enhance the experience at all.

I’d also say it’s the worst possible timing to mention this while you are stuck high up in the sky like this. It’s only a good idea if you want to get pushed off. As for Becky, she’s also not likable as she takes out her grief on everybody else. It’s fine not to have moved on after a year but then you need to be able to internalize this pretty well and not just double down on the mistakes. You also shouldn’t let yourself get manipulated so easily and make no mistake, she was easily handled by Hunter. Just not a good idea because usually peer pressure is done in a negative way. It doesn’t have to be that way but that’s usually how it goes.

The film handles its twist pretty well. It feels like the twist was all anybody would talk about for this film after it came out because it was so legendary and I do think that part was handled pretty well. I still have some logic issues with the film though that are hard to overlook. For starters when Hunter heads back down for the drone, why not use it right then? Instead of making a 20/80 jump to try to get back up, use it right away. If you can get help then you will have pulled off a great moment. You could probably even use it to carefully guide the remaining phone down. The low battery issue would have come up either way but they didn’t know that at the time.

You’ll probably have to stretch your disbelief the most when night time comes. You just don’t buy that the characters wouldn’t roll off while asleep or that a big gust of wind wouldn’t blow them away. They are way too sentient and operating logically even after having been up there for well over 24 hours. Adrenaline can get you pretty far but not quite this far. They’re still able to climb and move around with maneuvers that take up a whole lot of upper body strength. It’s especially a stretch for Becky who has spent the last year drinking endless amounts of beer at the bar and just lounging her life away. You will keep some strength but enough to pull off all these stunts? Nah, I don’t even believe it for Hunter much less Becky. Too much energy was spent just getting up the tower, let alone being stuck up there for so long.

Beyond that, the film shows how hopeless the whole thing was pretty well. Once you are on that tower there aren’t a whole lot of options available to you. Climbing that is a bad idea in itself but people do bad ideas for clicks all the time online so it’s not super surprising. It doesn’t make the characters any more likable though. I think what would have made this film more likable would be if they had a great reason for climbing like someone was offering money that they needed for a sick relative or something. You’d get the reasoning a bit better.

Of course the film would obviously still fail if it didn’t clean up the animal violence though. There’s no real getting around that particularly with how violent those moments were. The one location type films can be hit or miss and at the end of the day this one was a miss. We did check off the box of having super mean passerbys though as two guys show up just to really stick it to the leads. Perhaps unnecessary but also a bit funny because what are the odds these guys would be that level of corrupt right? Like at least call the cops after stealing the van or something.

Overall, Fall is not a film that I would recommend. Even aside from all the unnecessary moments, it’s just not a film that is very confident in its own story. I think deep down the writers knew that there was no shut things would work out after being stuck on top and so they had to add a whole lot of drama to try and distract you. The main problem is that the distractions simply don’t work so at the end of the day you’re just shaking your head the whole time. If you want a film with a whole lot more tension you should probably keep on searching elsewhere.

Overall 2/10

Diamonds Are Forever Review

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It’s time for another James Bond adventure and unfortunately this is one of his weakest. As always it does have a ton of problems like with the fanservice and Bond being a terrible main character but I dare say it falls into the traps even more than the others. It’s fairly close I suppose since the films are known for this but there’s just not enough time to have fun on the proper spy stuff. At least I can take solace in the fact that Bond looks like a chump for most of the film.

The exception is the intro scene as we see Bond systematically murdering everyone who works for Blofeld and getting on his trail. This climaxes with Bond murdering some of the henchmen and even Blofeld himself. Now he is ready for his next mission involving a bunch of diamonds that are being smuggled around the planet. There is something going on here and meanwhile we have two assassins who are murdering anyone who has even come into contact with them. Will Bond be able to stop them?

So lets get the obvious negatives out of the way first. The film is loaded to the brim with fanservice in just about every scene. The whole opening credits have a lot of this as expected and then you’ve got a bunch of different heroines running around here. You figured that Bond might tone things down after he got married but that’s not the case. Instead he is back to his old ways completely. So much for becoming a loyal guy. This is why it’s always hard to root for James Bond.

He’s living the fantasy all right, but that’s usually the villain’s job. Then Bond does look really bad on several occasions. The worst is when he let his guard down around the diamonds and got thrown into a coffin to be cremated. He had to be saved there since he was really about to die. Then later on he is knocked out again after walking into the most obvious trap of all time and is only saved by the villains’ ineptitude. Bond doesn’t feel like an ultimate secret agent with how many times he messes up.

I know that he’s only human and can’t be expected to be perfect but I also expect him to be putting up some real fights. For example at one point Blofeld has him at gun point and tells Bond to walk into a mysterious room. Bond does, where he gets knocked out but why do that? Take your chance and rush at Blofeld because the room would obviously be an instant death otherwise. It’s why in real life if someone tells you to get inside a car at gunpoint you make a break for it. Because going in the car will just be a more painful death or something worse, whereas if you mess up on the run, at least you’ll be dead quickly from the bullet. It’s not guaranteed but your odds are absolutely better.

So Bond loses all of the goodwill that he got during the opening scene which is a shame. At best it can be morbidly humorous to see him flipping the script on some of the ladies who seduce him by having his fun and then just lying afterwards. Why they would actually believe him is something I’m still wondering. They’re all just real desperate I suppose. Also it’s worth noting that Bond was getting absolutely crushed by two ladies in the climax which was another embarrassing moment for him. One of them had a super long wind up to her big attack and he still took the whole thing to the face. Definitely a low moment in his career.

It was fun to see Blofeld getting more of a role here though. His plans may not always be all that great and he is wildly overconfident but after so many films of being in the shadows, it was great to see him take center stage. His body doubles were also pretty fun. The way he goes out is perhaps not the dignified ending people would expect but these villains often do have a way of crumbling as soon as the going gets tough. It’s a tale as old as time.

Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd are two villains who get old really fast though. I was actually annoyed at how much screentime they got and how often they kept getting the best of Bond. It’s not even like they’re super tough but Bond just forgets to take anything seriously half the time. We got the whole book-end scene with Bond’s wine knowledge coming into play but you mean to tell me that he was otherwise going to start eating/drinking a meal from room service that he didn’t order? I swear Bond has absolutely no survival sense whatsoever. He gets lucky so many times because he should be dead over 10 times in this film alone. Kidd and Wint just have the charisma of a stick of butter and that weakens the whole assassination plot.

Tiffany is the main heroine out of all the heroines but I can’t say that she’s very good at all. She is ready to help out by the end of the film but also makes a ton of mistakes the whole time and comes off as way too easy. Tiffany shouldn’t be degrading herself to be with a man like Bond that doesn’t even care about her. I won’t fault her for messing up by switching the discs though because from her point of view that actually made a lot of sense. If anything it’s impressive that she was able to switch it out without alerting anybody. She wasn’t so lucky a second time but the attempt was worthwhile.

The fights we do get are pretty fun here. There is a solid amount of action throughout the two hours and some good physical stunts as well. That’s why the Bond films tend to be tragic. The action that we do get is very sound and the plot is engaging if not a little overly convoluted. The diamonds switch hands so often that you start to lose interest after a point. I dare say that the film did as well because it doesn’t really factor into the space laser all that much. I think it may have doubled as a power source or something but yeah it wasn’t super focused.

Overall, This is definitely a James Bond film. It is quite direct about what the appeals of the film are meant to be and unfortunately they haven’t aged well. I like a good ole power fantasy as much as the next guy but Bond is really a different kind of fantasy and it doesn’t make him look particularly likable. The films would eventually improve once we got to the newer ones but this was a real low point in the franchise. You should skip this one as quickly as possible and just go with a different Bond adventure.

Overall 2/10