Category Archives: 2 Star Movies

Goke, The Body Snatcher from Hell Review

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I actually had some reasonable expectations for this film but ultimately it fell flat. Goke just wasn’t able to really live up to my expectations because the film decided to go the vampire route instead. Things got a little gritty and instead of cool hand to hand action scenes the humans were just bickering a lot. You can’t win like that, that’s for sure.

The movie starts with a bunch of people on an airplane. They’ve all got big plans for the rest of their lives and are enjoying the pleasant cruise when there is a bomb scare. Sugisaka along with attendant Kuzumi try to find out who has the bomb but then the plane crashes. The heroes are now isolated in a desert region and have no way to salvage the ship. They also must deal with the fact that one of the passengers may have a bomb. Additionally, they know that nobody is coming to save them after turning on the news and hearing the reporters confirm this. One of the passengers quickly breaks the radio though since it was being too helpful.

So that’s a fairly interesting story dynamic you’ve got there. These passengers who each have their own story and values must put aside their own differences in order to band together. There is just one problem and unfortunately it is a big one. There is also a body snatcher from hell that is here to destroy them all. The creature arrived in some kind of meteorite and quickly takes control of a passenger. The only way to know who is the alien is to look for someone with a huge scar on their face and the characters are too busy fighting with each other to put up much of a fight.

Goke started off on the wrong foot as the movie opens with a bunch of birds dying. See, Goke’s influence is able to stir up the wildlife around him which forces the birds to take down the plane. It’s hard to say what the exact purpose of this is. Is it merely the birds growing afraid or Goke mind controlling them because he wanted a vessel? If you think about it, there isn’t even much value in having a vessel since their spaceships are already strong enough to really do whatever they need to do.

Once we’re on the island, the film makes sure to show us that none of the characters are likable which leads to a Lord of the Flies kind of scenario. Sugisaka is easily the character with the strongest moral compass. Ultimately he wants to make sure everyone is able to walk out of here in one piece. I’ll give the guy props for trying to keep everyone together. I just disagreed with one of his decisions when he said nobody should even think about leaving the ship. Hehe…lets just say I’ll talk more about that later.

Kuzumi was also good. She did her best to help out and make sure things were going well. These are the only two reasonable characters. Next up you have Neal who is the sole American in the film so that’s always fun. She is very dramatic the whole time and cries a lot which unfortunately makes things easy on Goke. I ended up losing respect for her when she was on board with the plan of sacrificing some of the crew for her own personal survival. Yeah that’s the kind of thing that is not going to go over well in the slightest.

Mano is a senator who is really unreasonable throughout the film. He’s always telling people to hurry up and get him out of here when it’s clear as crystal that there isn’t anything anyone can do at the moment. Why is this such a foreign concept to him? The guy is also having an affair with Tokiyasu’s wife. Mano is also very quick to betray the others and does this numerous times throughout the film.

Then you have Tokiyasu who willingly threw his wife at Mano in order to try and secure a deal for his company. That tells you the level of ethics that this guy follows. Noriko is also content to go along with this plan which is unfortunate as well. In horror films being unfaithful usually ends up being disastrous for all parties involved and this movie is no exception.

There’s Momotake but he doesn’t last long. The guy is actually happy about the plane crash because he has a theory that humans will always devolve into their base instincts and he wants a chance to prove this. Yes, great for him…but that’s naturally going to only lead to one conclusion right? Momotake talks a big game but he still seems a little surprised by what he had predicted.

Finally there is Sagai who seemed to be reasonable for most of the movie but then he also decided they needed to start sacrificing people. So he went down the drain. It’s a common theme in the film that at the end of the day you can’t trust anyone. Ultimately everyone will betray you and it’s just a very cynical way of looking at things. It would have been nice if they weren’t all so corrupt.

The idea of the cast slowly all going mad as they’re trapped in a small plane with no water or food can definitely be interesting but it has to be handled really carefully. I saw a film sort of like that (I forget the title) where the characters are locked in a house by an invisible force and all start to go crazy. That one was handled better to be sure even if it had some issues.

Now you would think the alien plot would automatically fix things right? Well, I wouldn’t say that the process is automatic because these aliens are basically vampires. Yes, that’s one of the last things this film needed. The movie isn’t afraid to get rather violent with these interactions as the humans are slowly drained into oblivion. Each of these scenes certainly drags and the movie ends up falling into the classic horror hole of being violent for shock value. Throw in all of the animal deaths from earlier and this movie did not know what it was doing.

Even the design for when the aliens inhabit the human hosts is not very fun to look at. They have to make a giant incision in the person’s face which looks like an obvious weak point. The vampires also aren’t very fast so you know that they can be outrun if the humans would stop tripping and looking back. Just keep on going full speed and you’ll be okay. Why turn back like that? All you’re doing is speeding up your own demise!

Okay, so a lot happens by the end of the film and I won’t spoil the twist since it’s like something out of an M Shyamalan film. Of course the heroes crashed somewhere so a few of them suggest running outside for a while to get to the next town. This idea is slammed down but what if they had actually gone? The ending gives you a look at what would have happened and it does make the characters look pretty bad. From the start I thought it was a terrible idea to stay put. Sure the outdoors are dangerous but you have no water or food so isn’t it better to leave now while you have energy than later?

The one thing I will say for the film is that the ending is pretty hype. Things start accelerating a lot quicker than I ever would have suspected and really changes the whole context of what’s going on. I would actually be reasonably hyped for a sequel. The issue with this film…or at least one of them is that we were just focused on the wrong people. I want to see the rest of the planet now which should make for a much more interesting narrative.

Overall, Goke, Body Snatcher was disappointing. Honestly I was expecting it to be significantly better than how it turned out. The aliens being vampires is such an awful idea and making the characters this unlikable was not a good decision. Whenever any film decides to make the whole cast villains for some reason I have to shake my head because that will never work. It’s just not a good idea because you need someone to sympathize with and this completely removes the chances of that happening. If you want to watch an interesting alien film then you have much better options that you can take a look at. This one is best left to the remnants of history.

Overall 2/10

Night Must Fall Review

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When I saw the remake of this film I remember thinking that the whole thing was definitely quite bad. Still, the original ought to be a little better right since it usually gets a bump for having better writing? Well, that wasn’t quite the case here or at least it wasn’t enough to make a tangible difference. It’s the story itself that’s pretty bad so I suppose there is no saving that.

The movie starts with Mrs. Bramson getting ready to fire her maid Dora. Dora has been getting a little sloppy around the house but pleads for mercy as she tells Mrs. Bramson that she wants to marry a guy called Danny. Bramson meets him and is quickly won over so she hires him as a servant. Danny quickly begins to take over the house though as he and Bramson get quite close. Bramson’s nice Olivia isn’t thrilled about this as she’s pushed further and further out of the picture. The true threat here may be more serious than that though. Olivia suspects that Danny may have murdered a girl who went missing recently.

The characters all make a lot of really questionable decisions throughout the film in order to help Danny get ahead. For starters, Mrs. Bramson falls for his tricks way too quickly. Within minutes he’s got her completely suckered. Based on how tough she was talking at first you would think she would have done better than that right? She is harsh with everyone else but can’t bring herself to stand up to Danny. What’s worse is the fact that by the end she is panicking just for being alone which causes her to lower her guard immediately to the point where she nearly dies of a heart attack.

Dora is another pretty bad character. Danny manages to trick her with ease by continuing to promise that he will marry her but not doing anything about it. You’d think that Dora would pick up on the context clues and several characters even try to put her on the right track but she won’t hear of it. Considering that she’s the main reason why he got the job that makes her a little responsible for everything going on too.

We mustn’t forget Olivia either who is practically an accomplice by the end. She really thinks Danny committed the murder and as the film goes on this becomes plainer and plainer. Surely she will tip off the authorities or get out of there right? Instead she actively disrupts the investigation such as when she took the bag away that probably had the victim’s head in it. Why do that? There’s no good reason for it except that she wanted to help Danny.

Her character is certainly an odd one throughout. At times she tries to talk tough about how she will never like Danny but then she caves rather quickly. She doubts herself a lot and always ends up running back to the mansion. Each time she won’t actually tell Bramson anything. Olivia quickly ended up becoming the worst character in the series. She just wouldn’t stop putting everyone in danger. Her long speech about how the first lady may have been murdered was also rather disturbing. There was something a little off about her all the way through.

Then you have Justin who seems like a nice enough guy but he’ll certainly have a tough time of things with Olivia. Hopefully she should be okay now that the main adventure is over though. Finally we have the main villain Danny who’s just awful the whole way through. He certainly talks fast but I wouldn’t even call him a smooth talker. The guy makes a ton of rookie mistakes. He leaves out details with the cops that they quickly track down later on. He keeps incriminating evidence with him at all times and makes other mistakes like that.

He’s really quite lucky that he hasn’t been caught yet despite how tough he talks the whole time. Danny randomly fainting in the middle of the room was also a scene that showed he wasn’t quite ready for this level of excitement. If not for Olivia constantly covering for him the guy would have been in some pretty steep trouble.

I should mention he’s also not very pleasant to the cat like in one scene where he basically throws her. I wouldn’t even say the writing is all that good here because everything is so convenient in order for Danny to have a chance. Why are all of the characters living in this house so insane? His plan revolves around so many things to work out just perfectly that you really can’t believe it when it all lines up.

The film also drags on as a result. A whole lot of the scenes are just him complimenting Bramson over and over again as she falls for each comment. If you’ve seen one of their scenes then you’ve seen them all. Since Olivia’s not even remotely a good character it’s not like her scenes help to balance things out either. Of course after that you have the maids but they tend to vanish for large parts of the film so you even forget they are there. Dora also looks pretty bad since she also falls for his tricks.

Overall, Night Must Fall is a fairly annoying movie filled with bad characters. The main plot is just so preposterous as each character falls for Danny which lets him continue with his plans. The only good character would be the police officer and even he didn’t exactly do anything big until the end. A film like this will usually live or die on the intrigue of seeing how the heroes manage to solve the clues and figure out that Danny is the crook. The issue is that this never gets started since Olivia finds out very quickly and still chooses to do nothing. When that’s the case…it’s like the film gave up. Danny was even able to psycho analyze Olivia a few times which didn’t help her case.

Overall 2/10

Greta Review

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This review is of the edited 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

Greta is one of those films where the whole plot is effectively about punishing someone for doing a good deed. It’s certainly a unique premise there although it also serves as a cautionary tale of why you should always do things through anonymous mail or something rather than going to the home of someone you’ve never met before.

The movie starts with introducing us to Frances who finds a handbag on the Subway one day. She decides to take it home and finds an ID in it for a lady named Greta along with a lot of money. Her roommate Erica says they should just spend the money but Frances wants to return it. The lost and found is closed so she goes in person. Greta is really happy to have had this returned and they end up swapping numbers. Before you know it, Frances and Greta are the best of friends. Erica tells Frances to watch out but the lead isn’t worried. Things take a turn when she sees that Greta has many other copies of the same purse with names on them. Could it be that this was a trap?

Not, it’s a horror film so of course Greta is as evil as possible but even if she wasn’t it’s true that Frances didn’t take a great many precautions. For starters, if you’re returning something from the Subway, you definitely should mail it or hand it to the local authorities to sort out. Bringing the purse on her own to a stranger in a house she’s never been to is absolutely not the right way to go about this. Even more I wouldn’t have given my phone number, that’s all you need to find someone’s address although as soon as Greta had the name that was game over as well.

For the record, returning the bag was naturally the right thing to do even if in the film that’s what got Frances. That said, you just need to give it to a third party or mail it anonymously. As Greta begins stalking Frances everywhere there was also one more scene that stood out to me because it didn’t make sense. So Frances knows that Greta is right outside waiting to tail her. She should leave with some of the other employees when it’s closing time right? Instead she is somehow all by herself when she leaves that night. I doubt they would only have one person closing for such a huge restaurant so how did she end up leaving all by herself after everyone else? It just seemed a little iffy to me considering that she knew how much danger she was in the whole time.

Greta the film also makes another misstep when the main villain adopts a dog. I think everyone knows exactly how this will end the instant that it happens and I was wincing over here. The film handles the end as painlessly as possible which is good but it’s absolutely an element that did not need to be in the film. Why throw in animal violence so randomly like this?

Greta also doesn’t make for the most imposing villain since she is quite old after all. It’s hard to see how she is moving so quickly when chasing Erica. Either Erica also has very poor eyesight or Greta is just that agile. At times there is no place to hide when looking around so that’s one of those scenes where it’s there for the scares but doesn’t make sense.

The other scene that’s particularly iffy is when a private agent goes to scout out Greta’s place and she naturally takes him on with ease. She’s literally dancing around the bullets as if she’s a superhuman fighter while he is getting completely embarrassed. Yeah he got drugged but the whole thing was definitely not a good look for him. It’s not surprising though since you know exactly how his character arc will end the instant he appears.

So you can’t really take Greta seriously and since she is really just insane and barely has a motivation there isn’t much to her. Her goal may be to have another daughter on the outside but really from how she’s acting you can tell that’s a hollow goal and she just wants chaos. I wasn’t a big fan of Frances either though. She really should have at least listened to Erica a bit. I also thought she should have done way better against Greta. We see a montage suggesting she was captured for quite a while and played the role of dutiful daughter until she finally made a move. I’d argue she should have attacked sooner.

Still, at least she attacked and got in a rather solid blow. Frances needed to finish the job there or at least put Greta in a state where she would be unable to fight back. Instead Frances gives Greta her back as she wanders around and gets taken out. In a way this is a horror film that harkens back to the old days where the main characters always made a lot of questionable decisions leading to it being known as a trope in the first place.

Erica is easily the best character in the film. She may be a bit harsh at times but she does look out for Frances. She was also ready to square up against Greta if not for a speeding car that arrived at the last minute. She took a lot of risks in the climax of the film as well. Ultimately she was the only character who could actually give Greta a run for her money. Her bravery alone is enough to make her a solid character and I think the film probably would have gone a lot differently if she had been the lead.

Overall, Greta is one of those horror films where you can see all the story beats coming a mile away. Predictability isn’t a bad thing when they’re good story beats but this film is far from it. Greta’s certainly a very deranged villain who has been in the game for quite a while so the whole situation is rather tragic the more you think about it. She doesn’t seem all that strong physically though so I would have liked to have seen Frances make more of an attempt to escape or fight back more throughout the movie. Her friend Erica was definitely great though and we do get one of those classic horror twist endings to set up the sequel. It makes Frances look pretty bad again though. I definitely would not recommend this one and you should keep looking if you want a solid horror thriller.

Overall 2/10

Child’s Play 3 Review

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This review is of the edited 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

I gotta say, I was not expecting corporate to return here so that was actually pretty impressive. Once again, they have the most interesting scenes here as the board discusses what to do with the whole Chucky incident. This is the kind of story arc that could really make for an amazing movie. I’d be really interested to see how this plays out. Unfortunately, this only makes up the first few scenes and then they don’t appear again but it’s a good way to set things up. Beyond that, this is more of the same from the second film.

Chucky has returned and once again he wants to take Andy down. He tracks the kid down to a military school. Andy is now 16 so he’s a lot older than he used to be but is still having a tough time of it thanks to how Chucky ruined his life. This school is also quite extreme to the point where the leader of the military squad is an open bully that nobody even tries to stop. Andy gets harassed on a daily basis but at least he’s safe right? His world is about to get rocked one more time.

At this point you definitely have to feel bad for Andy. He’s not only lost his home and his family at this point but now he’s in a school that is shown to be quite awful and Chucky still finds him. If he fights back then people think he’s insane and if he doesn’t then more people end up dying. It would seem that no matter what he does, things end up going sideways regardless. At the end of the day Andy does his best to help out Tyler and do the right thing so this may be his best appearance. He even fought back when Shelton landed a cheap shot on him. The best part is the fact that Andy was actually beating Chucky up throughout the film but got interrupted before he could finish the villain off. Andy wasn’t playing here.

As for Chucky, he may get a lot of wins in the film as he bumps people off but in some ways I would say it was probably his weakest appearance from the three films. If you think about it, he would only attack people when he had an overwhelming advantage and was quick to pretend he was a doll again otherwise. His spell to change bodies also seems to never really work so at this point you feel like he needs to try something else or lock someone in a building before trying it so he doesn’t get interrupted.

As for Whitehurst, he may be the worst character in the film. He completely ignores the fact that someone got murdered right in front of him and then decides not to help to prevent other murders. He allows other people to get left on the spot as a result and doesn’t actually make a move until the very end of the film. That’s not a good way for a character to get into my good graces. He just wouldn’t step up when he was needed and that’s a shame.

As for Tyler, he’s a kid so you can cut him a little more slack with how Chucky was tricking him the whole time. It can actually make sense in some respects since you wouldn’t expect a toy to be evil like that. He was quick with a knife too which was important. Then you’ve got DeSilva who is the main heroine here. She’s pretty good with a gun even if that had no real payoff in the film. Where she really shines is in how she defies the bullies more than the others. She talks back to Shelton and his cronies and is also able to do pushups with ease. As a result nobody can intimidate her so she makes for a strong ally.

Shelton and his crew are definitely quite exaggerated though. I haven’t seen bullies get this much free reign in quite a while. After a while you’ll start to roll your eyes at what these guys are doing. You also know that things probably won’t end well for the main one since they never do in these films. Unfortunately as a result this film has to have the worst script and writing yet. Each character has a sailor’s mouth here including Chucky as they hurl insults at each other. It’s not surprising that the bullies would be spreading this around but why has nobody stopped them yet? This military school is definitely portrayed as being quite corrupt.

As you would expect the film is quite violent as well. The characters all die in rather gruesome ways for getting in Chucky’s way. Just when you think someone’s going to live, you remember that you’re watching a Chucky film and get back to your seat. The film definitely isn’t hiding the fact that these characters are going to be absolutely crushed because each scene lets you know that right away. The barber had been an interesting character but he had death flags from the start. It would have been interesting if he had actually been able to give Chucky a haircut but the odds of that were absolutely astronomical. Chucky just wasn’t going to go for any of this.

Overall, Child’s Play 3 is about on the same level as the second film. If I absolutely had to pick one film over the other….I would probably say this one is a tad better. It’s very close though to be sure. Both are almost identical films as they go for a lot of shock value throughout as each character is murdered in a gruesome way and Chucky keeps surviving his own death to come back for another round. His stamina and durability is absolutely bonkers. At this point he’s seemingly died almost 10 times so that’s quite the feat. We’ll see how he does in the next film and if that one can manage to top this one. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. I’m ready for a new setting and to see how the next group handles Chucky. Surely more people would be open to the idea of an evil doll or at least banning the good guy brand after a third incident right?

Overall 2/10

Child’s Play 2 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

Now this is more like what I expected the first Child’s Play film to be like. Unfortunately that is not a good thing though. This film decides to get a lot more violent and dark as it transitions from a classic horror film to more of a slasher. Chucky isn’t playing anymore and he’s just going to go around and murder everybody. It definitely doubles down compared to the first film though so in a way this lets Chucky take more names but a film relying on shock value and over the top violence will ultimately not succeed.

The movie starts with Andy having to move in with his new foster parents. Unfortunately his mother is deemed insane due to the events of the first film which is actually a rather dark ending for her since she is no longer able to protect Andy herself. Everyone figures Andy is just crazy but his new parents are determined to help him out although Phil is rather wary the whole time while Joanne thinks this can work. They are also raising a teenage girl named Kyle who is in her rebellious phase in part because she is always being taken from foster home to foster home so she doesn’t want to drop her guard. What they don’t know is that Chucky has returned from the grave thanks to the company patching him back together. He is now ready to take some names as he dominates the cast.

I have to say the first scenes with the company is probably the most interesting part of the movie though. We see how corporate is dealing with this. As expected, they want to bury the whole Chucky incident entirely. They don’t believe in a living doll or anything like that but it could hurt sales. The CEO is introduced as a very tough character who won’t be putting up with any nonsense. Getting in his way at all is definitely incredibly risky. That said, these guys never stood a chance against Chucky either way. Chucky is able to easily overpower everyone.

See, here’s the thing about Chucky. He’s technically not all that strong. He seems to have the arm strength of a man who’s always injured. He’s certainly not as strong as a grown man given how people overpower him at times but he’s still reasonably tough. The thing is, he doesn’t have much weight though. He weighs the same as an average doll so people are still able to throw him around with ease and that’s the guy’s big weakness. So you’ll notice that in most of his scenes the guy has to rely on getting people with sneak attacks or where they are unaware.

The most embarrassing death for a character would have to be the CEO’s partner. That guy just wasn’t ready for the water gun but at that point he should have quickly ran or attacked since he knew it was fake. Instead he did not make a move until it was too late. It’s a rather vicious scene for the guy but you feel like he could have made some better options to escape. I guess he was in panic mode though which is fairly realistic. Chucky keeps on destroying people in a variety of ways as the film goes on. Each method usually gets more violent than the last so get ready for that.

As for the characters, well Andy is okay I guess. He definitely hasn’t forgotten what happened but there’s just not much he can do since he’s a kid. Either way nobody believes him and it’s not like he is old enough to make his own decisions so he is constantly put in rather dangerous circumstances like when he got tied to the bed. That was definitely a rather close shave for him. Then you have Kyle who does her best to help out near the end. Her character arc is a fairly good one since she was skeptical like the rest of the characters but once she got some concrete proof she was ready to step in.

In these films I don’t blame the characters for being super skeptical because the idea of a talking doll is rather bonkers but it’s good that she moved at the end when needed. The climax certainly goes all out here as it seems like the characters have to keep on murdering Chucky over and over again until he goes down. It’s definitely foreshadowing for the third film since you already know that this guy doesn’t go down easy. So it was a pretty intense climax there but you just know the technician was only there to be bumped off. The instant he appears you know what is going to go down.

Overall, Child’s Play 2 is definitely striving to be a lot more intense than the first film. I dare say that the violence surpasses the original one when it’s only halfway in or something like that. If you’re big on horror films I would say you’re definitely better off with the first one. This one doesn’t exactly go for anything particularly clever or noteworthy. The whole film is really just an excuse to see Chucky murder everyone. Every scene practically yells out who the next victim will be. Really what the film should have done is have more of the corporate scenes. I’m telling you, that’s where the hype part of the story would have been. I’d love to see a film about corporate trying to do damage control on this. You don’t even need Chucky to appear in theory as it’s more of a social film dealing with the fallout of a horror title. Now that’s something that’s never been done before and has a whole ton of potential.

Overall 2/10

Devil Doll Review

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Chucky’s not the only film with an evil doll. I saw The Devil Doll a while back so now it’s time for a film with a very similar name. The other one definitely had a lot more fun with the premise although this one plays it straight with actual shows on the dummy and a lot of ominous music. That said as you watch the film you have to decide if Hugo the dummy is the real threat or if something else is going on.

The film starts by introducing us to the great Vorelli and his dummy Hugo. They are quite famous nowadays with their ventriloquist shows. A local reporter named Mark is assigned to check this guy out and see if his hypnotism is for real. This guy’s not very smart so he brings his girlfriend Marianne to try this out. She ends up getting mind controlled on stage into a great dancer.

Now you may think that’s the end of it at least, but the reporter doesn’t believe it though and decides to push Marianne further by having her invite Vorelli to a party to stay the night. She reluctantly agrees after he keeps on insisting. Will this all turn out to be a huge mistake? One thing’s for sure, this is not going to be just any ole party.

Devil Doll definitely has a lot of ominous music even if it is the same track that plays over and over again. It’s an effective way to build up tension despite how overused it is and shows that the film isn’t playing around. It feels like half of Vorelli’s scenes are him staring into the camera as part of the hypnosis. Again, this makes the reporter look so bad since he knows something is fishy but puts Marianne in a bad position more than once.

I could have done without the mind control gimmick though. An evil doll/ventriloquist is already plenty of plot for any film. Do you also need this angle? Effectively Vorelli uses this to force an affair with Marianne and also enjoys his secretary. It’s definitely one way to show this guy as being a big villain but that’s definitely a plot that should have been removed. Not to mention that you should always be able to overpower mind control with pure willpower. Vorelli’s definitely got to be the worst character and as the movie goes on he hypnotizes people into doing more and more scandalous things.

As for Marianne, she’s okay I suppose but lets Mark push her around too push. She should have definitely said no to inviting Vorelli particularly since everyone is afraid of his hypnotism. It’s basically asking for trouble to have him around. It also would have been nice if she could have resisted he hypnotism or been able to tell someone when he was talking in her mind.

Then you have Hugo who doesn’t do anything for over half the film. That’s a long time with no action considering that the film is in theory based around his character. The thing is, the film’s title is a bit misleading. It should have been called the Hypnotist or something like that instead. That’s really what the film is about. Hugo does does have his own plan at the end and at least defeats someone but it’s more incidental than anything. If this was meant to be a red herring then it was effective.

That said, Hugo himself was not very smart at all. Why even let a hypnotists mess with you and a dummy? The whole thing seemed nefarious from the start so it’s no wonder that things finished the way that they did for him. Even allowing himself to be in a trick when the guy had a huge knife….all so risky. Of course, Vorelli isn’t the sharpest guy either so the tables tend to turn on him very quickly.

The writing for the film on the whole is pretty good with all of the retro dialogue and everything. It always makes for an engaging script but as a whole it couldn’t save this film. This film definitely seemed to be going for a much darker approach than most from this era. The whole hypnosis angle is really just an excuse to basically have Vorelli take advantage of everyone. The fact that Marianne is stuck in mind control for a good portion of the film by Vorelli just makes for a tiresome watch. You’re waiting for Hugo to take him out already.

Of course the reporter despite everything he knows from Hugo’s origin story to how Vorelli is acting like a hypnotist doesn’t suspect anything is up when Marianne says she will marry Vorelli. Why? Shouldn’t he suspect something or at least attack the guy? Instead he just goes to have a drink at the local bar so Hugo has to do all of the work in the climax. No worries, the reporter does return after everything is over. Why did Hugo wait so long before doing anything though? Maybe he’s not particularly powerful but he put up with a whole lot during the movie. All I can think of is perhaps the hypnosis was also working on him which is fairly embarrassing if that’s the case.

Overall, Devil Doll is not a film I would recommend. It’s one of those titles where the villain gets away with a little too much the whole time. Hypnosis can always be a rather dangerous plot element in that sense depending on how far they go with it. In this case it sours the whole experience. At least we did get an action fight scene with the Dummy though. There was a lot of actual back and forth with the characters swinging at each other. While Hugo appears as more of a hero by the end, he did straight up murder the assistant though who at best was an accomplice so there aren’t any real heroes here. Everyone is acting rather nefariously and for their own gains. Even the reporter put his story above Marianne’s safety. With nobody to root for, you almost wish Chucky had been here to put an end to things.

Overall 2/10

Nomads Review

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This review is of the edited 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

This is one of those films where the whole thing doesn’t make much sense so you just have to roll with it. The problem is that you can only roll with a film that actually has an engaging cast and quality characters…this one has neither. So Nomads is really doomed from the start and at no point in the film does it become all that engaging or interesting. You’ll definitely want to stay pretty far away from this one.

The movie starts with Jean being treated in the hospital but he doesn’t quite make it. Before he dies though, he manages to bite Dr. Eileen. The bite isn’t quite like a radioactive spider bite though because instead of super powers, she now has to relive the last few days/years of Jean’s life. She sees as he begins to unravel as he sees Nomads everywhere and they are going to take care of him for good. Can Jena avoid having the same fate or is she doomed here?

A really big portion of the film is devoted to the flashback of what happened to Jean. Ignoring the huge problem in that we already know he’s going to die anyway so the whole thing is rather empty, he’s just not a good character. His wife Niki is pretty reasonable the whole time and just seems like a nice person. Jean decides not to tell her anything though and then goes on pretty dangerous hunts to follow the Nomads and take pictures of them.

He takes a lot of pictures throughout and is constantly daring them to see him. Maybe he’s planning to write the biggest essay to end all essays but he really didn’t need this many pictures. Of course they would find him. He also knows that they’re dangerous since from the start they are writing disturbing messages all around and they flat out murder some random guy in a later scene. All Jean is doing is putting his wife in danger as well. The fact that he is keeping all of these secrets also means that Niki won’t be prepared when it’s her turn.

It’d be fun if we got to see Eileen reacting as she sees this by shaking her head or something. Unfortunately the magical bite from Jean means that she has to physically relive his events. So she is sort of playing a VR game you can say as she retraces his steps and looks rather crazy doing it. At least that makes it easy for the Nomads to track her down although to be fair they probably would have found her anyway.

So, this film is going for the classic horror approach of making the villains more powerful than any mere mortal. The characters can’t possibly do anything about them since their sheer numbers are crazy and they are probably all undead monsters anyway. The Nomads seem to want to torment the characters as much as possible by overloading them with fear before finishing them off. At least that would explain why they keep some characters alive. I guess maybe the guy in the dumpster scene didn’t give them the scared reaction they wanted so that’s why they destroyed him? I dunno and I don’t think the film does either.

Unfortunately Eileen isn’t a great character either. Sure, she’s better than Jean but it isn’t saying much. She immediately starts keeping secrets as well as she tries to uncover the French warning that Jean gave her before dying. Unfortunately it was not very helpful though. It basically boils down to “They’re coming to get you!”. Okay, it wasn’t that direct but essentially it’s that their spirits are everywhere so it’s not like you can beat them either. I wouldn’t say the end of the film leaves much hope for them either. In some ways you can draw some similarities to Fallen. The villain is around and you just have to hope that you don’t catch their attention. Once you do then it’s check mate.

The film can get randomly violent at times although I wouldn’t put it in the same ballpark as your average horror film or anything like that. Characters get beaten up pretty badly and since the opening takes place in a hospital get ready for one character needing to get live stitches. Still, it’s a little tamer than you would expect, but it’s not like that is going to do anything to save the film anyway. The whole story just feels like nonsense and the character cast is incredibly weak.

There is no real reason to fear the Nomads or find them as interesting characters because they have no personality. They seem like a bunch of juvenile delinquents who just so happen to have super powers and a matching fashion sense. They all wear the same leather jackets and try to take down as many heroes as possible. That’s it….that’s the extent of their character development. Then characters who are starting to have some development like Eileen’s doctor friend…just vanish later on. I suppose there isn’t much reason to keep them around but the cast was rather tiny so maybe at least have him help in the fight.

Of course, the odds of anyone believing you are slim since the Nomads only let some people see them. Pretty handy for their crew since it mans no backup will be coming. To get invested in a film you need something to latch onto but this film has nothing. There’s no scene where you can grab on and say “This was pretty interesting”. It just doesn’t happen and since the film is rather aimless, the scenes hit with the power of a bowl of soup.

Overall, Nomads is not a film I would recommend in the slightest. It could have been worse I suppose like if the guy owned a dog but the whole thing feels really pointless. There isn’t anything particularly positive to say about the film. If Jean had just minded his own business from the start then maybe none of this would have happened. If he had been frank with Niki then maybe at least he could have had a real plan. Instead he goes rogue and takes much bigger risks than he ever should have even considered. At least in that sense he’s like one of those old school horror protagonists who always makes the wrong call at every turn. If you want to watch a horror title definitely skip past this one.

Overall 2/10

The Final Cut Review

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The Final Cut is a sci-fi film with a pretty interesting idea. It definitely raises some interesting discussion points about the idea of having something that can record your every moment. Unfortunately the movie doesn’t take much time to think about this. The film feels very short which can be seen as a good thing but at the same time it means there isn’t a lot of room to explore anything. At times the film feels rather aimless and never completes any of the more interesting questions it touches on.

The movie starts by introducing us to a new concept that has happened in the universe. There’s now a chip you can implant in yourself which records everything you see and say. When you die, a relative can then send your video file to a cutter who is effectively someone who looks through that data and makes a movie out of it. They then play this at your funeral or “Rememory” as they call it. Alan is known as the best in the biz because he’ll take on the memories of the worst people around and edit the film so much that they appear to be good people. His latest case is another tricky one since he has to clean up an evil guy’s act but then he recognizes a person in the memories. It appears to be someone who died back when Alan was a kid. He’s now determined to find out the truth but meanwhile the people taking a stand against the chip are determined to do whatever it takes.

To start off, the idea of implanting a chip that records what you see doesn’t sound too far off. It seems feasible that this could happen, but I would certainly be on the resistance side. There’s a whole lot of risk with putting anything in your body, especially something that’s around where your brain is. If it short-circuits in your head or you hit your head very hard, what will happen to the chip? It can easily fry your brain or do something else. That’s already reason enough for why you’d never want that kind of thing to be legal. Chipping is just a bad idea for any life forms.

Then you have the whole privacy issue. After all, even if the person using the chip has granted their permission for this to happen, what about all of the people who will inevitably get filmed over the course of that person’s life? Effectively nothing will be private since the cutter is granted free reign over every single memory. Additionally the future audience will also get to see the moments that make the final cut. There are just a lot of reasons why this is a bad idea and of course to maximize its effects we learn in the movie that a lot of people have it plugged into their kids when they are born so there was never even a choice for consent.

The movie tackles both of these themes a bit as there is a whole resistance force against this. The matter even went to court apparently. Alan’s character can’t be bothered with this though so he always runs off when the debate is starting. Alan is completely fine with this until he remembers the skeletons in his closet so then it’s time to dash again. It’s definitely one of those things that you can picture since people are often okay with things until it happens to them. Alan’s definitely not a likable character in the slightest though. His friends are right that his job as a Cutter is just not very savory or even ethical. He’s really just rewriting the past for various characters to try and make them look better. That isn’t good. You can make a case for his being an accomplice by not saying anything.

Naturally the film makes sure to go all the way for this so during the film we see how characters do a lot of awful things that Alan wipes out from the film during the cutting process. The film goes way too far in this area which definitely doomed the movie. You could definitely have established the context of why people are against the implant without having to go into this detail. It shows that the film was not super confident in what explaining its own premise. The worst part is still that we don’t really get to debate the idea either. Alan never really defends his position of why he helps beyond half hearted generalities.

It’s just another reason why he wasn’t a fun lead to follow. Then you have Fletcher who is effectively the main villain here. He wants the tape that Alan is working on so he can prove that this guy was no good from the start. Naturally the proof in this tape would be quite incriminating but Alan is determined not to hand it over because of the Cutter’s Code that he agreed to. Fletcher makes for a much more interesting character than Alan so it would have been interesting to see more of him. I will say that the ending was pretty unexpected with how things played out. I’ll give the film credit on that one.

Then there’s the main heroine Delila but she doesn’t appear all that much so it may be a bit of an overstatement to call her the main heroine. By the start of the film things are already rocky between her and Alan. That said, it still seemed like a bit of an overreaction on her part later on when she’s watching the videos. She clearly knew what his job was so this was the kind of thing he would be doing constantly. It was more personal since it was videos of her of course, but it’s not like that should change the context of what he was doing. I suppose her solution to this was quite permanent but at the same time she could have probably been sued for a ton of money so it was a pretty big risk.

The Final Cut has some interesting ideas and takes place in a unique setting but it’s far too short. We don’t really get to see much of the rebellion itself, the company’s reaction, government, etc. It feels like we’re seeing a very small corner of the world and unfortunately not a very interesting corner. The film relies too much on shock value from the scenes on the videos and is more interested in doing that than actually having Alan have some real conversations about his job. That would have made for a much more interesting film as well as some good debates. If he and Fletcher could have a proper discussion about this without either one constantly dodging questions then that could have been good.

Overall, The Final Cut is a pretty bad film. Alan’s just a poor main character and the fact that I couldn’t agree with any of his decisions and motivations did not help matters. All the videos he would watch tended to be more on the disturbing side. I like the idea of showing a world where this is possible but it wasn’t used properly. In the real world I’d definitely be against any kind of implants like that though. Seems like something that will create a whole lot more harm than good. Maybe someday someone will take another crack at the premise.

Overall 2/10

Sleeping With The Enemy Review

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This review is of the edited 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 see a title like this along with the general premise you will probably just walk right on past it to the next section of the store. It just doesn’t seem like a winner and your initial gut would be correct. It’s rather difficult to make a plot like this work in the first place so it’s no surprise that it didn’t but I’d say the film put in an effort. It just didn’t end up paying off this time around.

The movie opens up by introducing us to Laura, she’s certainly a tragic character married to the abusive Martin. One day she is able to escape by feigning her death and settling down in a small village. She meets up with her new neighbor Ben and prepares for a rebound romance. Unfortunately she made one critical mistake when escaping her old life. She threw her ring in the toilet and flushes but never actually checked to see if it went down. It did not and now Martin has reason to suspect that she isn’t actually dead. He sets off to find her. Will Laura be safe in this town or is it all over.

I would say the ring is her only mistake because while we do get a tricky call from someone that blows her cover, it’s not likely that she could have controlled that. You should only worry about what you can control which in this case is the ring. While that was an unfortunate slip, Laura did do a good job of seizing her opportunity when she needed to. Jumping into the ocean during such a storm is definitely not an easy thing to do that’s for sure. I would also make the case that Laura should have kept her wig on instead of going back to her classic hair. It would help with the disguise at least a bit and coupling that with a new name would help quite a bit in staying under the radar. It wasn’t quite to be though.

The film definitely sets Martin up as the big bad guy right from the start. He’s shown to be pretty crazy almost immediately and from there he only goes worse and worse. Unfortunately people tend to talk to him quite a lot so he finds out information on locating Laura pretty easily. You’d think there would be a lot of warning bells set off when this guy approaches you but people don’t seem to notice each time. The guys here aren’t the most perceptive that’s for sure. I was half expecting him to destroy the boat guy who showed up near the beginning but that guy got lucky this time.

Meanwhile Laura is a solid main character. As mentioned, she was pretty brave to come up with the plan to escape and does a good job of rebuilding her life. She contributes quite a bit towards the end of the film and doesn’t back down when it’s crunch time. She’s easily the best character here although there isn’t much of a cast to go against her. We’ve got Ben but he’s not all that great. The guy means well of course but he goes down real quick in the climax despite having the element of surprise and I wasn’t a big fan of the romance either. It definitely seems like a romance is the last thing Laura would want to deal with right now after seeing how the last one went. The way Ben handled the whole apples situation also wasn’t the greatest first appearance for him if he was trying to make a positive impression. The only thing I’ll give him credit for is noticing that something was wrong during the climax of the film.

Now having a plot like this one with an abusive character like Martin makes for easy tension in a film but it’s definitely not a plot that will help a movie. The first chunk of the movie is all pretty unbearable until Laura is able to get out of there. Of course you may wonder how she ended up with someone like this but of course she explains he wasn’t always like this and used to appear to be nice. It’s one of the dangerous things about relationships and why you can’t blame Laura here. At the end of the day it’s hard to ever really know someone else and this kind of thing could happen. It’s a very tragic plot point to be sure but definitely not one that makes for good film.

Overall, Sleeping With The Enemy is not a film I would recommend. The main plot isn’t good and since that’s the whole focus of the film it’s unable to get past that. The movie just would have needed something drastic to really get past this. At the end of the day the writing isn’t bad and the film moves pretty quickly but there’s just no way to really recommend it. At the end of the day the movie just isn’t really any fun. That said, you would expect that just based on the title and the synopsis. If you want a thriller to watch I would recommend the latest Mission Impossible instead. That one gives you a lot of tension and action but also has a pretty fun feel to it.

Overall 2/10

Fatal Attraction Review

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This review is of the edited 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.

Fatal Attraction is one of those films that makes it really impossible to be all that sympathetic to the main character. He makes a ton of mistakes throughout the film and ultimately has to live with the consequences. It’s a nice cautionary tale about how a one night stand can quickly wreck your entire future going forward. It’s definitely not a romance film I would recommend and works as a complete opposite to People Will Talk. If that film depicted one of the most wholesome romances out there, this one would be one of the more sinister depictions.

The movie starts with Dan attending a party along with his wife Beth. Things have been going pretty well for the two of them over the years. They have a kid and a solid home environment. Dan is also making pretty good money as a lawyer. Unfortunately Beth heads off for a day to go check out a house they are interested in buying. Dan can’t imagine the thought of being alone for a night so he quickly makes an advance on Alex, a lady he has only known for a few hours and they have a one night stand which quickly becomes 2. Dan then decides to cut this off with Beth being back but Alex won’t accept this. She says Dan has to stay with her and her upcoming kid or she will continue to wreck his life. She goes from spamming his phone to outright murder and kidnapping. Can Dan really stop her or will this be game over for him?

So there’s no way to sympathize with Dan here. The guy just makes mistake after mistake which comes back to bite him. He knew exactly what he was doing at all times so lets keep that in mind. It’s not like this was some accident, he was drunk (Which is still no excuse) or he was alone for months and slowly started to crack. It was a single night…he hadn’t even gone home yet so more like an afternoon before he cracked. The guy had absolutely 0 loyalty to his wife Beth and that means his bond was never as strong as he thought it was. He also doesn’t prioritize his dog as he even forgets to feed him/give a walk the first night. That shows that Dan also isn’t responsible.

The movie definitely makes sure to show what a hopeless path Dan has found himself on. Unfortunately the film decides to throw in some animal violence as well as when Alex murders their rabbit. Did we really need to see this? At this point Dan still does not immediately call the cops on her. I suppose getting fingerprints may be difficult but I’d like for them to have at least conducted a search, see if you can come up with something. Alex had quite the rap sheet by the end when you factor in the kidnapping. It’s why schools always got to have a very strict policy about who is allowed to take a kid off the premises. If you’re going to have someone different pick up a kid then there have to be agreements and something in writing saying that this person is allowed to take the kid. Someone just saying it isn’t quite enough.

Beth was a solid character. She had no reason to suspect anything during the film. As far as she knew Dan was just a faithful husband going about his business so the whole thing definitely comes as a big shock. I don’t really see how she can ever forget that so I don’t see things going well after that. The kid was too young to really contribute anything to the film but did add to the tension later on. Dan’s friends were pretty reasonable. They had some good banter with the leads and even Dan’s co-workers were pretty reasonable. It shows how much he threw away during all of this.

We do get an action scene at the end of the film though so it ends on a bang. Dan looks pretty bad during this fight though and I also have to suspend a lot of disbelief for his not hearing anything with the tea kettle on. Tea is fairly loud but not quite That loud. I also thought Beth could have fought a little more as she was mostly just frozen in shock the whole time. There’s quite a bit of back and forth here though. For the most part the film’s about mental warfare but I suppose the actual ending wanted to shake things up a bit.

I wouldn’t say there’s a whole lot to like here though. The plot itself ensures that there are few likable main characters. It’s always tough when a film has a main character you just can’t get behind because you’ll be seeing him throughout so that can be tricky. The romance itself is naturally pretty bad as well. It was definitely an ill advised affair from the start. The writing is okay I suppose but nothing out of this world and the pacing is also fairly standard. The animal violence didn’t do the film any wonders either but even without it this just seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Overall, Fatal Attraction is definitely a reminder on how all actions have consequences. Dan thought he could hide from his but at best that will just delay the inevitable. After a while you have to own up to things although ideally in less of a theatrical fashion. At least the film had the restraint to not have anything happen to the dog or that would have definitely hurt the movie even more. As it stands, if you want a film about quality characters with a good romance then I would recommend People Will Talk a whole lot more. As I mentioned in the beginning these films are polar opposites so with as good as People Will Talk ended up being, it makes sense that this one couldn’t reach those levels.

Overall 2/10