Category Archives: 3 Star Movies

Dragonheart Review

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It’s time for one of those classic films about dragons. It takes place in the medieval days so you already know that the film is starting off on shaky ground. It does mostly avoid any real dragon violence which is good but the film still suffers from really iffy characters and everybody being way too passive. It’s easy to see why the heroes were getting dominated for the whole film.

The movie starts off with a bunch of villagers uprising against a corrupt king. They manage to murder him and even fatally injure his son. Unfortunately the prince is taken to the local dragon who manages to revive him by splitting his heart into two. Now the prince has proven to be just as bad as his father, if not worse! The villagers have exited the pot and entered the flame. They have no protectors left and enter 12 years of devastation. Is there any way for them to make a comeback one more time?

I’ll give the villagers this, they did a good job in the first battle. I wasn’t expecting them to actually take out the king the way that they did. I also can’t fault them for the prince living since that required supernatural help. So they did their job but it’s a shame that they somehow all became enslaved again. Could they not have fought back while the prince was still gaining power? Also it’s too bad that none of the knights did anything to stop the corruption. It’s clear that the kingdom was an evil one that needed to be stopped.

The main character is a knight named Bowen who initially had high hopes for the prince. Unfortunately he became disillusioned when that guy turned out to be evil too. So he spent years murdering all of the dragons and eventually became nothing better than a scammer. He completely left his honor code and the film’s journey for him is about reclaiming this. It’s just hard to find him even remotely likable after all of that because he was in the best position to do something about this.

Perhaps taking out the prince himself. Running away doesn’t solve anything. It was also such a sudden transition with him blaming the dragon and running off. When the 12 year timeskip initially happened, I was pretty surprised about it. I understand going after the dragons but I thought the end goal was to make Prince Einon whole again. Instead it just became a pure quest of vengeance? Yeah by the time Bowen shapes up it’s a little too late. Additionally he also got crushed by Einon in their first fight.

Sure, Einon was using psychological warfare but it was a really bad look for him. At least Aislinn was doing something by enlisting the dragon hunters to destroy the dragon. If the dragon dies, then Einon will as well. She probably could have acted quicker but at least she gets some small points there. Then you have Kara who is the last villager to not lose her fighting spirit. She is trying, even if she doesn’t really have the abilities needed to enact change.

She ends up getting into trouble on more than one occasion as a result. Better to do something than to do nothing though. She may have even had a shot against Einon the first time if she didn’t announce her arrival. He had seen her through the mirror but it would have been tougher to ace the timing. I definitely could have done without Einon’s twisted attempt at seducing her though. That whole scene is pretty painful and you wish Kara could have gotten more of a direct revenge against him after that.

Einon has near immortality thanks to the dragon’s heart so it is difficult to keep him down. You have to thoroughly destroy him to the point where he can not regenerate but it would be a squeamish job for the average person. Additionally you will need time and skill to make that happen. For the most part nobody is really up to that task. There is one exception though and this pretty much breaks the whole story.

So we meet the dragon named Draco and he was someone who really believed in the knight’s code. He was even hoping that Einon would walk a better path which is why he revived him. Yet, why did Draco never aid the humans? He seemed to be aware of what was going on and could easily fly around to check whenever he wanted to. Dragons have great abilities and we saw that Draco was the best of them. He should have easily been able to prevent the corrupt kingdom from gaining more round. He could have burned them all with his fire and called it a day. The fact that he didn’t was pretty disappointing.

Bowen wasn’t the only one who let his kingdom down, Draco is guilty of this as well. He let the villagers suffer for over 12 years while he sat back. Additionally, he allowed Bowen to destroy all of the other dragons to the point where Draco is the last one standing. A part of him longed for death as he mentions in the film but you have to do something to fight back in the meantime. Instead he played the part of a passive spectator.

The heroes are just too passive here and so it makes sense that they got completely rolled over. That was basically going to be inevitable with how this went down. The special effects within the film are pretty good though. The dragon looks really solid and the film has aged really well for its day. You can’t show off the visuals much more beyond that because of the setting but the fire looks solid.

Dragonheart maintains a pretty dreary atmosphere for its run though. The villains get away with a whole lot before they’re brought down. We see a villager who had his eyes burned shut and after being a slave for 12 years, he is finally murdered. It’s all just rather grim and yet the film throws in a lot of gags and even some crude humor to try and lighten the mood. The various slapstick and gag moments weren’t handled all that smoothly. I appreciate the attempt but I don’t think this film was able to balance the two approaches all that well. The only parts in that vein that worked well involved a monk who would chronicle Bowen’s journey. You felt happy for the guy because he was always waiting for an opportunity like this. You know that he won’t let any of the events be forgotten and will have enough inspiration for a lifetime now.

Overall, Dragonheart is supposed to be a story about Bowen reclaiming his role as an honorable knight. The problem is that he missed his opportunity for far too long. Leaving the people to die for 12 years is just too big of a burden to easily come back from. Draco is equally guilty of not doing anything and so the would be saviors of the village were the ones who watched its ruin. If you like the retro setting of a Narnia/Game of Thrones setting then you should have an okay time here but I definitely missed my big city backdrop and the heroes are too slow to act. You’re better off with Eragon.

Overall 3/10

The Valley of Gwangi Review

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It’s time for a classic dinosaur adventure. In a way this is a whole lot like Jurassic Park, the old version. Perhaps that’s a surface level similarity but eh it’s close enough.

The movie starts off with a big shot named Tuck deciding to visit a small horse show on his way to the arena. He runs into his ex, T.J. Her show is really struggling, due in no small part to his running out on her for riches and glory. He offers her a chance to go with him but this time she stays strong and won’t fall for his tricks….for like 10 minutes. He sweet talks her into joining his side once again. What she doesn’t realize is that this will ultimately take her into the forbidden valley of Gwangi! This is due to the star tiny horse being stolen by a bunch of native conspiracy theorists who believe that he belongs back on the valley.

Okay so there are a lot of problems with the main dynamic from the start. Tuck seems to mainly be interested in using T.J. He walked out on her easily enough the first time and now he really wants to buy her main horse. She only agrees because she found the mini one with mystical properties but otherwise he was putting on a lot of pressure was already failing. Keep in mind that it’s not a one girl show. She has a whole team and other workers doing their best and now Tuck wants to take the one act that still draws some fans?

For reference, she and the horse jump into a pool of water which is surrounded by flames. I can’t say the act sounds all that interesting but generally all of the animal acts make me feel that way. Anything that has even the slightest bit of danger to the animal makes it all not worth it. We also get bull fighting and the like so you’re shaking your head throughout all of this. The main thing that stays constant throughout all of this is that Tuck isn’t the nicest guy.

Sure, by the end the romance and everything works out but it really shouldn’t have. This romance was poorly thought out right from the start and hurts T.J. as a character for entertaining this as well. Lope has a pretty big role as the kid helping Tuck out but he’s too young to be able to fight or anything like that. He doesn’t end up contributing a ton.

Horace goads the Gwangi tribefolk into kidnapping the mini horse so he is the one who really sets everything into motion. Of course I’d say he didn’t really think this through. Things could have easily been fatal for all of them. The thieves knocked out the guard after all but could have easily murdered everyone. The pursuit of knowledge alone is naturally not worth all of the sacrifice for this.

You could say the film really starts once they make it onto the valley though. Now we have all of the dinosaurs and the action. The main characters take this a lot calmer than you would expect as they talk about getting the dinosaurs into the circus act and all. You’d think that it would be a much bigger deal that dinosaurs exist right? I guess back in the day it may have been slightly less of a big deal since you could assume crazy extinct animals exist all over in different pockets.

The professor is probably the most impressed by default but that guy is the type of man to choose research over safety. For the most part you’re going to feel bad for the dinosaurs though. They aren’t quite ready to be dealing with humans. Right off the bat one of them gets his neck broken by the humans. You’d think the dinosaur would have been a bit stronger. Along the way you have dinosaurs destroying each other as well.

The effects are handled pretty impressively for its time. Of course this is to the detriment of the film since the dinosaurs bleed quite a bit and the film isn’t shying away from actually having a body count here. It just should have been more humans dying than the actual dinosaurs if you ask me. So the film is ahead of its time and dinosaur fans will get a kick out of it but it definitely didn’t end up being my style.

The king of the dinosaurs here is Gwangi and for the most part he looks like a normal dinosaur. He is ultimately defeated by the humans and forced to be in the circus which is definitely the ultimate disgrace for a proud creature like this. He gets some revenge later on by taking down some of the humans at least. Now you’re supposed to be rooting for the humans but by this point in the review you can see that I’m team Dinosaur. The humans just aren’t likable.

At least in the most recent Jurassic World film they are trying to create a rare medicine out of the dinosaur dna so there is some kind of a noble cause. Here, it’s really just about the money. They want to improve the circus act with the dinosaurs. The professor wants to increase his knowledge but has disregard for who has to pay for this progress. Ultimately there is a lot of selfishness going on here and all of the violence that ensues is directly the fault of the humans.

It makes the dinosaur violence feel even worse because the whole time you know they would have had more peace without the humans. Yeah, the dinosaur vs dinosaur stuff would still be happening but we wouldn’t be seeing it at least! Shoutout to the old lady at the beginning who warned everyone about the valley though. I was glad that she was actually correct and not just crazy. Yeah, they are usually right in these kinds of creature features but I was still happy for her. She probably gives Gwangi a little too much credit in terms of sentience but it was close enough.

Overall, The Valley of Gwangi does deliver on giving you a ton of dinosaur action. It’s the kind of film that does live up to the premise so you don’t have to worry about being misled here. If you want to see a survival film with dinosaurs showing up and the humans having to deal with them, then you’re in luck. This is the film for you. It is an unapologetic dinosaur film with pretty strong effects. Now if you don’t want to see the dinosaurs and are worried about the annoying humans, then this is definitely a film to give a hard skip.

Overall 3/10

The Creature Walks Among Us Review

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This film is a bit of a mess and the biggest problem is that the romance is absolutely crazy here. The film should have focused a whole lot more on the Gillman himself. Instead he is functionally a human for most of the movie and we have this awful love triangle going on. Trust me, the drama is not worth it for this film and you should stay far away. The winning formula is not to be found here.

The movie starts off with the main characters taking down the Gillman once more. He was badly burned so they take off the gills and it turns out that he looks just like a human now. He can no longer breath underwater without the gills but maybe they can slowly rehabilitate him. The problem is that Dr. William is bit on the crazy side. He’s also randomly abusive towards his wife Marcia and so their relationship is incredibly strained.

Unfortunately one of their divers is a man with no redeeming qualities named Jed. Jed decides that he wants Marcia all to himself so he begins to continually harass her as he tries to weaken her will so that she can cheat on her husband. Marcia doesn’t have much love left for William with how things have gotten and so she gradually weakens enough to allow Jed his advances. What does any of this have to do with the Gillman? Well, the poor guy is getting an up close view at how humans cannot be trusted and are all rather sinister.

That’s a huge problem for the film which is that the characters are simply unlikable. You’re basically rooting for the Gillman to take them out. First it’s easy to say that William is the worst of the humans. There’s no excuse for being abusive. The fact that he gets physical puts him on the lowest rung of the totem pole here and you’re waiting for someone to bump him off. He’s also not that good at thinking ahead as he puts himself in a really rough position when trying to frame the Gillman.

The Gillman gets framed? Yeah that actually happens near the end which was definitely a real desperate move. Could have been interesting if we had a courtroom trial or something but all of this is taking place privately with the characters on their property so we never get that far. Next up I have to put Jed as the second most unlikable character. You should never be trying to get someone to cheat. How classless is it to go after a married woman? That’s just total villain behavior and this guy seriously cannot take no for an answer.

So I can’t say that I felt any real sympathy for him. He found out real quick what the repercussions for this would be and shouldn’t have been making those mistakes. Finally, Marcia takes up some of the blame here but naturally not as much. She was on the back foot here but could have been more decisive in shutting Jed down. For example when Jed was going to go diving underwater, she insisted on coming along.

Everyone warned her that she’s not experienced for this and she could get the bends. Marcia insists on going and naturally she immediately makes a big mistake and Jed has to save her. That’s far from pushing him away and now it’s an excuse for him to be real close to her. Marcia needed to make sure she wasn’t putting herself in that kind of position. Sure, she couldn’t have assumed that she would make a mistake underwater but the point of the mission is that diving is really hard. It’s why Ned is here as an expert in the first place.

So instead of swimming with him, she needs another way to stop his endless pestering. This is the kind of serious matter where you do tell everyone and make a big stink about it. You have to embarrass the guy and if you don’t feel safe, then it’s time to get the cops involved and such. It’s also time for her to end the marriage to William and just start fresh. Hard decisions but this guy was clearly escalating more and more. Once things go physical then there isn’t a way back.

Still, this is a whole lot of screentime for the pesky humans. Keep in mind that the runtime for the movie is short. This is under 90 minutes total. The Gillman spends a good amount of that time getting burned and then being in recovery mode. He wakes up in time to take down one of the animals just for the film to remind us that this is not a quality picture. Far from it! Then the ending also goes out on a total whimper.

The Gillman walks out onto the sea. We know that he can’t breath under the water anymore so the implication is that he walked into his death. Living on the ship with those crazies was enough to thoroughly break him. That’s pretty sad in its own right. There is no climactic battle, in general the film didn’t have much action. This really feels like a poor way to end the Gillman trilogy. You’re left wondering what the whole point of the film was really about.

What purpose was there in showing that the Gillman was actually very similar to a human being? William had an obsession with evolution and biological changes like this but it’s not like that ever went anywhere. The Gillman didn’t ultimately learn how to hold a whole conversation or anything like that. You can barely even call this a horror film to be honest and maybe that’s not one of its official genres anyway. It’s more of a full on drama.

Overall, I’d say to stay away from this film. It doesn’t really satisfy you as a creature feature film and when it comes to full on dramas, there are way better ones out there. We needed a much better cast of characters here and there should have been way more action. If you do want to go into the romantic drama, then go all in and have both guys trying to murder each other throughout the film or something. Put it out in the open and the film is a battle of wits in this murder game. Then you somehow have the Gillman get involved in all of that. it would have been infinitely more interesting that way. Instead what we get is a mishmash of genres that won’t really satisfy anybody.

Overall 3/10

The Suicide Squad 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

The Suicide Squad is back once again. They are 0-2 with the original film being terrible and Birds of Prey was only a small step forward. Well, this one is another tiny step forward but we’re still not all that close to getting into the positive territory yet. The film still suffers from the same problems as the first two titles and doesn’t seem all that much closer to fixing them. It’s really an uphill battle for any film dealing with a group of villains as the main characters. This is absolutely possible so long as you make them likable enough but the more you remind us how evil they are….well then that gets even tougher.

The movie starts with Waller creating two more sets of Suicide Squads. One of them is thoroughly crushed while we get to our main squad who are able to infiltrate the island to start the plan to destroy project Starfish. This won’t be an easy mission though as they are essentially surrounded by enemies on the entire island. They also don’t exactly get along all the time since nearly all of these people are complete. Can they put aside their differences at gunpoint to save the day or are they all going to be in complete trouble?

I did think it was pretty clever to put Harley Quinn on the doomed team since it really made you surprised that the whole thing was a fake-out. She’s certainly not one of my favorite characters but she added a level of legitimacy to the whole thing. As always she is super crazy the whole film and basically used for fanservice so this movie didn’t do anything to raise her character for me. Fortunately we do have an interesting character in Rick Flagg.

That guy is essentially like Duke from GI Joe. He may not have special powers and things like that but he still gets the job done with his grit and tenacity. Rick is an easy character to appreciate. Now it’s not like he’s a total hero, he’s working for Waller after all. Rick does believe he is doing his best to defend the country though so I can respect that.

Of course for every character like Rick, you have 5 like Savant who are just here to add some edge. The film started off on a really sour note by having this guy murder a bird within the opening minutes. Yeah, we get it these guys are evil. Don’t think that scene actually added to any of the film’s messages if you ask me. King Shark is okay but his main gimmick is ripping people apart and eating his enemies. You immediately realize there isn’t much more to him than that.

The Polka Dot Man is just too weak and unhelpful for most of the film. He has his big moments of course but I think you just can’t really save the power. I did like Bloodsport though. They basically reuse the backstory from Deadshot but this guy still holds his own. He does well in the fights and shows that just having a gun can be a good asset on the field. He gets some banter and easily feels like the most fleshed out character in the film.

Of course Peacemaker ended up getting really popular here to the point where he got his own tv show. He works pretty well another psychotic villain to add to the mix. His jokes tend to fall flat but he works well in combat with his rivalry to Bloodsport. Ratcatcher gets a little less to do but I liked her more than some of the others by default. She has some charisma and at least has a likable personality.

Now like I mentioned, the humor can work well sometimes. There is a dark humor scene where the squad accidentally murders the whole resistance thinking that they were more villains. It’s definitely rough for the resistance to get wiped out in an ironic way like that but it’s a scene that definitely worked. They could have probably toned down the violence on some of the kills along the way though.

That’s ultimately what the film boils down to though. It has a lot of interesting ideas but always seems to push the envelope just a little farther than it needs to be. The squad is always just a little extra crass, just a little extra violent, and a little extra edgy. It tends to contaminate each part of the film. So you have some really cool fights here like Rick vs Peacemaker but then a lot of general action scenes that constitute the squad murdering everyone in their way unopposed.

The film is generally light when it comes to the tone but at the same time it’s not like this is a very fun film. We do get the big CGI climax though with Starro showing up. I’m not as big a fan of him as most though. Interesting design but mainly he is fun when he has powerful heroes to mind control like Superman. Otherwise he’s essentially a giant sea creature that won’t be doing much in the way of fighting. As a result the climax with Starro isn’t quite as good as the fights going on around it.

Amanda Waller does seem a little less bloodthirsty here than in other films though. Usually she’s portrayed as being an ice cold killer who almost enjoys being as extreme as possible. This film seems to be trying to make her look a little more human, to the point where she spares the lives of her colleagues who actively commit insubordination. It’s a tough balancing act but you probably do need to keep her ruthless because she ends up losing credibility by not finishing off two workers in particular. Yes there is a punishment later but that’s not really enough.

Overall, The Suicide Squad is not a film I would watch again. It still suffers from too many issues associated with having a bunch of unlikable characters trying to team up. It will land some jokes or have a cool scene, only to undermine it right away after that. At this point we’ve had enough films where I think I can confidently say that the Suicide Squad is not going to translate into a solid live action film. Maybe 4th time’s the charm though. (If you really count Birds of Prey)

Overall 3/10

Audrey Rose Review

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This is one of those films that can only happen if all of the characters are as passive as possible. They are continually not standing up to the situation and so the things deteriorate. The film tends to be on the annoying side as several characters act really crazy but nobody really does anything about it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Bill had completely crashed out in the courtroom because to an extent it would have been justified.

The film starts off by introducing us to Bill and Janice who live a normal life with their daughter Ivy. Unfortunately a weird man has been stalking them for a while now and they quickly realize that he is mainly stalking their daughter Ivy. One day Janice is in a car crash so this man named Hoover takes the chance to meet with Ivy and then has dinner with the parents. He explains that he thinks Ivy is the reincarnated soul of his own daughter who died in a tragic car accident and so he intends to keep on meeting with Ivy. Bill says this is crazy but the cops can’t help since nobody has been hurt yet. Unfortunately Janice thinks that Hoover may be right and so Bill will not have to find a way to stop Hoover while also watching out for his own wife.

Janice is easily the most annoying character here because of how quick she was to believe Hoover. He starts talking crazy for a few minutes and she immediately thinks that he may be on to something. We learn that Ivy has had crazy episodes on her birthday for a long time now and this would track with the date that Hoover’s daughter died but that’s still a rather big stretch to go through here. Janice immediately ignores how weird it was to have Hoover following her for so long and even invites him up to her apartment to help Ivy through one of the episodes.

Hoover is able to help Ivy each time but this feels like an awful big chance considering his intentions. Also just letting a crazy guy into your house is basically asking for trouble. Then even after Hoover kidnaps Ivy to go to his place, Janice is quick to side with him here. She completely betrays Bill in court and does seem willing to let Hoover keep the kid. She really closed off any chance for her and Bill to come to terms here. They were just way too far apart and she gave up her kid too quickly.

Janice is panicking for most of the film so she doesn’t always make a lot of sense but she made all of the mistakes possible. I’d also say that Ivy looks pretty bad here since she is soundly defeated by the spirit of the other girl. She seems to have no mental defenses here as she crawls into fire and burns herself at several points just because the other girl forced her to. Can Ivy not fight on her own? I get that in these possession type of films that always tends to be the case but it can be annoying. In this film the opponent is another girl who was around the same age. This should not be as hard as usual.

As for Hoover, well the guy seems nutty from the start. He drank the Kool-Aid real fast and then didn’t choose the best way to make an impression on the family. In this film the whole reincarnation thing appears to be true so then he should have found a better way to break the news. The way he did it would make anyone think he was insane. Honestly the best way to get close would be to own a nearby business or become a teacher but that isn’t as easy as it looks. So in that case, rent a nearby room and try to be a good neighbor. Or just meet up with the family and talk rather than stalking. It would have been hard to have made a worst first impression.

As for Bill, he definitely doesn’t plan to be very agreeable right from the start of the film but I don’t blame him. This is his daughter we’re talking about and Hoover effectively wants to take her away or be a second parent. No way he could let that fly. Hoover also continually refers to Ivy as Janice’s daughter as well as his and leaves Bill out of this. Unfortunately Bill isn’t very strong and easily loses to Hoover in every confrontation.

It was not a good look there and it was also crazy that Bill forgot his own apartment has a back entrance that is unlocked. I know it was a tense moment but how do you forget that? I was definitely rooting for Bill in the court case. Yeah a lot of weird stuff was going on and perhaps Bill could have handled some things better but on the whole he was doing what he could. He was prioritizing his daughter which is the only choice that makes sense in this situation.

The film doesn’t even have a satisfying ending so that definitely ensured that this was not going to be a very positive film. You’ve got a mostly annoying cast of characters with a kid who has absolutely no idea what was going on and then you couldn’t even stick the landing. This is definitely not a film that will stand the test of time as I would say it hasn’t even aged well up to this point. It’s not particularly scary either, just more on the annoying side.

Overall, This is a film that I would recommend skipping. On the whole I’ve never been all into possession films and this one is no exception. Not even the courtroom scene could save it, although I was glad that it was there. It was nice to see the rest of the world a bit although I would have liked to have seen what the jury made of all this. I like to think that they all thought Hoover was super crazy but Janice turning sides would have definitely hurt the situation quite a bit. It would have all been more interesting than the main plot. A good ending could have at least helped things out but ultimately there was to be no saving grace for this film.

Overall 3/10

House of the Dead 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

House of the Dead is one of those films that’s very infamous. It doesn’t have a whole lot of big defenders to be honest. Mostly it just gets a lot of mocking and you can see why. The film is definitely not taking things very seriously and some aspects like the music are definitely not general audience friendly. Ultimately it is a bad film but I dare say it does manage to defeat the average horror flick.

The movie starts with someone reminiscing about how things were before all of his friends were murdered. We then flash back to the actual movie which is always a very annoying way to start a movie. Why even let us know that one of the characters is going to live through this? Well, there’s a big rave taking place on the island of the dead but a few teenagers were running late so they missed the boat. They’re forced to pay an extremely high price to hitch a ride with the only boat left in town. The captain’s first mate isn’t particularly nice and the captain is certainly not making things easy but this party is a once in a lifetime event. The problem is when they get there, all of the people are gone. Instead there are only hordes of zombies. Can the heroes manage to take them down??

You may be wondering what happened to the house. Well, that appears near the end of the film but really this should have been called the Island of the Dead. Most of the film is really about them trying to survive on that island while they are attacked by endless rounds of zombies. The heroes fortunately are able to get their hands on guns and other weapons with which to defend themselves. It’s really the only way to fight back and they manage to get pretty good at using them.

Where the film is probably going to lose some people is when it becomes a full on action. Once the heroes get their weapons, this very quickly stops being a horror film and quickly leans into the action all the way. We get a ton of slow mo scenes and a very extended fight where the heroes are shredding all of the zombies. I didn’t have a problem with the length but the slow motion effect does get old rather quickly. The long fight is still the best part of the film though. I’ll take an action over a horror any day after all. There is a little plot armor in how the humans are faring so well here though.

The film is very inconsistent about how physically strong the zombies are as well as their speed. It all appears to just be at the level that it needs to be for the scene. The scene transitions are also a bit too random with all of the video game clips randomly showing up. It could have been fun once or twice but it happens very frequently with no real rhyme or reason to it. Definitely not the way to go here.

Meanwhile the soundtrack is actually very good for most of the film. There is a lot of good rock themes as well as just generally fast tunes which really fit in well with all of the fighting. That’s something that has actually aged really well so I appreciated that. The visuals can be rather hit or miss but I did enjoy the choreography for the battles. One character actually knows martial arts and gets to pummel several characters that way.

While most of the characters are annoying teenagers, I did really enjoy the boat captain. He was at least trying to make sense of what was going on here and also didn’t show any fear. He was particularly impressive in his very first encounter with a zombie because he just casually shot it while still smoking his cigarette. That takes a lot of guts right there. He was also the reason the others even had weapons with which to fight the zombies so without him they would have all been dead very quickly.

I also enjoyed the policewoman because she was smart enough to put aside her beef with the captain to fight against the zombies. I know some lesser characters who wouldn’t have adapted like that. She did really well in her fights as well and ultimately only got held back by the others and the ammo starting to run low. It does make sense that with all of the shooting they were doing, they would eventually run out of bullets.

This film didn’t really need a main villain though. An endless horde of zombies is already scary enough right? Well, we do get a mastermind at the end and he even gets an origin story. The scenes just make everyone else look bad because there is one moment where he goads a guard into getting close enough to destroy him. Whenever someone loses to a guy who is fully chained up, I’m going to have some problems there.

There also isn’t much to this villain. He just craves violence and got immortality. It’s not like he has any kind of a master plan or anything. He just does whatever he wants and that’s not exactly a recipe for success. He does put up a good fight in the end but it’s barely even a consolation because he should have won that fight. Losing just makes him look even less impressive.

Naturally it goes without saying as a zombie film that this one can be pretty violent. You have a ton of characters getting slashed and destroyed during the mayhem. So if you’re not big on all of that then this would be a reason to stay away. It might have slightly more restraint than other zombie films as it doesn’t usually dwell on the deaths but yeah the violence is still at a high level here.

Overall, This film had some good ideas but could not land the execution. While I enjoyed some of the adult characters like the captain and the policewoman, there was nothing good to be said about the teens. The fact that some of them didn’t even care when the rave was empty just shows that they aren’t the smartest characters in the bunch. Any semblance of romance here just feels obligatory as none of the characters seem mature enough for it and they take too long to get serious about this. Of course if you’re planning to go to a Rave on an island in the middle of nowhere, I’d argue that your moral compass may already be in a rather dicey spot. You should only check this film out if you reallllly like zombie fighting and even then you will have to sit through a bit of a slow first half before the zombies even appear.

Overall 3/10

El Vampiro Negro Review

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It’s time for one of those films where you’re desperately searching for a super heroic character the whole time but the cast continues to disappoint you. Even when there are children hanging in the balance, the characters cannot see past themselves and end up holding vital information. Yeah, you would not want to be in a city like that when a mass murderer is on the loose.

The film begins with a lady named Amalia noticing a mysterious man outside the window throwing a dead child’s body into the river. She panics and yells a lot but ultimately decides against telling the police. After all, that would get her involved in a whole mess and she can’t afford to have any controversies. She works at a questionable establishment after all and could lose custody of her child if the police were involved. We later find out that he is now known as The Black Vampire and is going on a murder spree as he only targets children. Can Bernard and the rest of the cops stop him?

Unfortunately Amalia does more than not telling the police, she actively lies and says that she saw nothing which only impedes the investigation. Bernard suspects that she is lying but there’s not a whole lot he can do about it. The cops lay out traps for this guy but he always manages to narrowly avoid them. The body count only rises from here and so the film is definitely a rather dreary one. The cops are simply too late for a while.

We do get the court trial scene which is actually how the film starts out. It definitely reminds you why a lot of people don’t take the insanity plea seriously. You can have a guy mass murdering kids but then pleading insanity? I just don’t see how that’s relevant, if he’s so crazy that he can’t help but constantly commit murders, then you have to put him out of his misery or it will only continue. Fortunately, the jury was ready but you can find it a bit absurd that a trial like this would even go to court.

Now at least you could have had the cops to root for but the movie goes out of its way to make Bernard unlikable. So his wife had an injury a while back so that she can no longer walk and she feels bad about this because he has really been keeping her out of his life. She does her best to help out but he just completely shuns her and tries to say that they’re as close as ever. It could have been a decent plot as perhaps she is imagining part of this and he’s also overcorrecting which is causing more issues. That would have been fine but instead we find out that he isn’t actually content.

The guy isn’t man enough to deal with the situation and attempts to blackmail Amalia into having an affair with him. That instantly makes him an absolutely despicable character and the issue is that the film had absolutely no reason to add this plot in. Maybe they were trying for some kind of parallel with the villain in that Bernard could not control himself? If that was the case then I have to say it was another absolute miss here. The film already had one big villain, we certainly didn’t need anymore.

Any villain who goes after kids is already spineless but the film also shows that by day the vampire cowers to everyone. He has to go after children because he’s basically terrified and outnumbered by the adults. He pays money just to stare at a lady since he doesn’t dare actually ask her out or do anything. She just laughs in his face and it traumatizes him further to the point where he goes back to attacking children. Definitely nothing to appreciate about this villain.

It was nice to see the homeless band together to help put a stop to him in the end but it definitely took a while to get there. For a film like this, it’s already at a disadvantage with bumping off kids since that is going a bit far for any film. It continues to fall back even further when you mix in the fact that the villain gets away with so much. If there were less victims and the heroes would stop him right away then that would have helped. Probably wouldn’t be enough to save the film or anything like that but it would be an improvement.

Really the best way to handle this would have been for it to have stayed in the courtroom. Have the characters describe what happened without showing us and then let the audience decide if the villain seems guilty or not. When you’re seeing the scenes in motion, there is no way to vote for anything but the death penalty. If it’s the prosecutor and defense arguing the whole time, perhaps it could open up the possibility that one of them is exaggerating or someone is lying a bit. Either way it would make things a bit more ambiguous and the film would also be more interesting since I love a good trial. It would fundamentally be a different movie though.

Overall, The Black Vampire is a pretty bad film. I’d say it just isn’t able to clear the hurdle of having both an unlikable main character and an unlikable villain. Throw in the film’s dreary atmosphere and you don’t have a winning combination. I suppose at least the soundtrack could be pretty decent here. A lot happier than you would expect though which could be a bit jarring at times. You would expect this film to have been really somber the whole time but instead you’re actually thrown a few happy tunes. Maybe that was the film trying to cut the tension in an odd way but yeah I’d say to skip this one.

Overall 3/10

Alligator II: The Mutation Review

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It’s time to see just how powerful an alligator can be! The first film was pretty terrible but maybe this one would be an improvement? I do think it was the better film although I ultimately still can’t say that it was a good one. The main problem is of course that with an evil alligator on the loose, you know that some animal violence will be soon to follow. The movie actually keeps itself a bit more tame than I would usually expect in this genre though so I will give it some credit here. Not a ton of credit mind you….but some.

The movie starts with two fishermen underestimating the terrors of the night as they are murdered by a giant alligator. This area has been heckled by the wealthy businessman named Vincent for a long while as he is trying to buy out all of the land and so they figure he had something to do with it. In a sense they’re right, but it’s not like they can prove it. So David decides to look into this as he’s used to doing things against the book as a cop. Unfortunately it’ll be difficult since Vincent has bought out the mayor and so now the cops are forced to be rather hands off. Vincent’s certainly not going to be of any help so David has to work with the rookie cop Rich in order to stop this threat. Meanwhile Vincent hires some pros of his own to do the job in the sneak. Which group will destroy the alligator first?

I guess corruption and evil millionaires are par for the course when it comes to these evil animal films. Vincent definitely carries himself well though. I appreciate all of the threats and he really did have the mayor cornered throughout the movie. Near the end he even managed to get him alone to finish the job. Vincent’s one of those villains who never let his guard down and by the end of the film it took quite a lot of people to defeat him. Most impressive I gotta say.

The mayor looked rather terrible throughout though. As soon as you let people blackmail you the way that he did, there is no way out. They’re just going to keep on doing it, over and over again until you are completely out of the running. I sort of expected that the mayor would do something but no, he just ended up staying scared all the way through to the end. His daughter Sherri had a lot more backbone as she was trying to fight against the injustice.

On the heroes side, we had the rookie cop, Rich. That guy wasn’t very good though. Letting himself get drunk is a terrible idea since a cop always needs to be ready. He also misses his shots when it counts so he’s not really the guy I would want to watch my back. He’s not a terrible character or anything but he is unreliable and that’s a really important factor in a mission like this.

David does well as the main cop. This is clearly not his first rodeo and he handles himself like an absolute professional. It’s what you would expect from the main character. He’s more concerned with justice than following the rules and that’s why he gets the job done. He has the respect of the people within the neighborhood for this same reason. The rest of the characters are definitely not able to catch him. Now the film does make it a point to show that he does take this a bit far to the point of obsession where he won’t be home much and that makes things tough on his wife and kid. He can probably find a better middle ground but at least he is getting results.

His wife also does well here as her scientist specialty helps her figure out different things like a possible weakness for the big alligator. It’s always nice to see both members of the main couple contributing like this. We also got some help from one of the local gator experts. He actually puts up a fight and lasts for a little while which is nice since initially his group was not looking very impressive at all. For a while there I was starting to think that they were all frauds.

The movie can’t avoid the animal violence in the end though as we do inevitably have to see the alligator get taken down. Additionally, it’s a shame for the gator since he doesn’t actually get a ton of screentime. Half the time when he’s eating people you aren’t really seeing him but at least his presence is felt throughout the movie. You may have been expecting a huge cliffhanger for this film like the first but surprisingly that’s not really the case.

The film also has a difficult time trying to make you buy into the main romance that is set up between the rookie and the mayor’s daughter here. I mean, finding the guy locked in the bathroom is not a great first impression and I would argue things only look worse for him from there. The main couple is already married which makes that romance a lot easier.

In the end I feel like the human plot was a lot more engaging than the animal stuff. I could have had fun with the whole thing being about Vincent trying to take over the neighborhood and shooting anyone in his way. He was clearly good at this and had the political power to pull this off. I’ll take the conspiracy stuff any day as opposed to the evil animal plot where the animal is really minding his own business and doesn’t want to fight. You feel bad for the creature.

Overall, Alligator II isn’t a whole lot of fun. It’s a decent adventure and another short film so the pacing is fine but it’s not really doing anything different with the creature. The alligator crawls around and looks menacing but that’s about it for most of the animal scenes. You are rooting for him to take down all the pesky humans invading his turf and it’s not nearly as bloody as something like Piranha. Still, the alligator is going to get stabbed and then blown to bits and you don’t want to see that. I’d recommend skipping this one. If you have to watch an evil animal film then it beats a lot of the alternatives, but it still doesn’t quite step into the realm of being a good movie.

Overall 3/10

Child’s Play (1972) Review

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It’s time for a film with a lot of suspense as you know something strange is going on but you don’t know exactly what it is. Well, it definitely succeeds in being a rather eery film with the kind of atmosphere that is hard to match nowadays. That said, the resolution isn’t particularly satisfying and just about all of the characters have to consistently drop the ball in order for the film’s events to play out in this way. It makes you wish that some real adults would show up already.

The film starts off by showing us that the children in a local Catholic School have all gone absolutely crazy. They are terrorizing each other and the events are only escalating. In particular they all seem to dislike one teacher, Malley who is infamously known as Lash. The guy is a really harsh teacher, someone who demands absolute respect and holds the kids to a high standard. Another teacher named Dobbs is always saying that he wants Malley to go easier on the boys but the guy refuses. Meanwhile Malley mentions that e is being harassed a whole lot as well as his sickly mother. He blames it all on Dobbs while Dobbs says that he is crazy. Meanwhile an alumni named Paul shows up to be the new gym teacher but really doesn’t know what he is getting into.

There’s a mix of supernatural elements here as well as a more practical enemy. It’s an odd balance as you can’t totally tell where one part ends and the other begins. I assume that is intentionally left up to your interpretation. The supernatural part was also necessary because otherwise it’s just hard to believe that things would have gone this bad this quickly. There are hundreds of boys in the Catholic school and yet a huge amount of them have turned rogue. It’s all very calculated and then the victims don’t even fight back and if anything just make it easier to become the next victims. Nothing at this school really makes sense.

So that’s really a big part of the mystery that Paul needs to figure out. The guy is really out of his depth from the start though and just being away from the kids for a few minutes is enough for the next person to be turned into a victim. With speed like that, you really have to be perfect in order to prevent anything from going on. It’s an unrealistic burden that nobody can possibly live up to. And yet, that is the burden that he ultimately has to bear as long as he’s here. Honestly he should have ducked out right away but I give him bravery points for sticking it out.

He’s just not too smart about it all. Remember that at least 20 kids are going around causing these issues and attacking other students. Paul is an adult but he’s only around 20, barely older than the other students. If it becomes a 20 on 1 fight, realistically Paul won’t be able to do much of anything. Yet, he easily allows himself to be alone in an environment where there is nobody to back him up. Just no common sense there at all.

I’m also unclear why the police haven’t gotten involved. Sure, the school isn’t contacting folks, but the hospital has records and then you also have the parents who should be getting more and more vocal with how often this has been going on. By the end the situation is finally being handled but it sure took a very long while. Everyone within the school takes some blame among the faculty because they were way too lenient and slow to react.

Dobbs does his best to look like the kind teacher the whole time but does tend to lay things on a bit thick. He does a good job of always looking very concerned and only blows up on occasion. He does come off as more reasonable than Malley although that guy isn’t actually that bad. He’s strict, but never abusive or anything like that. He doesn’t lay a hand on the students and while he blasts them about their mistakes, all of the students do make a lot of mistakes. Ultimately when everyone fails like this, it does reflect most on the teacher though. So I would say he probably needs to improve on his own curriculum here.

As for all of Malley’s concerns like the terrorizing phone calls, weird magazines, etc. The main message here is to not let yourself get gaslit. When things are happening, you always have to trust yourself above all to know that it’s real no matter how many people say you’re lying. I’m a little surprised he couldn’t take a more active approach to all of this though. There is no guarantee of success for anything of course but if he had brought in physical evidence or started recording the calls or contacting the police, something could have happened. You have to disrupt the status quo at the very least. If he’s sure that Dobbs is the one doing it, then he has to do something about this or it’ll only get worse.

I would say the main thing holding the film back here is how mean spirited it could get and of course how nobody was doing anything about this. There is quite a lot of bullying going on here and since the victims can’t fight back either due to the supernatural element or full on fear, the adults had to step up. Every time they have a meeting with 0 results you have to shake your head. It felt like a film where the ending had no real hope from the beginning. So it’s like you’re on a slow ride to dark end with no hope of getting out in sight. Doesn’t quite make for the most enjoyable kind of experience right?

Overall, Not every film has a happy ending and a horror film makes that even more likely. How good these films will be can usually e boiled down to how solid the characters are and if you felt like there was at least some hope along the way. Some point where you could be having fun during the movie. That’s never really the case here and while there are several teachers, they all tend to be rather useless when it counts. The movie is very much a slow burner but when the characters are helpless to stop the impending evil, it’s not the most effective approach. If you like really sinister kinds of films with this atmosphere then you may enjoy this one but ultimately while it is a step above the average slasher kind of film, I still wouldn’t call it a good horror title.

Overall 3/10

Earth Girls Are Easy Review

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It’s time for a rather rough romantic comedy. This is the kind of film that comes to mind for most people who aren’t really into the genre. It’s super cheesy and none of the characters are likable. The romance is super rushed and the whole film will make you cringe a whole lot. There just isn’t much here to really enjoy. I appreciate that the film is really having fun messing around here and there is a lot of energy to the film but unfortunately it never quite makes the leap to being good.

The movie starts off by introducing us to Valerie who is currently in a rather frustrating relationship with Ted. He seems to have grown bored of her and pays her 0 mind whenever he is around. She doesn’t realize that he’s been cheating on her for a while now but ends up catching him in the act. She kicks him out and is wondering what to do next when she ends up bumping into a trio of aliens who crash landed in her pool. The main one is named Mac and he quickly takes a liking to her. Well, all 3 are desperate for a girl and like her but Mac ends up being the only one with a serious sideplot. Will Valerie rebound with this alien or will she take Ted back?

I would say the first problem here is how much of a doormat Valerie is. She catches Ted cheating on her and then all it takes is a few nice words from him and she is ready to take him back again? Just a really bad look on her part. You’ll be shaking your head the whole time. This happens multiple times mind you. He yells at her about how the wedding is off and makes a huge scene with the cops…then he acts nice and she takes him back yet again. It’s just such a bad romance.

Of course the goal is to make Ted look as shallow and fake as possible, but the problem is the way that it was executed also makes Valerie look really bad. It’s a lose lose situation as a result and that’s the real problem here. They should have had her not take him back at all and throughout the film he is trying to win her over/take down the aliens. That would have made a lot more sense and wouldn’t have destroyed Valerie’s character as well.

Additionally, the rebound with the alien also doesn’t do her character any favors because it seems like she just doesn’t really know what she wants. She’ll basically take any guy who will give her attention and that’s not how you write a good main character. Her best friend is also able to easily influence her, so it further shows that Valerie doesn’t really have a whole lot of strength of will. She can just be blown away by the tide. That’s true for most of the girls in this film to be honest so it’s not like any of them looked all that good. Her best friend was nice enough but certainly not responsible in the slightest. The kind of person who will always get you into trouble because none of the fun is really planned ahead. The friend just goes off of vibes and instinct which is a recipe for disaster.

The aliens are unfortunately annoying as well. The film decides to go the route of their being brainless. The problem is that this doesn’t really make sense since in the initial scene they seemed normal. Desperate of course since they were talking about girls right from the jump but at least they did have some reason. Once they crash land, they may as well be mindless brutes with how they play around with all of the objects. Them not knowing Earth customs is one thing but they didn’t know anything. They eat Valerie’s fish, make a mess of the whole house, etc. They were super annoying and naturally this meant they were on my bad side from the start.

The film actually tries to give Mac a serious romance plot as well which will also have you shaking your head. It just doesn’t make any kind of sense. The ending is trying to be wholesome but you can’t take it seriously and that is how the whole film plays out. None of the jokes are particularly funny. The only thing I can really say in the film’s defense is that it has quick pacing. There is always a lot going on and it’s not like you are ever going to get bored.

On the flip side, the film does resort to fanservice very often. It’s clear that the writers were not super confident in their own product so they had to go low-brow for most of the film. It feels like a Charlie’s Angels experience at times. Not a good recipe for easy laughs, if anything it just shows you how desperate the film is. It certainly did not win the movie any points and by this part of the film, it’s not like it could really afford to lose any either. All around, a rough time here.

Overall, While the review may sound harsh, this movie just tripped into all of the possible issues it could land on with a rom-com like this. The most important thing you have to do in order to make this film a success is to be funny and unfortunately this one was not funny. The next most important step is to at least have a decent romance and we didn’t get that either. This is the kind of movie that serves as a warning on what not to do in this kind of experience. I would definitely recommend you to stick away from this film, especially if you disagree with the film’s title. I guess if you believe it, the film makes a strong case for this though. The aliens have every girl wanting to be with them even though they can barely talk or do anything. It makes all of the girls in this film look really shallow.

Overall 3/10