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House of Dracula Review

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We are now entering the climax of the Universal monster movies. This one is definitely more of a standard experience as it doesn’t really do a lot with the premise but at least it’s fun to see all of the characters together. It would be nice if they all could really interact and have a big fight though. It feels like the film always finds some kind of excuse to keep these guys separate for the most part and I feel like that’s odd. People get excited for crossovers for…the actual crossover after all. So we want to see these guys mix it up.

So the movie starts with Dracula showing up to the well respected Dr. Franz asking him for a cure to being a vampire. The Doctor is ready to help but is Dracula on the level or is this some kind of scheme? Larry Talbot shows up shortly afterwards looking for a cure to being a Werewolf and the Doctor is eager to help him as well. Unfortunately he is rather busy so it’ll be tough to help them. Talbot doesn’t want to wait and jumps off a cliff but there he finds Frankenstein’s monster. During this chaos, Dracula makes his move and kidnaps Milizia. Can this monster be saved and will Talbot finally have his peace?

There is one plot that is very satisfying here at least and that is that Talbot finally gets some peace. After all these years of constantly being on the run or forced to turn into the Werewolf, it was nice that his plot had a satisfying conclusion. He was always the best part of this shared universe and so it was important that he got a good ending here. I don’t think this movie would have been as good otherwise.

It’s always fun to see him here and Talbot certainly aged quite a bit since the first films so you can really see how he was dealing with this curse for a long time. The other characters aren’t quite able to match him in terms of being as intense or interesting. First off we have Dracula but he doesn’t look very good here. He mainly relies on cheap tricks and deception in order to get ahead but his weakness to the sun is still quite massive. There’s one scene where he looks real awful because he’s running from the doctor so that he can get to his coffin. He goes in and locks the door. Well….the doctor just walks in and opens it so he dies instantly to the Sun.

I know time was of the essence but that’s just a lousy way to go. Meanwhile Frankenstein’s monster shows up to just be a mindless monster that is quickly dispatched. He has almost nothing to do with the actual story at all. He’s basically just here for the crossover so they awaken him just to take him out again. It’s all so brief that it’s almost funny but I don’t think any Frankenstein fans will be super satisfied with his portrayal here. It could have been way better is one way to put it at least.

As for the Doctor, well the power gets to him and he loses control so he gets no points for having any kind of strength of will. It’s good that he’s super smart and able to pull off some cures but he’s probably not the guy that you want on your side. If anything he was going to easily fall for Dracula’s tricks if the girl hadn’t given him a heads up. There’s also an inspector who appears briefly as always but he doesn’t get much to do. In effect this film is like a speed run through the usual Universal monster film template only with a few extra monsters.

The writing is decent at least, it’s always fun to see the characters having a polite conversation the whole time. The cast is small but I’d say they were mostly decent even if they weren’t too memorable. Seeing Talbot use a gun near the end was also fun since he’s more of a hand to hand guy usually with the Werewolf skills. It would have certainly been better if the movie embraced the crossover factor more but in the end I’d say this was a good movie. Maybe not “Very good” the way that it should have been but I could watch this one again.

The movie is short so it doesn’t drag on and meanwhile the pacing is on point. We don’t get too much of Dracula running around and causing trouble which is good since he’s usually the one who could make things a little dicey. If you’ve seen the rest of the Universal movies then you should watch this one. It’s not going to change your life but even if you’re just watching it for Talbot, it’s a nice way to end things off.

Overall, The House of Dracula forgot that it was a big crossover film and kept the plots a bit separate. Not completely separate like in the last one but I’d still like a modern remake to go all in with the premise. There’s really a lot you can do with all of these monsters meeting up and having it out. Well, this movie plays things by the books so if you want a low key Universal monster movie then this is a fun one to check out. Give it a spin and feel nostalgic as you know that you’ve arrived at the end of the journey. A small part of me will miss these titles or at least I’ll miss Talbot with all of his fun adventures.

Overall 6/10

Blair Witch 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

It’s time for the return of the Blair Witch! The first film was fairly bad, I wouldn’t put it in the same level as a slasher or anything but the shaky cam wasn’t doing it for me and the characters were annoying. This one is fairly similar to the point where you could almost call it the same movie. It’s continuing the story at least so that’s a start but the characters are still super annoying and there is at least one extra mistake here that I thought was crazy.

The movie starts off with James deciding to go to the Blair Witch’s domain to try and find his sister Heather. She’s the one who got bumped off back in the first film but he figures there is still a chance that she is around based on a very low pixel Youtube video that came up. He gets his friend Peter and Peter’s girlfriend to come along along with Lisa from school. They track down the pair who uploaded the Youtube video and they agree to help but only if they can come along. James reluctantly allows this to Lane takes them straight to where they took the video. From there things start to get dicey though as mysterious dolls appear and there seems to be no way to escape. Have James and friends already been taken out by the Blair Witch??

As always there is a lot of shaky cam here since the group can’t get their act together when they start running in the climax. Otherwise they have a lot of angles this time so things keep switching up but I’ll always prefer a real camera to the hand-camera style. It’s a little harder to really focus like this and it’s like the screen is always moving. Personally I think this is never the way to go and is probably the worst camera technique. Even if you want people to think that this actually happened, it doesn’t work. In fact, it works even less than the original because like I said, they’re switching devices constantly.

So when people found the tapes….they managed to find every single tape? They even got the drone tape to get that footage. I mean by this point I don’t think they’re expecting people to think it’s real so it may just be for tradition but I don’t think this was a good idea. Just admit that it’s fake from the start and lets use that as the baseline. Either way the film wouldn’t be going very far without better characters though.

The only reasonable one throughout is probably James. He is at least trying to save his sister and has good motives even if the plan is probably not a good idea. It’s not until we’re late in the game where it feels like he is weakening a lot like running off because he hears voices. It’s nice to assume that he is mind controlled because otherwise he just looks awful in this moment. You don’t just run off like that.

Then we have Peter who was also good here. He was against Talia and Lane joining the group and I agreed with him on that. Nothing good could come from having those two join the party. You’re allowing strangers who are quite shady to join the party just like that? No, I don’t think that was a good idea at all. Look, you’re already going to bat against possible supernatural forces but now you’re sleeping alongside two strangers? Anything weird that happens could now be them instead of the Blair Witch.

You also have to stay on guard all night in case they try anything or turn out to be psychos. Surprisingly the characters don’t take any extra precautions or anything like that which was a little surprising but it was still a bad move. I had a hard time getting past that decision. Sure, it’s good that they can show you the location of where they got the picture but it’s not worth all of the added danger here.

Ashley does her best throughout this as well but she definitely has it really rough the whole time. I would argue that the film is harder on her than anyone else because she gets a big cut at one point and then this gets worse and worse as there are organisms inside of her and it’s all really painful. It’s also rather gross and violent so they could have cut that plot out completely. Also, why did they take their shoes off to go into the river? That seemed like a really bad idea to me. Forget about the sharks but even bacteria and anything else that could be in the water is probably not a good idea to mess with. Shoes can’t stop everything but it at least offers you a little extra protection and I’ll take what I can get.

As for Lisa, she started off on the wrong foot from the start when Peter nicely asked if she wouldn’t use the footage for her documentary since it was very personal and traumatic but she said no because she needed the film. I knew at that point that this would be her priority and she did stay quite close to the camera the whole time. She wasn’t as unreasonable as the heroine in the first film but she didn’t do the group any favors in terms of morale here. Lisa did last a while in not looking back at least but at the end made a rookie move. I don’t get why you’d look back at that point in the game.

Talia and Lane are just annoying the whole time. They’re unreasonable and cause a ton of trouble just like I said they would. Seriously they hold the main group back so much and without them things would have been way easier. Of course it’s still tragic as you know things won’t go well for them but it would have been nice if they didn’t have to make it so easy on the Blair Witch. At least be good team players or something right?

The movie is more of an atmospheric horror for the most part so it doesn’t get too violent aside from Ashley’s cut. That said, we do get a bit more action than in the first one. One character completely cracks and decides to help the Blair Witch so we get a little scuffle there. Then you also have the Blair Witch herself running around. So personally I think she’s an alien at this point. We get a quick shot of her as she runs around and she looks like a classic alien type design. It’s a very short moment of course but that’s my first thought.

Then later on she seemed to have summoned a UFO. It’s all pretty crazy and intentionally vague but I’m glad the film gave us a little more to chew on at least. It would just be nice if the humans could fight back a little more at least. Not much they can do about the loops and reality warping but once they’re in the house I’d like to see a little more fight out of them. Again, it would help if we had a standard camera instead of having to watch them spin around the whole time. There’s a lot of yelling and panicking but not a lot of strategy. It’s a tense situation of course but it doesn’t make for a lot of entertainment.

Overall, Blair Witch is a very repetitive film. You really feel like it’s the first movie all over again right down to the characters and setting. The climax also plays out very similarly with a few different changes thrown in there but the same result. You can do a lot better with horror movies and this one still doesn’t feel like it has much of a point, not yet at least. If they make another Blair Witch film, it’s time to go with a traditional camera this time around. Also, lets get a better character cast this time.

Overall 3/10

Werewolf by Night Review

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It’s rare to have stand-alone specials but they’re always fun when they pop up and this one is no exception. It’s a fairly unique special for Marvel as it doesn’t quite feel like the average movie. This one plays out more like a monster movie as everyone gets in on the hunt and it’s handled well. It’s also quite a bit more intense than the average movie but without lingering on any shot for too long or trying to get too gritty. So on that note I thought the movie did a good job.

It starts with the world’s greatest monster hunters all being gathered in one room. Their mission is to capture a red gem that has been placed on a monster. They have to slay the monster and grab the gem which will make them the new head now that the old man died. His wife Verussa is the one who has gathered everyone here together. Her daughter Elsa has also decided to show up for some reason which nobody is thrilled about but they’ll just have to roll with it. Naturally fighting among competitors is to be expected as well as the only rule is to grab the stone. Everything else is permissible and eliminating your competition now could help you out down the road. So with that in mind, the competitors are all sent into the garden at night to either slay the monster or be destroyed.

The main characters here are Jack and Elsa so you can expect them to do more than the other hunters. Elsa has her own reasons for participating and clearly her skills have not dulled as she is able to get in on the action rather quickly. She holds her own against these master class hunters and is generally a strong combatant. I thought she was a fun member of the cast. Perhaps not the most trustworthy fellow as I get the feeling she could change sides on a whim but having her power on your side is a good thing. She is adept at using most weapons.

Then you have Jack who is more of a pacifist and would rather not have to fight anybody. He will destroy monsters as needed but not other players. This puts him at quite the disadvantage here. In general Jack doesn’t seem nearly as skilled as the other competitors either though. He feels like your average lead who can fight with some street brawling skills but doesn’t have any super talented moves so things tend to get tricky for him. He’s always confident though, you have to give him that.

I enjoyed the whole set-up here. The opening scenes of everyone hyping each other up as we see how spooky the manor is was quite effective. I always like that kind of set up and the hunt is like a free for all in the Hunger Games. The black and white color scheme also worked really well here. Now if I’m being honest, doing this in color would probably work even better, but I do enjoy black and white so it wasn’t a big deal. Also, it does tend to help tone down the violence as a stylistic effect so it probably did come in handy there.

This feels very retro so the film absolutely succeeded since it seemed to be trying to get that feeling across. The battles are also good, they tend to be quick as each opponent is looking to murder the other one but you feel the skill in the confrontations. I also liked what the film did for the Marvel intro. It works well as a one-time Halloween kind of thing. I wouldn’t want it to replace the main intro but it was a good change of pace.

On the slightly weaker side of things, Man-Thing was one of the most hyped parts of the special but I wouldn’t say that he looked great. In fact, I would say that he was on the losing side of things for the most part. Not that he literally loses any fights here but he doesn’t seem as fierce as you would expect and it feels like he actually could have been in danger. Right now he appears to be a glass cannon and the gem was doing a number on him. I want to see what he can do at full power.

In the meantime I do like his friendship with one of the characters though. He seems like a good guy to hang out with and I like that personality of his. So he may not have looked too impressive in a fighting context but otherwise he was on point. I could see him doing more in a sequel or if he returns at some point. I did like the effects used for his fire attacks though. Then Verussa made for a solid villain. Her plans may have felt a little short sighted though towards the end. She did gain the upper hand but it felt like things could have easily gone very badly for her and then there would have been no real recovering from that. I guess revenge was her main motive but even so, she probably could have handled things a bit differently.

There aren’t any real big plot threads that would need to be resolved so this could stay as a one shot but I would like to see the adventures continue. I think there’s a lot you could do with this dynamic and the execution was just on point. This is a special that would have a good amount of replay value to be sure. It helps that it’s so short so nothing is dragged out. You can just jump in and watch this one right away. Jack is also a likable main character and Elsa was a good heroine so we got some nice banter throughout the adventure. There’s even a bit of humor thrown into the mix and so what you have as a result is a very steady adventure.

Overall, Werewolf by Night is a pretty good movie. It was better than I had anticipated. Usually using a Werewolf by itself is a recipe for disaster but the movie handled this one with care and didn’t get bogged down too much with violence or trying to have a lot of grit in there. Things could get intense at times but it was all done very quickly and efficiently, as you would expect from pro hunters. Likewise the Werewolf rampage scene isn’t overplayed. Definitely a good all around title.

Overall 7/10

Trilogy of Terror Review

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Now this is more like what I would expect from a horror anthology. None of the 3 stories are particularly good and so from the start you don’t think that this one is really going to make a name for itself or surpass its limits. It’s just falling flat and in at least one of the shorts you can guess the twist right away. Lets break each of the stories down though.

The first story follows a villain named Chad who begins to like Julie, one of his teachers. He figures that nothing will stop their being together and while she warns him that they cannot be together, he figures that he can win her over. From blackmail to kidnapping and spiking the drinks, Chad will do any and everything in order to get her. Fortunately as a horror segment you figure there will be a twist here because if played straight this could have easily earned the film a 0 right off the bat. It goes rather far and the twist turns the tables but the whole segment still seems to be in rather bad taste.

Rule number 1 of having a villain as the main character is that you need to give him some decent goals and make sure that the guy isn’t just a random creep. If he is then why are we following the guy? It’s a good way to just make sure that the whole segment will hurt as a result and that’s exactly what happens here. All of his scenes are just annoying to watch and the segment really drags on through to the end. As for the twist, that part was good at least. It’s really the only kind of twist that could have saved the segment somewhat. It’s relative but at least it kept this one from being all the way at the bottom.

Then we have the second story where Millicent is jealous of her sister Therese who seems to be a total rebel. Millicent plays things by the book but she has had to watch as Therese has ruined her life in every way possible. Millicent doesn’t know what to do at this point to try and get out of this situation and figures that she may have to go in a rather drastic direction. There’s a doctor that she speaks to over the phone but he isn’t of much help. Therese will usually corner him when the guy shows up so he has to beat a hasty retreat.

This is the one where I’d say you will guess the twist right away. Mainly due to how it’s all presented but I won’t give that away. Still, it’s another really bad segment. There isn’t even a whole lot of horror to this one. It’s more of a disturbing segment as we get all the exposition on what Therese has done over and over again. She has a way of corrupting people and unfortunately everyone has really weak willpower so they are never able to stop her. That’s certainly unfortunate because you’d like to think that everyone wouldn’t just crack so easily. Maybe if the doctor got to appear more and land some wins that would have been good but instead this segment is really an eye roller. I think they could have toned down Therese’s colorful history a bit and styled this more as a quick thriller with the doctor trying to quickly save her and we get a battle of wits there. That’s not what the segment was going for but it would have been an improvement.

The final segment has Amelia talking with her mother on the phone and deciding not to meet up this time. Her mother is quite upset at this since they had a family tradition going but Amelia doesn’t have too much time to worry about this because a random Zuni doll shows up and suddenly becomes alive. It looks very disturbing as it has a lot of sharp teeth and carries a spear around. It’s small but quite fast. Amelia will have to try and destroy this doll somehow but it won’t be easy. The doll has more combat experience and has incredible durability.

So the first thing we’re considering here is that Amelia has to play the matchup right. What I mean by that is Zuni has a few advantages but so does she. In a close quarters battle she should be able to defeat Zuni due to her better lifting strength and raw power. If she can knock him out of a window that will be game over. Additionally if she can disarm him from using the spear then she has knocked out most of his attack options. All she has to watch out for is the bite. In terms of speed, the doll is incredibly fast in short bursts but realistically can’t catch up to her otherwise so that’s when the planning should get involved.

Amelia’s win condition is to trap Zuni or ring him out by getting him off the battlefield. Unfortunately that’s what makes this segment annoying as she has multiple opportunities to take him out but squanders them. Every time she grabs the spear I wait for her to throw it out the window, put it in the oven, flush it down the toilet, do something! Instead she always leaves it on the ground which is an absolutely massive mistake since Zuni grabs it each time.

When Zuni starts to bite her I figured that would be it since with how sharp his teeth are, that felt like a game over. Somehow she tanked that and then gets him into a box. Okay, now we’re cooking with gas! Once Zuni is in the box she can hurl it out the window, down the steps, put it in more boxes to lair it, etc. Or if you have to, just take the time to escape by running out of the room. Instead…she just sorta panics and watches as it starts to cut its way out of the box since she let him get the spear again.

The final part where she makes a big mistake is she finally gets him in the oven. Keep the oven closed!! Look, she has already seen that it can breath underwater and that it has tanked many lethal hits at this point. So why are you opening the oven door? Keep it baking in there for hours as needed but there’s no rush to open the oven and why not make sure that the job is done? Realistically this probably wouldn’t have worked since Zuni is massively overpowered but at least you won’t be losing directly and put the burden on him to find a way out. Amelia played the matchup all wrong throughout the whole segment. At least we did have some action though but the segment could get a little bloody and more violent than it needed to be.

So that’s the Trilogy of Terror. Definitely a title that I would recommend avoiding. For the most part I wouldn’t even call the segments pure horror but more on the disturbing side. The first segment is certainly meant to be as disturbing as possible and I would say the second fits into that category as well. It’s only the third one that is actually going for a horror vibe as it’s a life or death battle against a supernatural entity. That’s something that can make you feel the fear but the others are relying more on shock value which is never a good crutch to use.

Overall, You can do a lot better than this movie. The writing isn’t very good and none of the stories are particularly solid either. The final story is the best one by default but it’s not exactly a high bar and wins by default aren’t the most impressive ones out there. It looks like it may be some time before we get another quality horror anthology as most of them turn out like this one but we’ll see. There could always be some hidden gems in the rough out there.

Overall 2/10

Dead of Night Review

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A horror anthology that’s actually good? Yes, this one was able to surpass its limits and actually turned out to be one of the better horror films that I’ve seen as of late. The stories were solid for the most part and the main plot that was keeping them together was also solid. Throw in a little mystery/intrigue and I was really sold on this one. Check this one out if you want a quality horror movie to watch.

The movie starts with Walter driving up to a house where he will was invited by the head to do an inspection. For some reason the place looks familiar and what’s worse is that he recognizes everyone who is at the house despite never meeting them before. Walter feels like he has gone through this already but his memories are mostly foggy. What he does remember for sure is that something evil is about to happen here and that’s enough to really scare him quite thoroughly. The rest of the guests don’t really believe him but then start to talk about supernatural stories of their own. Can Walter remember what is about to happen or will it all be too late?

Walter probably should have dashed out but it’s always rough when your own memories aren’t working properly. He’s an interesting main character though. Walter may not have the strongest will or be the most dynamic character but one thing’s for sure, he is super scared the whole time. That’s one aspect of his character that can always be annoying though. Like okay, we get that he is super scared and unsure of what to do but there comes time where he just needs to man up eventually. Instead by being on the defensive he is really ensuring that nobody is all that safe. At any time things can change and the evil that he senses will be upon them.

Well, lets go to the first story. So Hugh remembers a time where he saw this mysterious guy who asked if he wanted to get on a bus. Hugh was convinced that this was some kind of specter or personification of Death and that going with him would have been his doom. So Hugh decides not to get on board and the bus promptly crashes so everybody dies. Clearly it was good that he didn’t get on the bus but of course the others are doubtful or think that it could have been coincidence.

It was a quick story and one that was fairly low key but I thought it was pretty good. Sometimes a little atmospheric story like this can really get the message across quite nicely and doesn’t need a long run time. They accomplished everything that was needed here and it’s one of the better stories. Probably the second best one for me personally. The next story is a bit longer. So Sally was at an orphanage with a bunch of other kids and so they decided to play hide and seek. Sally found a really good spot but it actually led to a room where she got to meet a kid who was all by his lonesome.

Sally figured he got lost from the pack or just lived there but when she went back downstairs she found out that he had died a very long time ago. Had she been talking to a ghost? It’s one of those stories that is odd so of course she was worried but technically there wasn’t a lot of danger there or anything. So she was fairly safe either way. I thought this story maybe went on a little too long and one of the kids was annoying the whole time. Sally was good though and playing hide and seek in a big house definitely seems risky because it can be hard to find someone after a while. It’s definitely a game that’s easier to play in a small hut even if it’s less exciting.

Now we get to the most dangerous one. So one day Joan got a mirror and Peter thought it was okay at first but then he notices that the reflection is of a different room entirely. He can’t even see Joan there when she stands next to him. The more he looks into the mirror, the more he starts to get possessed by it. Peter’s willpower is easily overpowered by the mirror and it just seems like he doesn’t really stand a chance here. No matter what he does, he weakens and the mirror makes you relive the life of the original owner who ended up strangling the wife so that gets tricky for Joan. She just barely smashes it in time.

This story was actually a matter of life and death which separated it from some of the others. That said, I would say that it makes Paul look really bad since he was not able to escape its gaze. You’re basically telling me that he lost to a mirror. He should have broken that thing ages ago especially when he knew that Joan was leaving for a while and he could never beat it 1 on 1. She should have also broken it after the first few incidents even if Paul thought they would be okay. They got way too lax about the whole thing and it nearly cost them. It’s a bit weaker than some of the other stories but still decent.

Now we’re on the best story which involves golfing. So George and Larry are both madly in love with this one girl so they decide to settle everything with a game of golf. George wins so Larry drowns himself but later on Larry realizes that George cheated. Now Larry is determined to haunt George until he makes things right. George feels a bit guilty so he asks Larry what he can do but the demands are steep. Larry wants George to give up his wife and to never play Golf again. George isn’t gonna do that and so things continue to escalate.

This one may feel more comedic in nature compared to some of the other stores but I thought it worked out pretty well. I liked the whole idea of using golf to settle things and then Larry just casually appearing as a ghost was intense as well. That said, the heroine probably should have just picked one instead of letting herself be used as a prize. Usually you never want to just be the prize right? You want to be the one in control. It was a fun story with how absurd the whole thing was.

Finally we have the story with the dummy. So Maxwell has a dummy that he uses for the shows named Hugo but he seems to have a mind of his own. Hugo even keeps threatening to leave Maxwell for another performer. Maxwell gets mad at the other guy instead of Hugo which was my main issue with the whole thing. Just take Hugo out if he’s messing with you but why are you taking it out on the other guys? Maxwell is clearly unstable the whole time too so I can see why people wouldn’t suspect Hugo. The ending is definitely like something out of the Twilight Zone here and will get you thinking.

It’s a classic doll story. It’s not really trying to do anything too different but it doesn’t need to either. It’s just a fundamentally sound story from start to finish that hits enough of the high notes. This then takes us back to the main plot for the climax as we get to see what Walter could not remember. Things get really crazy in the climax but all I can say is that I was still blaming Walter the whole time. I thought the ending was also great and you can take it a few ways but I like to think of it as the loop is confirmed. That’s about as vague as I can keep things for now.

The writing is on point here and that’s a big reason as to why this succeeds. If the writing were not very good then this would have failed and if there were weak stories then it would be game over. Instead the stories themselves tend to be rather solid and I liked the main one that connected everything. The film was good with the atmospheric horror instead of trying to make this all too dark. It ends up being a very suspenseful movie that just works well and it never feels too long.

Overall, This is surprisingly a good movie. I can’t say that I had high hopes for it at all but at the end of the day it did surpass my expectations. This is a film that I could recommend to anyone, whether you are a horror fan or not. That’s when you know that a movie is good because it is very accessible. If more anthologies were like this then I may even appreciate that sub genre more but I’d assume this is more of an anomaly than a sign of things to come. I have another anthology coming up after all and that one wasn’t even close to being as good as this one was.

overall 7/10

The Dark Crystal Review

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This film was trying really hard to be a Lord of the Rings type adventure but unfortunately….it succeeded. Yes that’s the worst part of this because as a result I just can’t say that it’s very good. It is a little on the boring side and everything is way too drawn out. Mix that in with the visual style of the movie and it was a thumbs down.

So a long time ago there was a big great battle and the ultimate crystal was broken. Jen’s entire clan is wiped out by the villains and as the last survivor he is told that the only way to save the day is to heal the crystal. He can do this by finding a shard. Along the way he meets up with a girl named Kira and they have to overcome many powerful obstacles in order to survive. This world is huge and brimming with all kinds of creatures and other forced out there. Will they be able to claim victory or will this be game over?

Now this is an ambitious film so I’ll grant it that. There are a ton of new terms to memorize and of course you have to watch out for all of the different races running around. It is a full story in that sense as this could even be 2 hours plus with all of the content in here. The problem is that just having a story is not enough, you need to have a very good story.

After a while you just aren’t very invested in Jen’s journey. For starters I didn’t think that he was a great character. He felt a little weak and helpless to me, even dropping an easy catch near the climax. Sure, he ends up doing decent by the end but he’s not a main character that can really drive the film. Then you have the main heroine Kira who is a quality character. I thought she was consistently better than Jen. She was more helpful in combat and had better situational awareness as well. You could count on her.

There was one villain who stood out though and he was a bird that was a lot like Starscream. He was always plotting and thinking of ways to rise to the top. I like to see that kind of ambition in a villain so I liked him quite a bit. He wasn’t good enough to save the movie or anything but his scenes were the most engaging.

At the end of the day what hurts the film is the visual style. So this one is going for a puppets style where all the characters are puppets that are running around. It is definitely not my favorite style and would actually be one of the weakest ones for me. It’s hard to get too invested in what is happening because it all looks fake. I’d even take CGI and a lot of other styles over this one.

It really doesn’t help the plot which was already on the dry side. Now when there is nothing all that fun to look at, the whole film ends up suffering. Just like how good animation or camera angles can help elevate a film to the next level, the opposite can be true as well. A good chunk of why I’d give the film a negative ranking is because of this. It couldn’t keep my attention and would have needed some really drastic positives to change things up.

For example, if the soundtrack was incredible then that’s one way that you can bounce back. Have a lot of rock themes or something like that. Usually I’d throw in fight scenes but we did have some action segments here. They just didn’t work because of the puppets style so that’s a no go. There’s only so much that you can do with this style and the cracks were showing immediately. It’s a shame but that’s just the way that these things go sometimes. I think this could have potential with a remake in full traditional animation.

Live action probably wouldn’t fare much better. Again the plot seems like something out of LOTR and the main character is fairly young. So if this was live action then I don’t think the film would really be able to do too much with this concept. The old school fantasy adventures need a little extra boost than that. Most of my favorite fantasy type titles have some sci-fi thrown in or really cool visuals. Despite being popular, LOTR and films of that nature have my least favorite kind of fantasy.

Everything looks really old all the time and everyone fights with old swords. It doesn’t feel fantastical at all and just an AU of how the old era would have looked. It’s not what you want to strive for in a story like this. I understand this movie eventually got a prequel series so maybe that improves upon things but unless it looks considerably different then I think it’s going to be in for a world of trouble. To make this work you need a whole lot of special effects and CG.

Overall, The Dark Crystal wasn’t for me. It’s a film that will end up being very forgettable with no real good characters to surpass the limits of the medium. You can blame 90% of this on the puppets though. You just aren’t able to convey any kind of emotion or excitement when using those. So it’s like you’re watching an adventure from a very detached position and that’s never what you’re aiming for. I would recommend most fantasy adventures over this one. Watch a title like Final Fantasy Advent Children instead. That one delivers on the action and also has a very interesting story. It may be hard to follow at times but you’ll know that things are getting intense.

Overall 3/10

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later 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

It’s quite telling that the last Halloween film was so intense that this one almost felt a little tame in comparison. It’s still super violent and everything so don’t get me wrong but it’s not being quite as crazy as the last one which is definitely appreciated. You’ll still want to give this one a pass but it does at least try to go back to form with the originals and I would even say that it succeeds at this.

The movie starts out by explaining that Laurie faked her death and is currently living in peace with her son John. She is still deeply traumatized by the whole incident but she is trying to slowly move forward with her life. Her son John thinks that she isn’t moving fast enough though as she still doesn’t let him go away on big school trips and he just feels like he’s trapped. Still, his friends say they’ll have the town to themselves now so John is eager to have fun there. Perhaps Laurie’s fears are not unfounded though as it appears that Michael Myers has returned once more. Can he be stopped or is it already game over for the main characters?

The setup naturally means that things will be in Michael Myer’s favor this time as the town has basically been abandoned since almost everyone went on that big school trip. There are only a few stragglers left behind including the main characters. As you can expect Myers goes to work on these guys fairly quick. Now what you may be wondering about is what happened to the school security? For once they actually have a fairly decent setup here because there is a big gate that prevents anyone from getting in.

This is where the movie has its most cringeworthy moment. So Michael drives up to the school and then hides inside. So the guard Ronnie, decides to…open the gate to check out the car? That’s completely messed up and shows that even if you have the best security systems in place, someone can just mess it up by dodging protocol. I mean jus think about it for a few minutes. Why are you opening the gate? If the guy is in the car and Ronnie clearly thought that he was, then the guy can just speed on through. There seem to be no other guards so you’re just dooming everyone.

Ronnie is the comic relief character of the film but even then this is a little out of bounds. It’s the kind of “Horror movie decision” that I haven’t seen in a while. It used to be a big thing about horror characters always making the wrong decisions to the point where it became a meme but usually you don’t see such blatant examples of it anymore. Ah well, I still like Ronnie but that had to be the worst writing moment in the film.

One thing that holds the film back is the rest of the characters are mainly annoying. So John is in a clique with 3 other characters who decide they should mess around a ton since the adults aren’t going to be around. They love their dark humor and being edgy so it’s the perfect situation for them but of course Myers shows up and throws a wrench into that plan. The characters also don’t have much of a heads up because one of them already loves fake jump scares so by the time that he is out of the way, the others are caught off guard.

It’s not like they would have had much of a chance either way tbh, but it’s still an annoying way to go out. John is rather irresponsible too and while he may have a point about Laurie being overprotective, it doesn’t give him clearance to just do whatever he wants. He went too far and should have just told her about the party. The reason he didn’t is because he knows that he is going to be doing crazy stuff there. That’s why he’s being secretive.

As for Laurie, well it’s hard to blame her for being so shaken up after what happened. Who wouldn’t be right? The whole ordeal was absolutely crazy and the fact that he’s back just makes all of her fears even more valid. I thought she did a good job of fighting back against him here. The most annoying moment is when Ronnie stops her as she’s beating Myers up. Cmon now, this guy is an insane mass murderer, why are you going to stop her like this? In this case he thought that Myers was already dead but in that case there should be no problem with continuing right? It’s all just a bit much if you ask me.

Myers is not a henchmen anymore since the last film doesn’t exist here which is good. He’s still just your basic psychopath but at least he doesn’t work for anyone this time which is a big upgrade. It was always weird to have him play second fiddle to anybody so at least this feels more like the real guy. That said, there’s not much character to him beyond just running around and murdering everyone so I wouldn’t say that he stands out or anything.

As always the film is mainly just held back by how incredibly violent it is. Everyone is bumped off in increasingly violent ways as the body count rises. It may feel less violent than the last one but it’s all still relative and this is the kind of thing that will always doom a slasher movie. It eliminates a lot of replay value because you don’t want to be seeing all of that violence.

Overall, Halloween is pretty much the same as it always was. The plot isn’t anything more than Michael Myers showing up to destroy everyone which is what he does in every film. If you’ve seen one film then you’ve seen them all and there is no reason to watch this one. It never gets past all of the usual slasher film cliches and there isn’t much good to say about it. Aside from Laurie, everyone is written to be unlikable or not very good at their job so the whole task is real easy for Myers. One day maybe we can get a Halloween film that is more atmospheric than violent but I have my doubts.

Overall 2/10

Radio Days Review

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Radio Days is definitely a film that suffers from just not being very interesting. It’s all about the radio and a bunch of characters who listen to it but the characters aren’t all that good and the narrator just ends up being annoying the whole time. The film ends up dragging a bit as a result. Now I’m not saying that the movie is awful or anything as it’s weak but not terrible. It doesn’t make any huge mistakes, it just never really gets good.

So the film follows a kid named Joe as he listens to the radio and just gets to live life a lot. He is a big fan of the Masked Avenger cartoon that would play over the radio. As the years go by he gets to experience war through the radio as well as songs and just about every program that is there. He feels like these times were a lot of fun, they were the simple days where everything just sort of popped out at you. There really isn’t much of a focus to the movie beyond that. I suppose as a subplot you also had Sally trying to work on her enunciation so that she can be a big radio star as well. Ultimately she does well for herself and even gets a lot of street smarts so the execs can’t fool around with her.

That’s probably what the film needed more of, a steady plot. The slice of life with no purpose only works when the writing is exceptional and the characters are great but I couldn’t say that here. Joe is your average kid in many ways so there isn’t anything really interesting about him. His family certainly have a lot of strict traditions like not playing music on loud during the Sabbath and all but the father of the household cracks real quick once he goes to meet the neighbors. So much for his conviction there.

I also think he could have let Joe know that he was a cab driver. That’s not a crazy profession by any stretch so when he was being secretive I thought it was going to be something really embarrassing. I suppose he just had a lot of pride. Then Sally was decent enough once she got wise to all the scams around her. I thought the movie missed an easy lay-up by not having everyone get locked out on the roof though. That would have been a fun tribute to an earlier scene.

The Masked Avenger serial sounded fun at least. The concept sounded fun and superheroes are always in season so who wouldn’t enjoy that right? I would have liked to have focused on that a bit more since it would have been more interesting. You’ll just struggle about things to talk about here because all of the stories are so scattered and short that there is no focus. In general I do think stories need to have a strong focus because without them they will just get lost and you don’t want that.

What this film could have done to improve things would have been to have had Joe really have to deal with some challenges during the radio days. Give us a concrete plot like he’s earning money to buy a Masked Avenger figure and the whole film is about that as the radio plays in the background. You could probably tone down the narration a bit so we can get the plot rolling more. Good narration can absolutely enhance a film but in this one it just felt like the movie was stalling for time.

It just wasn’t very interesting much like the rest of the film. I didn’t grow up with the radio so any sentimental value that could have boosted the film with that didn’t work for me. Instead I was just waiting for the film to really get rolling. If nothing else at least it is always fun to see how the city looked back then. What has changed over the years and what hasn’t. I was never one to go outside on New Year’s Eve at midnight to watch things happen live, I prefer using the TV but it is fun to walk around in the morning and see how empty everything is.

Overall, Radio Days was a swing and a miss for me. While the lack of a plot/focus did keep the film from exposing the bad writing too much (Because what we got usually felt a little suspect) it also meant that the film had no real upside. It would be hard for me to describe the plot to someone because it was basically nonexistent. By the time you finish watching the film you feel like nothing has really happened at all. It’s like you were along for the ride but on a journey that didn’t actually have a destination. So that’s why even though the film doesn’t make any big mistakes, I would say to stay away from it. There just isn’t anything here for you and it’s also why this review is a bit on the shorter side because there’s only so much that you can say about it.

Overall 4/10

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers Review

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Halloween has returned with another stinker. While the bar for Halloween movies is already underground, this one did manage to still be a particularly weak installment in the series. We’ve got more action with the cult that is awful and somehow the murders here felt even more intense than in some of the other installments. It is fairly relative by this point I’ll grant you that. Either way, I highly recommend staying far away from these film and definitely away from this one.

So the film starts off with a prison break as Jamie tries to escape with her kid from Michael Myers and the cult. She barely makes it out but gets murdered by the barn anyway. Her kid Kara gets to live a normal life for a while or as normal as it can be but unfortunately her new family are all rather crazy. The film really goes out of its way to make the family as unlikable as possible with the father being abusive and the rest not being able to do much of anything. You have the little kid who is on his way to being the next psycho with his knife skills. All you need to know about these guys is that most of them are completely doomed.

Myers is on his way and the only ones who can stop him are Loomis and Tommy, a kid who has made it his life’s work to stop Michael Myers from terrorizing anyone else. Naturally nobody else is taking the threat seriously. Half the town thinks that Michael Myers never existed and the others figure that he’s dead. Everyone treats the whole thing as a big joke to the point where they are reinstating Halloween and everyone is dressing up in Michael Myers costumes now. The town really isn’t very smart, you’d think either way they wouldn’t be glorifying the guy at least.

Well, it’s all going to be easy pickings for Myers now. For once he feels more like a lackey though which is odd. So the film introduces some new concepts here and one is that there is a whole sacrifice system behind Myers’ madness. See, he only murdered people when the right stars are aligned and you can sacrifice someone to him so that he spares your family. It would have been nice if the cult was just crazy and Myers shows up randomly anyway but he actually does feel like their minion here.

There’s a scene early on where the cult basically summons him to take Jamie down. Myers walks out of one of the office rooms as if he worked there. It’s weird to see him as a minion and it take away from him being the big boss that he usually is. It was a very odd move and one that didn’t do the film any favors. Myers is still going to get wrecked by the end and his regeneration and super strength are not enough to save him. He is definitely a character who isn’t all that great.

As for the cult, well they’re awful. The opening scenes have a long drawn out sequence where they are preparing a baby to be sacrificed and so they’re putting marks on him and such. It’s all rather awful and you’re just waiting for that scene to end already. If the film was trying to make you a bit eery from the jump then it succeeded but at the detriment of the film. The cult guys also have no business being here. They were never supposed to be the focus and yet they do a lot here. There’s even a new guy who shows up…I wonder if he could be the mysterious man in black??

Then we have the heroes. Well Tommy is decent at least. It would just be nice if he communicated more and had some kind of a plan beyond just messing around and finding out. This was his life’s work so shouldn’t he have some heavy artillery or gadgets or some kind? It felt like he was going in blind each time and that’s not a good idea against someone like this. Perhaps he thought that Myers really wouldn’t put up more of a fight than the average dude but since he knew about the prophecy and all that just seems like a very illogical thing to think.

At least he does get some good moments in like clubbing Myers with the bat and all. I can give him some credit here but I was still underwhelmed considering that he basically lived for this. In comparison I can cut Loomis some more slack because the guy is old by this point and he really thought that he was done with all of this. Instead he’s being forced into yet another confrontation and this was one that he was definitely not ready for. It’s always nice to see Loomis but when you think about it he really didn’t do much here.

As for Kara, well I guess she’s an okay main character for the most part. She’s better than some but ultimately doesn’t stick out much beyond being the next target. Kara seemed to have a little less character than previous heroines and that’s because the film was busy with so many plots. There just wasn’t a whole lot of time for her. Maybe for the best though because that meant we didn’t have to have too many scenes with her family. I doubt those would have been very good.

At least the film avoids one cliché which is that when the heroes knock the villain to the ground they suddenly walk away. This happens in Scream when they knock someone down and drop the knife and just about every other series. There’s nothing worse than the main character getting the edge and suddenly her “friends” show up to stop her saying that he’s had enough or he’s dead already. Look, we’re talking about a serial killer who has a massive body count. There is no “enough” yet, you gotta put him down. Then on the other hand if he’s already dead, what’s the problem in landing a few more hits? So when Tommy kept on whacking Myers with the bat until he was literally changing shape, that was the best way to handle it. Even if he regenerates, you’ve bought yourself some time.

Overall, There really isn’t anything else good to say about the film. It’s really just mindless slaughtering as Myers goes around and takes everyone out. The plot is absolutely secondary and you can tell with how halfheartedly they handle the plot with the cult. The whole film is really about shock value instead and you can immediately see this with how drawn out and extended the Jamie death scene was. It was like he murdered her 5 times over with how graphic that was. He definitely was salty about how the last film went but we really don’t gotta see that. Slashers are usually awful but this one stands out even among them. You’ll want to keep it moving and forget that this one existed.

Overall 0/10

The Wolfman 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

Oof, this is one of those films where you figure that it’s not going to be good from the start. It’s going for the ultra violent route to the Wolfman mythos and in the meantime you also have a romantic rebound going on which never helps anything. I think there are parts of this story that can be a little interesting but at the end of the day there isn’t much going in its favor. I’m not a big fan of the setting for starters and beyond that there aren’t many good characters. The film is also very mean spirited which doesn’t help anything either so it becomes a bit of a wash.

The movie starts with Lawrence coming into town after his brother was brutally murdered by something. Everyone has their own theories but it was either a wild animal or..something supernatural. Lawrence takes care of business but he ends up getting bitten and now he is doomed to be the next Wolfman. In an old town where everyone is superstitious, that’s not a good thing. Additionally Lawrence has little to no control over this transformation either so he could really end up hurting someone. Can he find a way to either stop his transformations or get out of town?

There is a lot of mystery in the air throughout the film but at the end of the day there isn’t much Lawrence can do for most of it. When he’s not being assaulted by the villagers or manipulated by Sir. John, he’s being strapped to a chair and tortured by the doctor. That had to be the worst scene in the film by far. So this doctor decides that he will use shock therapy to save Lawrence and the way he does this is to continuously electrocute him until Lawrence can feel his mind slipping away the entire time. Lawrence can barely focus or even think rationally by this point so he starts hallucinating.

I should mention that the film loves its fake jump scares and hallucinations. Get ready for his mind to play tricks on him in rather violent ways. I suppose that’s the best way to escape the actual pain in the real world but I still feel like this whole sequence had no purpose being here. Of course he will end up murdering this guy viciously in his Wolfman form but did we need Lawrence to go through all of that? I personally don’t think he deserved it.

Not to say that Lawrence is a great guy or anything but it was all so extreme…much like the rest of this film. You will be hard pressed to find a Werewolf film more violent than this one. They really wanted to show people getting ripped apart and eaten alive. One poor guy is basically hung up with what’s left of him for the world to see and that guy at least had some experience with werewolves. The whole movie felt rather mean spirited and even the dead couldn’t know peace.

So at the start of the film Lawrence’s brother was brutally murdered and his fiancé is the one who was pushing for Lawrence to arrive so that he could help out. She must be in a lot of deep distress over this tragedy right? Well…she falls for Lawrence rather quickly and they have a romance. How could this possibly happen? Rebounds are bad enough as it is but this one had two reasons for why it should not have happened at all. The first is fairly obvious which is that she’s now going out with the guy’s brother. You never rebound with family, that’s just awful. The second is the circumstances of the brother’s death which you think would add some extra time to how long you wait before entering another romance.

So the romance here was particularly bad without a doubt. It really hurt the character of both Lawrence and Gwen. I can’t say that I liked either one of them by the end. Gwen doesn’t do a whole lot beyond the romance either. Then for Lawrence, well he goes through a lot for sure and I can’t say there are many things he could have done differently but he probably should have dashed out when he had the chance.

John is the most interesting character because he’s rich, aloof, and a little odd. He knows how to use a gun and isn’t afraid to threaten the entire town with it. You can tell that nobody’s going to be messing with this guy that’s for sure. As the film goes on he gets shadier and shadier but is ultimately the character who adds the most to the movie. At least he always takes over any scene that he’s in. Then we have Inspector Francis but I feel like he’s fairly generic. The guy basically admits that his skills aren’t great so he waits at the pub until the Wolf makes his next move. The location of the pub is quite convenient for him and all but he’s still not putting in a lot of the work personally. I expected him to have a much more active role in all of this.

I at least enjoyed one exchange between him and Lawrence where they traded insults during the entire conversation. Neither one of them was going to back down in the slightest and it was nice to see. It ended up being a stalemate but I always like it when a character doesn’t meekly just take the insults or anything like that. Lawrence wasn’t going to take it and the Inspector has a lot of experience on his end.

Overall, The Wolfman doesn’t really add anything to the mythos. Instead I would say that it’s one of the weakest installments in the series. It’s ultra violent without much reason behind this and the story is fairly basic. You could tell that the story was not the highest priority for the writers compared to just making this as gory as possible. There really isn’t much reason for the film to exist at all. The torture was also gratuitous and all the shock value moments just serve to weaken the movie. I would absolutely recommend giving this one a skip. You’re better off with just about any other film about a Universal monster and considering that Dracula is around, that’s saying something. There are some worse films out there to be sure like Frankenstein but it’s best that you don’t seek those out either.

Overall 2/10