Tag Archives: Gross

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Review

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I was never the biggest fan of Beetlejuice admittedly. It relies a bit too much on shocking humor and gross visuals. That said, it definitely beats the sequel which tried going a little too far into this direction. It had some good humor but for every fun joke, there was another cringe one thrown in. Definitely not the kind of movie that typically uses a whole lot of restraint. They even managed to squeeze in animal violence which I was completely not expecting.

The movie starts off with Lydia hosting her big spooky show where she helps people who need to see ghosts. Her daughter Astrid thinks it’s all fake and wants no part of this so the two have really fallen apart. They are forced back together though when Delia’s husband dies tragically out at sea and she wants everyone at the funeral. Lydia’s manager Rory figures this is his chance to marry her and Lydia has almost no free will of her own so she basically just says yeah. In the supernatural world Betelgeuse is making his move though as he is being chased by his ex-wife Delores and so now’s a good time to marry Lydia again.

He has spent years trying to get her attention and slowly she is starting to see visions of him in the real world. The boundary between life and death has never been weaker. Meanwhile Astrid meets an emotionless hack named Jeremy who is really eager to have a relationship and Astrid is lonely herself so she figures she may as well but she will have to try and keep her composure. Mustn’t show too much emotion herself. There’s definitely a lot going on here.

So right away one of the big issues here is how ugly everyone is in the spirit world. I know that’s part of the point with how you move to the next stage of existence with whatever injuries you died with but even so, this just felt like a bit much. You have people with live fish still eating them, a skeleton that’s constantly gushing out blood and a janitor that is pretty much mid vomit. You’re constantly waiting for the real world to return because every scene in the spirit world is just plain gross. It may be the film’s main gimmick but it definitely could have held back a decent amount here. You basically want to look away whenever they are in this world.

Then for no reason two chickens get eaten and there is quite a lot of violence everywhere. Putting in animals in any context had no purpose being here to be honest. It just doesn’t make any kind of sense so that was annoying. In the real world the characters may have always made the wrong decisions and so they weren’t easy to root for but at least nothing too crazy was happening on screen. Although lets dive into the characters now because they didn’t help the film much either.

First up is Delia who feels like a waste of a character. She’s just way too over the top the whole time with how far into the supernatural bubble she’s fallen into. Her scenes were rarely funny because of how exaggerated they were. then you have Jeremy who is annoying from the jump. It’s obvious that he is trying too hard to be the perfect match for Astrid and the fact that she is buying this at all is what will also have you shaking your head. Astrid is supposed to be the smart one except for when she’s not.

Although while Astrid makes her share of mistakes she could be worse. Lydia is 100X worse and her character has been thoroughly assassinated since the first film. She is so crushed by life that she is willing to let herself get married to Rory just because he asked her. She doesn’t actually love him but is going to go through with it anyway? That’s just terrible and no reasonable main character would ever do that. It’s a massive L against her character and throughout the movie she is being manipulated so easily. It’s easy to see why the family fell apart.

The film doesn’t give us much reason to even feel bad for her either. Since it’s part comedy, it’s not like Rory is even being subtle here. Lydia didn’t trust her feelings and that’s always going to lead you to disaster. As for Rory, well he’s your average villain. He does his job pretty well and considering that his plan would have succeeded if not for Betelgeuse I can’t even say it was a bad plan. It felt like a bad plan but it was working.

As for Betelgeuse, well he’s about as crazy as ever. He fears nothing and treats every part of life like it’s a joke. I suppose to him it is all just a big grand joke though so that makes sense. With his reality warping abilities he can defeat anyone as needed and only loses when he feels like it. It does make the film feel a bit aimless though since everyone is at the mercy of his whims. This even undercuts the main villain of the film.

Delores is the main villain here and she has the ability to suck the life out of someone. Honestly I think that plot point is the only reason why she was even added in the first place. At no point is she even a threat to Betelgeuse and the way she goes out is very lackluster. The film seemed to want to include some tension but couldn’t figure out a way to weaken Betelgeuse and so they just gave up halfway.

There is a lot going on throughout the movie and that’s a good thing I suppose but just about none of the plots have a satisfying conclusion. Everything is just jumbled together and none of the characters are interesting enough to hold their own. The only really fun character was the actor because I like over the top villains like him. That said, it’s not like the guy even did much. Then as far as the comedy is concerned, one of the only really good gags was when Betelgeuse took on Jeremy near the end. Beyond that, there were way more misses than hits this time around.

Overall, Beetlejuice couldn’t really manage to have a solid second film. This film comes across more distasteful than the first one and the film didn’t have enough of a focus. You don’t really get the whole plot of Betelgeuse wanting to marry Lydia because if he was serious about it then they would be married already. The fact that he even caused her to have a kid as a gag is crazy. I know you can just say it’s a comedy over and over again but there still needs to be some kind of a real plot to hold it together. I don’t see how the series can continue without Betelgeuse facing off against an actual threat. Or maybe just write him out, he was gone for large portions of this film anyway. Although…the film wasn’t much better for it so maybe I shouldn’t hold out much hope here.

Overall 3/10

Drag Me to Hell Review

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It’s time to take a look at the grossest horror film that I’ve ever seen. No, not the most violent, not the most scary and not the most exciting. The grossest, it gives the Garbage Pail Kids a run for its money with how much everyone’s throwing up and just splattering all over the place. Any good will the film built up is destroyed in an instant and this destroys what would otherwise be a very interesting film.

The film starts off with Hell taking out one kid and a lady swears revenge. You’ll be forgiven for forgetting this scene because the payoff takes forever and a day. You figure that this lady will be a main character but it doesn’t quite play out like that. It’s too bad because I think that would have been more interesting to see her show up and try to fight for a while. It would probably change the genre a bit but that was actually my expectation for a while there.

Instead we cut over to Christine where life is going rather well. She’s close to a promotion and just needs to defeat her rival Stu. Stu has decided to take the quick ladder through life so he’s trying to bribe the boss and also flex his superiority over Christine in front of the boss in the hopes that it will make him look more impressive. It’s a highly risky strategy since he isn’t even hiding the fact that he’s being a jerk. Low key I think the boss knows this and is just using both of them in order to make less work for himself. At the end of the day this plot isn’t super important but I actually thought the work dynamic was nice to have. It’s a little chance for downtime for Christine between supernatural incidents.

The main plot starts though when an old lady named Sylvia comes in and asks for a loan. She’s already gotten 2 loans from the bank and still doesn’t have the money so Christine makes the hard call of declining the request. Sylvia gets violent but is thrown out of the office. She later assaults Christine and then curses her before running off. Now Christine is doomed to fall to hell soon and starts to have a lot of creepy visions. Will she be able to escape the curse?

Lets tackle the elephant in the room here. Christine made the right choice. Yes, you do feel bad for Sylvia and Christine had the chance to give her another offer but this would have been the third time. We’re also shown that Sylvia isn’t the best person out there as she steals all of Christine’s candy and is generally not very hygienic. It seemed like the film was going out of its way to show how she wasn’t great. It’s left for the viewer to decide if this was the right move or not and I think it was. What makes my decision there even easier is how Sylvia attacks Christine afterwards.

This is not a stable person if she can’t handle being told No. She’s a psychopath here. I get why Christine feels guilty later on but once you make a decision then you’ve got to stand by it. I was surprised at how long the fight with Sylvia was in the car though. It’s a really extended fight scene that keeps on going and going for several rounds. There’s some good music and the fight itself would have been really cool if the film didn’t keep going for gross moments throughout.

Also, I think Christine should have won that fight a lot easier. C’mon, this is an old lady! Stop celebrating prematurely and just drive off or knock her out. Every time Christine lets her guard down, Sylvia just attacks her over and over again. It has to go down as one of the most embarrassing losses I’ve ever seen. How do you lose to an old lady whose teeth have already fallen out? That’s just crazy. I’ve heard about one horror film where a lady loses to an old man on life support who is crippled and stuck on a chair so that will take the cake if I ever watch it but in the meantime this is going to be hard to surpass.

It’s all surreal but if the film was trying to make this a scary scene then it didn’t work. In general the film is too busy being gross to be scary. So by gross, I’m talking about characters barfing, throwing up ooze, throwing up blood, blood coming out of food, etc. It’s just all so over the top that it’s crazy. The film isn’t even super violent for the most part but it’s gross enough where it’s almost the same effect in that it cripples the score right away. Man that just made me shake my head the whole time.

The worst part is that the music is actually pretty good here. The movie has a lot of tense themes and it almost sounds more like an action/comic book movie than a horror title. The film goes in hard with this but it’s all for naught because the film just can’t match this energy and intensity. A true shame if you ask me.

As a main character Christine is pretty solid though. Fighting skills aside, she’s a reasonably nice character who is doing her best to get through an impossible decision. She pulls out all of the stops in trying to break free from the curse and doesn’t crack too easily. I wouldn’t say that she made any really bad decisions here and in the end things just had a hard time of working out properly. When a character doesn’t make big mistakes I won’t blame them even if things don’t work out.

Then we have her boyfriend Clay and I actually liked the guy. He had some good banter with the fortune teller Rham and I liked how even though he was super skeptical, he did go with Christine to the shop. He had her back in every scene and never tried to tell her that she was crazy or anything like that. It’s clear that he didn’t believe in the supernatural but that didn’t stop him from throwing $10,000 at the psychic to help her. Clay was as supportive as he could be and I appreciated that.

As for Stu, the guy is so petty that it’s comical. I liked that the film actually gave him a role and a conclusion in the end. It’s easy to root against him the whole time and it was nice to have a human antagonist outside of the supernatural one. It was like a little comedic subplot but nothing too silly. Just a little levity in what’s otherwise a fairly serious film.

Rham also serves that role to an extent but his role is a lot smaller. The guy at least has good advice even if I thought he would take a more active role in helping out. Finally we have the main villain Sylvia and I can’t say that I have any sympathy for her. She’s just cruel especially with the lengths she goes with the curse. If she was truly a good person then she wouldn’t have reacted that way when the bank loan was turned down. It’s also quite extreme that she went after Christine rather than the boss for this. Of course it turns out that Christine had the final say but there’s no way she could have known that. Sylvia is very short sighted with her goals.

All horror movies with a few exceptions need to have a twist ending. As far as this one goes I’d say it was pretty solid. The end result is more or less what you expected but the path to getting there was really clever. I thought the twist was really solid. It can certainly be frustrating for some characters but that’s just how it goes. A sequel would be pretty interesting to try and go down to Hell to put an end to things but it’s unlikely. Most likely more characters would just end up getting bumped off instead but that would have potential.

The film just needs to stop with all the barfing and goo flying everywhere. Seriously if you take that out then the film would jump up several stars. It’s all completely unnecessary and doesn’t need to be there for a sequel at all. Stick to the jump scares of Sylvia’s ghost appearing everywhere and picking fights. I think the mini boss fights scattered throughout the movie would be pretty cool otherwise. Bonus points if the film plays actual boss music whenever she appears.

Overall, The concept and world building around the movie is actually rather good. There are a lot of times where you see a lot of potential here. The soundtrack is better than average and I thought the visuals were good here as well. I appreciated how Christine reacted to all of the attacks. She didn’t just panic every time and instead was ready to fight each and every time. That’s absolutely what I want to see from a main character. It’s a shame that she wasn’t stronger since she got dominated in most fights but the attempt is what counts. I highly advise avoiding this movie anyway though unless you have a reallllllllly high tolerance for the gross stuff. There’s even a certain scene with a fly that is rather stomach churning as well. There is absolutely 0 replay value to the film because of this as well and if I’m eating dinner as the film goes on TV I’m switching channels immediately!

Overall 2/10

Update 10/12/2022: Wait a minute, I’d completely forgotten about the scene with Christine and the cat. With that in mind I must retract the positives I said about her earlier. This was definitely a moment of crossing the line and negates her being a good character. In fact, it makes the ending a lot more fitting because it’s not a crime that you can just walk away from. It’s also a bad look for the film in general because it adds animal violence to its list of negatives. Totally spaced on that moment but yeah it was definitely a bad scene. I must have tried to block it out!

The Garbage Pail Kids Review

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It’s time to look at a story from below the pail. I’m afraid that this film lives up to its reputation and just isn’t very good. There’s a lot of constant crude humor here and the kids look so bad that it makes the film hard to watch. Throw in a long run time and a poorly handled romance and you’ve got yourself a recipe for disaster. There really isn’t much redeemable in this film.

The film starts with Dodger getting bullied by Juice and the gang. He heads back to the magic store where he works part time. It’s led by a magician known as Manzini who has led a relatively quiet life as of late. He wants to keep it that way and warns Dodger not to let the Garbage Pail kids out. Unfortunately the bullies show up again though and beat Dodger up. While this is happening the pail falls down and the kids are set free. They save Dodger from certain death and he decides to enlist their help in impressing Tangerine. They agree to help, but warn Dodger that this may not be a good thing. So begins their tentative alliance.

You’ll definitely be asking yourself quite a few questions here. For starters, the Pail Kids seem almost too nice. Keep in mind that they were being held in the Pail against their will for many years. You’d expect them to hold some kind of grudge or something right? Nah, they don’t really seem to care much. Manzini very openly talks about how he’s going to stuff them back inside and they’re fine with it. Sure, the outside world is dangerous, but judging from how the kids constantly want to break out you can tell that they’re okay with this. The kids also seem like public knowledge to an extent as there is a whole prison just for them. This plot actually gets pretty dark at times as we find out that the kids are crushed. Maybe that’s how they are turned into cards.

Either way it’s hard to like any of the kids though as they just can’t help but do a crude humor joke whenever they appear. None of them have any self control either and aren’t very smart. There are no good qualities left for them so by this point they’re simply doomed. With a main cast like this there is just no way that the film can recover. Dodger also isn’t a good character as he keeps trying to go after Tangerine even when it’s clear that she couldn’t be less interested. She’s using him and isn’t even that subtle about it. He’s also quick to lie to impress her and we can’t forget that Tangerine is already with someone. Dodger just never had a chance and was deluding himself.

Tangerine is with the bullies from the start so that should clue you in as to what kind of character she is. I’d definitely give her a thumbs down here and the rest are just as bad. After all, the leader (Juice) gets a kick out of beating up a little kid. Not exactly the hallmark of a good character right? The only good character would be Manzini and even then that’s mainly just in comparison to everyone else. He has some pretty good lines like when he explains that he always marches forward instead of retreating. He also lands a good combo near the end. For the most part he does get beat up the whole time though.

As I mentioned early on, the film is quite long which doesn’t help either. It’s nearly two hours and you don’t want to be hanging around the Garbage Pail Kids for that long. They can’t hold their own movie so what are they possibly going to do for 2 hours? Nothing good, that’s for sure. The writing definitely gets a hard thumbs down because the film doesn’t make sense and it isn’t entertaining. We only get a few decent lines throughout the entire movie. The romance is pretty terrible since it’s obvious from the start that it won’t work out due to the age difference and the fact that Tangerine is one of the villains. There are no big twists or interesting moments to save the film either.

For one last logistical thing as well, lets look at a scene midway through the film. Dodger gets a ride with Tangerine to a fashion show. They start driving during the day and don’t arrive on the scene until it’s well past dark. As they are getting ready to head home Juice shows up so Dodger hides while they drive away. He then walks home……somehow. Think about how long the journey would be if the drive was many hours long by car. He would be walking for over a day at least and the kid isn’t very old. Maybe I’ll be optimistic and assume someone ended up driving him home, but personally I’m thinking this is just one of those logic moments that the film didn’t really think through. After all, the audience probably wouldn’t be focused enough to notice by this point anyway so it was a low pressure moment for the writers.

Overall, The Garbage Pail Kids is definitely not a film that you are gonna want to check out. It’s just pretty bad. It’s only PG so it’s not like the film throws in animal violence or anything like that, but in a way this speaks volumes on how bad the film is. After all, if it can get such a low score without those factors, well you can imagine how dicey things can get here. The only even slightly good thing about the film is the soundtrack which is admittedly pretty good. Still, if you haven’t seen this film yet then there’s no need to change that. Don’t let curiosity get the better of you as the film isn’t even bad in an entertaining way. It’s just not a good title and I can’t honestly see how the franchise ever got big in the first place.

Overall 2/10