Tag Archives: Horrific

Island of Lost Souls Review

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This review is of the edited version as I believe all airings don’t have the original extreme animal violence scene anymore. Still terrible though and it would be hard to make the review any harsher because it’s so bad.

Remember that feeling of falling off of your bike and scraping your knee, only to fall again on that same knee? That’s basically what it’s like to watch this film. It’s one of those films that is so horrific, so terrible, so awful that you won’t be able to find anything good to say about this film. The fact that Britain apparently gave it an X certificate before cutting out some of the incredibly terrible animal violence is quite telling. Even the author of the book didn’t approve of the film. It’s really just filled with terrible animal violence and ultimately there is no point to the story. Even the main poster is terrible. This film really couldn’t do anything right. At least films like this make other bad titles look somewhat competent.

Parker is on a ship heading back home, but he notices that the Captain is being cruel to his animal slaves. He punches the guy, but is thrown overboard. Parker is forced to go to a haunted island where more animals are being cruelly tortured and is held against his will for a while. Parker doesn’t mind for the most part and even gives a pass to the evil doctor. After cheating on his fiancee, Parker starts to realize that this place may be having a bad effect on him so when his friends come to rescue them, he doesn’t bother to warn them of the dangers. On the contrary, he sends an old man off to fight the island’s dozens and dozens of inhabitants on his own. Once Parker is sure that the old man is dead, he heads off with the main heroine and one of the villains to try and escape, but it will likely take one more sacrifice. He’s planned for that though…

This film’s another train wreck in case you couldn’t guess by now. The only decent character here is the Captain and even he isn’t all that smart. Going outside on your own in the middle of the night in enemy territory is just foolish and drinking/eating a lot in an unfamiliar place is not a strategically wise move either. He certainly should have taken a bigger crew with him for such an expedition. He is better than the other characters by default though. Parker wasn’t a likable character for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that he is very quick to cheat on his girl friend. After that, he admits that he didn’t really care much about the animals being tortured and was content to leave the island and not do anything about it. He’s what you would call a coward. He’s worried about what might happen if he stands up for the creatures so he chooses to feign ignorance. While the animals are being experimented on, he goes back to his cabin to read a book. I was waiting for him to get knocked off, but that would only happen if this was a modern horror film. Since it’s retro, everyone else gets to die except for him and the main heroine.

Most films lose some stars and points for having mild animal violence. You can imagine how this film became a 0 instantly with the high degree that is featured here. This film is right up there with Sucker Punch as one of the worst films of all time. As bad as Awake was, this is in a whole different level. It’s not that long at least, but still tries to be as unpleasant as humanly possible. Dr. Moreau has an extremely dark ending to try and compensate for how violent and dark they made him, but it certainly doesn’t win the film back any points. There is even a trope for this kind of thing where a villain will commit some kind of atrocity and then that same atrocity happens to them by the end as a form of karmic justice. In actuality, this vicious cycle just means that the film will have the same dark moment twice and further sink it into the ground.

On the surface, you might find it appealing to see a villain like this meet an incredibly brutal end, but at that point, it is just too much. Simply have the villain die in an explosion or something, no need for him to get tortured just to prove a point. Films like this are just extremely toxic and just plain bad for you. Watching rubbish like this for a while will just give you a sour disposition and you’re better off watching something with actual good themes and light hearted moments. This film opts to be incredibly grim-dark the entire time instead.

Overall, there’s not much more to say about this film. It simply doesn’t have any class and you’ll be doing yourself a favor by skipping out on it. Animal violence shouldn’t be tolerated in any shape or form and the film better not have been using any actual animals for this. The whole thing is just unethical and if H.G. Wells typically writes books of such low quality, then I can safely say that he is extremely overrated. Most big name authors are though so I can’t say I’m very surprised. The summary tipped me off from the start that this was going to be a terrible film. Luckily, I think this is the last 0 star film at the moment, but we still do have some really negative ones coming up so prepare yourself. For every gem, there are 5 old banana’s in the trash can just waiting to be picked up. This was one of those, but at least, now I have a film I can easily mention when someone asks what some of the worst films of all time are.

Overall 0/10

Justice League Gods and Monsters Review

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Justice_League_Gods_vs._Monsters_Bluray_Cover
It’s time to check out the latest DC film. The company has started to become a trainwreck with their animated films, which is unfortunate since they used to be so good. Yet another thing for us to blame the New 52 on I suppose. Unfortunately, this is actually the worst one yet and it’s horrifically bad. The climax helps it save some dignity as well as a possible choice that could help the sequel, but it’s safe to says that Gods and Monsters is dead before it ever got a chance to truly begin.

The story takes place on an alternate world where there aren’t really any good guys left. Superman was raised by Mexican Immigrants who taught him how to live under a harsh government. Superman has no qualms with murdering all those who stand in his way and will do anything necessary to secure his planet’s safety. Batman is not Bruce Wayne, but Kirk Langstrom and he is a vampire who loves to murder his victims by drinking their blood. Certainly not the heroic figure that you would expect. Wonder Woman is probably the least changed in that regard as she always murdered her opponents while in battle. She is similar to Thor from Marvel from that respect as war takes no prisoners. That being said, the film balances that out by having her flirt with everyone and be willing to allow everyone to be with her at times. It’s a terrible part of her personality.

We’ve already established that the characters are all warped versions of themselves. Don’t worry, if this wasn’t clear to you from the cover, the first scene makes sure to show this off as the heroes brutally murder everyone inside of a building. Their justification is that the people who were murdered were all villains and villains basically have no rights to keep their lives. The Justice League naturally has a very strained relationship with the government and it gets worse when they are framed for killing a bunch of scientists. Can the Justice League clear their name and do we even want that to happen?

As this is an alternate universe story, it allows the writers to kill off as many actual characters as possible since it has nor repercussions on anything else. So, expect a lot of cameos before the characters are blown up in various ways. This film was really a train wreck because it committed just about every big negative that a film could really add, which was quite sad.

First stop on this train is the excessive violence problem that has plagued DC for quite a while. The very first scene with Batman has him immediately snap someone’s neck and then he goes on to do the usual vampire sucking bit. Characters are ripped apart, dismembers, and burned into oblivion. The violence just keeps on coming and a lot of it is just there for the gritty vibe that is unnecessary. DC is basically just trying to counter Marvel’s Daredevil and while this is an improvement, it’s really not saying much.

Another reason why I wouldn’t be able to like this film was the fact that Batman is a vampire. If you recall from some of my earlier reviews, I really don’t like vampires. There are very few vampire films that I could even call good at this point and I’ve never liked the concept of blood sucking. It’s just gross and never adds anything to the story. Batman tries to pretend that he is a hero through it all, but he doesn’t resist the urge to suck blood at all so I really don’t believe him. Even in the end, he is the voice of doubt.

Before I go into more negatives, it should be noted that the characters are all pretty terrible here. I definitely disliked Batman from the start and Wonder Woman’s alternate version is essentially what could have happened if she was introduced to the comics nowadays without an established history. Superman is as far removed from the character as possible. His only good moment is the fact that at the end of the film, he mentions that maybe they shouldn’t kill people anymore. Batman quickly doubts the idea, but If Superman goes through with it, he’ll instantly be a better character. That being said, he’s still not a likable one so he’ll need to improve. Even insulting Lois behind her back just felt really petty.

For the side characters, Lex was decent at least. He was probably the most true to character, which is a good thing. He’s let himself go over the years and he probably won’t last much longer, but at least he was cool. He was constantly one step ahead of the other characters. The main villain was pretty cheap once you find out who the mastermind is. His origin story about how he became evil is terrible to be frank and he never became a cool villain to root against.

The three androids had cool designs and made for good villains. Their final form was certainly powerful and made for a good end boss. That was good because the film had basically had no good fight scenes the entire film. We had a brief scuffle with Batman vs the Robots and that was it. Certainly less action than you would expect from a so called “Justice League” film. The end scene definitely helped to alleviate that. Also, now’s a good time to talk about why the ending gives the sequel some slight hope.

Superman mentioned how maybe they shouldn’t be killing people and that could be a plot for the sequel. If the heroes go through with it, then that will certainly be a good thing. The question is “Will they?” and another one follows. Will this this be enough to save the film? I doubt the latter, but if they do follow through, it would certainly make that one an improvement as these alternate versions would be less of a mockery of the originals.

It should also be noted that there is some unnecessary animal violence here. The film just really wanted to push my buttons didn’t it? A miniature horse is seen getting eaten by a wild animal and we also see some test mice die because the humans were using them as guinea pigs. It’s certainly not an heroic act and it just made Batman look even worse for me. There’s some mild language, but it’s been cleaned up a little since the last film so that’s definitely a good thing. Hopefully the films continue to improve in that area.

This film really should have been called the Justice Lords. In effect, that’s how the team operates. They don’t like to reason and they destroy whoever gets in their way. I’d also like to point to that two part episode in Justice League to show how an alternate universe should be. The team was evil, but they still acted like their original selves and you can see why Superman made the critical choice. It was a dark world, but the show explored that without being over the top with violence and grit. It felt more natural and was much better handled.

Gods and Monsters was treated more like an AU that really had no purpose. A good example of how the movie just doesn’t care is when the scientists are all getting murdered. Once all of them are finished off and Batman is about to be taken down, the Justice League arrives and then the hero music plays. Hero music after literally every one of the targets were killed while Batman was on duty? It just didn’t make any sense and that’s just how the film operates. It doesn’t matter how many innocents die, as long as the League lives, it’s all okay.

On a slight bright side, the soundtrack was good. It had a lot of fast paced themes that helped make the scenes a little more bearable. The animation was also solid although it didn’t get to show us what it could do until the fight scenes finally arrived. More battles with the androids would have been a lot of fun. After all, Androids are just made up of parts and such so the film would have a tough time making it gritty.

Overall, Gods and Monsters is horrifically bad. It’s the kind of film that I actually have less fun seeing than Pixels. At least Pixels gave you a lot of laughs. It’s a slightly better film on a technical scale though and I’m giving it an extra star thanks to the soundtrack/final fight and the promise of the ending. The ending gave the film a glimmer of hope and now I can say that the next movie has potential although I don’t see it being that much better. Hopefully DC steps up its game as Batman Unlimited really looks like the only decent DC film coming up at this point. Maybe the next Justice League film will be good, but I’ll have to see some screenshots or a plot summary before I start getting my hopes up. Until DC’s movies start shaping up, at least I have the classics like Sub-Zero and Starcrossed to keep me busy!

Overall 2/10