Tag Archives: Horror

The Empty Man Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

Okay so straight up this is a pretty bad movie however I do give it a point for actually having an ending that makes you really think long and hard about the movie. Way I see it there are 3 ways you can interpret the ending. I’ll explain my interpretation at the end and I think it makes the most sense. Is there a “canon” ending? Well maybe the writer will say but out of film stuff doesn’t count so the way I see it you have to come to your conclusion and just roll with it. Each of the 3 paths appear to have some holes but I could pretty much do an editorial just on the ending. Of course that does mean you have to make it that far.

The film starts off with a group of climbers scaling up a really snowy mountain. It isn’t easy but they have been making consistent work up there. Unfortunately as they’re getting ready to go back down, one of them starts hearing things in the distance. Then he really starts to loose it and now the others could be in danger. Is it just a lack of oxygen right now or is there something more sinister at play? One thing’s for sure, they can’t let their guard down!

Being stranded on a mountain like this with no real way out is a pretty tough situation to be in already so then when you throw a crazy guy it really goes through the roof. Maybe spending 2 hours on here could drag a bit but it’s rare to have a horror movie on a mountain. Crazy stuff for sure….but this isn’t actually the movie. It’s a pretty effective fake out though since this intro portion goes on for quite a while. It ultimately does tie in with the rest of the film though and honestly it’s really effective. I thought the opening part was handled extremely well so it was time to start falling after that.

In the present we have an ex cop named James who is still traumatized over some tragedy that happened to his family. It’s told to us through quick seizure moments so you get most of the details but the exact scenario is something we don’t find out about until later on. I can say that it makes him look awful though so his character basically can’t be recovered by the end. There are just some things that you don’t really come back from and this is definitely one of those. Unfortunately that’s just how it goes.

Well his friend’s daughter went missing one day so James decides to find her. He runs into a whole conspiracy involving a death cult that believes in the Empty Man. A being made up of pure maliciousness and negative desires over the course of human history. Summoning him appears to be rather easy, you just think about him and blow on a bottle. Well James isn’t afraid of any ghosts and does this just to spite the creature. The rest of the legend says that you now have 3 days to live so James has to find the girl and quickly before this is all over.

In some ways this film is 50% mystery and 50% horror. A whole lot of the movie is about James trying to find leads so he talks to all of her friends, infiltrates the cult, etc. There are some scenes that are actually pretty scary though like when he finds himself in an empty field late at night with hundreds of zombies. Mobs are very scary and if you’re not scared of one then you should rethink that. There is virtually no way to survive one because you’re getting hit by hundreds of people at once which means they are virtually bullet proof. James wisely tries running as fast as he can.

Because this is part mystery there are a whole lot of twists and turns. I’ll be avoiding those until the spoiler part of the review of course because if you know things beforehand then it’ll definitely alter your experience. It will cause you to look at scenes differently but your first time in you probably want to go in without as much knowledge as possible. The actual mystery is pretty compelling but also very ominous since the victims are also kids so you figure this is going to be dark no matter how it plays out.

The Empty Man’s actual design is not really that scary. I would have handled it differently because it’s basically a normal dude in a cloak. You never really see much of him but he’s just not that scary and is basically only going after really defenseless people. When a gun is pointed his way he immediately jams it just in case so I wonder how strong he really is. He is probably a cosmic reality warper if I’m not kidding myself though. I don’t think the humans have much of a shot against him but like in the Grudge nobody even tries to fight back which is annoying.

We have the cops around but they don’t really do much here. They basically figure they can’t help out much and only really get involved once the body count starts to rise. Even then they don’t do a ton. The random cult leader is probably more important although the film was a little too content to give this guy a long boring speech that wasn’t needed. The intent is probably to spoon feed us just what the Empty Man is exactly and what he symbolizes but it’s not that hard to comprehend. We didn’t need a log speech about life itself from this guy except to remind us that cults are crazy and we knew that.

Okay now it’s spoiler time to talk about the ending. Skip the next 7 paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film yet.

Okay so basically James confronts the girl who went missing in the beginning and she explains that the cult actually generated him from their thoughts. They created him as the next vessel for the Empty Man since the guy from the intro’s body was finally giving out. The whole bottles thing was nonsense and everything is completely controlled by willpower itself. As best you can say that the bottle was merely the conduit but the power was in their minds all along. James tries to call his friend and she doesn’t remember him anymore. He was summoned 3 days ago which were the only days of his existence and so in the end he runs but the monster goes inside of him so he murders the old man and embraces his fate as the Empty Man. That’s basically the events of the ending so there are 4 ways to interpret this.

Explanation 1: James literally did not exist before the scene in the restaurant where he ordered something for his birthday. His memories are all fabrications from the cult. This includes his cheating affair, the family dying, etc. All of these are false memories and they basically brainwashed everyone in the area in order to pull this off. That’s why cops think they now him, the cult guy saw him before, etc. They have no real limit to their powers after all so why not right?

This is possible sure, but I don’t think it’s likely. It causes a whole lot of suspension of disbelief mainly because we’ve seen so many people who knew James from back in the day. Either they were in on it or their memories were being altered. But then why bother with all the theatrics? The girl at the end mentioned that they needed fear to truly activate James in the end and so they had to slowly break him but if they could manipulate the entire city and then some to keep altering the memories, that doesn’t really make sense. It’s way too convoluted a plan considering their abilities.

Explanation 2: It was all a dream. None of it actually happened and James himself does not exist. The entire film is taking place entirely in his psyche as he was created in the visualization and the whole film is basically just a metaphor for his struggle to fight against the Empty Man. In the real world he actually was the Empty Man murdering all of the teenagers and committing all of the crimes during the movie. It’s why when we flashback to the cult summoning the Empty Man we see that it was James in the shadows. Booo this explanation is pretty awful tbh and doesn’t make sense. Any “it was all a dream” scenarios are pretty boring if you think about it because then the whole thing was pointless. So not really discussing this one much because personally I just don’t like it. Not saying it isn’t a valid theory or anything but it would be supremely underwhelming.

Explanation 3: James was basically a normal guy until 3 days before the events of the film, the girl and her cult friends drugged him and stashed him in their basement. They then ran the trial experiments on him and turned him into a future Empty Man vessel. It would explain why he was seen by the Cult before and also why the cops recognized him. It would also explain why we kept seeing the empty chair every time he thought about his past. He was actually trapped for a while and then they released him into the wild with their memory alterations and of course removing his memories of being there. Mainly the part that doesn’t make sense here is the girl saying she created everything if the events actually did happen prior to being kidnapped. So that does help theory 1 more than theory 3.

Explanation 4: Okay so this is the one that I’m on board with and in some ways it’s very close to theory 3. Everything James knew prior to the film did happen. He lived a normal life and everything. When the crew “conjured him up” 3 days ago, it was simply activating him in order to be a host. She telepathically created a backstory for him to break down his psyche like causing him to cheat on his wife with the friend and then causing the accident. The accident actually happened but the affair was a fake memory and she had the friend under the spell the whole time. That’s why she didn’t remember him in the final scene because the villains let the mind control go. Both things would be pretty easy to maneuver without anything being much of a stretch. He eventually got broken due to the mindgames here and of course in the end he succumbed.

The main points against this one of course is that the cult leader had seen James before he said which doesn’t tie in with what James knows. You could say he was kidnapped at some point and indoctrinated as a sleeper agent but it doesn’t really match up. Additionally this doesn’t really address the girl’s speech about creating him with the exact backstory he had. Her just manipulating things from the shadows wouldn’t really explain that at all.

That’s it for the spoilers! So yeah a lot to dive into there. Regardless the ending is very memorable which is good. Would have been nice to have had more of a struggle or something but it is what it is. I do think the film’s dialogue scenes tend to be rather solid. While I did not like James by the end, at least I like how he always has an attitude with everyone. He has no time for all the nonsense and there’s a good amount of back and forth dialogue here. The mystery angle keeps you engaged all the way through with the horror angle and violence just holding the film back. Why did we need to see more dead animals? I feel like horror films just can’t help themselves and keep shooting themselves in the foot.

Honestly if the film had just leaned on the mystery angle and cut out a bunch of the horror stuff it would have been way better. Keep the atmospheric horror of course and the mind controlled cult but you can cut out all the stabby scenes and the more disturbing flashbacks. You’ll still feel a lot of tension and the imposing doom coming to the characters without being overindulgent and just wrecking the whole thing. Toning down the violence a bit would go a long way here.

Overall, The Empty Man is the kind of film that will keep you talking and theorizing for a long while. I have to give the film credit for that because it’s not really easy to pull that off. Still, in the end it’s a pretty bad film that falls into most of the horror tropes. You have the random animal violence that has no business being here. The dark shock twist to make sure you don’t like the main character too much. Virtually every character is massively unlikable with all of the kids falling to peer pressure immediately. Once we get into the human torture trials you know the film is just trying to hit you with everything. I think you could actually pivot this into an interesting action thriller for a sequel based on the ending but if you keep this as horror I don’t think it’s going anywhere because it’s another case of the humans not being able to do much. I’d say maybe they should have kept the whole film on the mountain but honestly that probably wouldn’t have worked very well. It would have dragged.

Overall 2/10

The Grudge (2020) Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

I’m going to be brutally honest here folks, I much prefer when films, games, and any sort of media follow a linear path. Jumping back and forth across timelines and such often times is more convoluted than interesting. It’s just being complicated for the sake of doing so as opposed to actually enhancing the story and that’s what happens here. There is no actual benefit and even the inevitable “aha it’s all connected!!” moment isn’t enough to overturn that.

The movie has no evil cat possession sounds this time which is a massive mistake so its mainly Sayako’s body doing the dirty work for the Grudge. There are a few others though. So we have a few different plots here. You have a new detective who is trying to find out what’s going on with this supposed haunted house. She’s a bit old to believe in ghosts after all and figures its fake but her partner who has been on the scene refuses to even step foot in there. He believes that it is fully haunted. In the past, a lady will be having a kid soon but unfortunately he will be born with an illness as seen in the pre birth scans. Is the Grudge working overtime and cursing people before they are even born now? Unfortunately she is probably in the wrong house to try and survive this. Then in a middle plot we have a lady who helps in assisted suicides who checks in on an old lady and her husband but the lady is crazy and seems to be able to see the Grudge. The lady should have immediately left but she decides to stay the night which may end up being her last.

So what do all of these plots have in common? They’re all fodder for the Grudge! Nooooo, but it’s true though. You know the sooner that these chuckleheads appear on screen that they are absolutely doomed. The old lady with aroma therapy and such? The Grudge probably smells like sewer water based on how long she’s been dead in the water so she’s immune. The cop with his handgun staring down the haunted house for years before destroying himself? The Grudge is most likely bullet proof! And if not she’ll just use her telepathy to jam the gun. Thinking of burning the house down? Well the fact that she even lets you approach the house with the gasoline means that she isn’t worried.

When your opponent is all powerful and just playing with you there just isn’t much you can do. Naturally destroying yourself like the second cop is absolutely the worst thing you can do because one..The Grudge won’t allow it. Seriously she can alter the trajectory just enough to ensure you live in pain for a long while. I choose to believe that explanation over him just missing a point blank shot to the head personally. So you either play her game and hope it means an instant end or you try to do something drastic like blow up the planet. Honestly that would be an interesting angle. A character can’t stop being haunted for all eternity by the Grudge so he decides to end it all for humanity.

Now there’s a world destruction motive that I could possibly get behind because it’s all so unfair. As always the film is definitely really violent. A lot of characters are dying left and right and we also get a lot of gross visuals like people’s dead bodies being covered by worms. The Grudge definitely isn’t holding back on any of that and as always we’re reminded of the origin of all this.

It’s almost impressive that there are basically no happy moments in the film because you’re always waiting for what’s about to happen next to the characters. For the most part you aren’t even given much hope for any of the plots except the one taking place in current day because you already know the others are doomed. I suppose there’s the tension of seeing how long they last. The constant rain is also a good backdrop because everything is scarier during a downpour. There just doesn’t seem to be much of a point to this film even more than some of the other Grudge titles although I guess they’re all pretty close in that respect. We need a character to try and counter the Grudge at some point. Give her an actual opponent to fight against and the film would immediately get a whole lot better.

The twist ending of the film is definitely pretty intense and maybe the best out of the Grudge films. Sure on one hand you might roll your eyes because it feels like the film is going against its own lore again but you have to remember that the Grudge will never lose. As the Flash villain once said: “You can’t hold me!!!!” That’s basically the Grudge’s catchphrase at this point. No matter what you do she will eventually defeat you. Honestly the lucky ones are the fighters who die immediately because at least they are put out of their misery. You’re really unlucky when she spares you for like 50 years only to murder you later on for the lolz. Everyone is in the palm of her hands and the sooner you embrace the futility of the entire movie series, the sooner you can be free!

Overall, The Grudge basically goes through the motions of murdering everyone. By splitting the film up into different time periods and going back and forth it does slow down the pacing a lot though. This film would have actually been a lot better as an anthology and I can’t believe that I’m saying that. Yes that’s how dicey things have gotten here because i just don’t want to be going back to the past so many times. It’s not my idea of a grand time. Give me a linear plot to move around in and just use a few flashbacks if you have to. The idea can work I suppose but the Grudge definitely couldn’t pull it off.

Overall 1/10

The Grudge 3 Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version. Note that a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time to return to The Grudge series. Definitely not one of my favorite horror series to say the least. Part of the problem with this series has always been how overpowered the villain is. Basically you’ve got someone with the powers of a Shonen Jump villain going up against below average mortals who couldn’t throw a punch to save their life and have no mental defenses. At the end of the day that means there is absolutely no hope for anybody here so the whole film is really just there for show.

The movie starts off with a kid trying to explain that he needs someone to break him out of the psychiatric ward because The Grudge has already infiltrated. The staff laugh this off and explain that the place is completely secure so nothing can happen to him. The poor kid’s mangled beyond recognition in the next scene and the doctor tries to find answers but good luck with that. Meanwhile we cut to Lisa who is temporarily staying with her brother Max and his daughter Rose in the house where all of this had gone down. It’s a rather eery place to live but Max figures he can fix the place up really well and eventually turn things around. He’s in the red right now so he will definitely need things to really work out well for him. Unfortunately The Grudge isn’t satisfied yet and starts murdering more people. It’s possible that the only one who can stop her is Naoko, the sister to the original host.

Technically “The Grudge” is more of a supervillain name and it’s for both the girl and the cat who are running around. You could make the case that these are just the physical manifestations of the Grudge since it’s more of a non physical form anyway so I’ll keep saying Grudge for convenience sake. One thing the series does really well is to show just how spooky they are though. Grudge’s movements are very erratic which makes it hard for you to predict her next move. She can be deceptively fast and also has an incredible grip. Basically if she grabs you then it’s all over.

I would say the frustrating part is that absolutely nobody tries to attack her at all. They all just fall down and start crying, hide under the bed, or give their back to the creature. Look, you’re going to die anyway but wouldn’t you at least want to go down with a fight? The film doesn’t even try to make it look like these people are ready to fight back and I think that’s a mistake because it makes no sense. They’re literally on the the edge of defeat getting close to death. If that’s not enough to make you fight back then I don’t know what would be.

Characters consistently make the wrong decisions. Near the end of the film Lisa is trying to escape and just watched someone get butchered in front of her. The next move is to run for it right? Instead she just falls to the ground and extreme plot armor saves her from being the next victim. Everyone should have a fight or flee instinct but for some reason that turned into a just fall down and whimper effect. I just don’t think that would be the case for most people. I would argue almost none of them would have that effect at least even if it’s a few.

Okay so on to the negatives. Wait…were those actually the positives? Yeah we ran out of those a while back. The only real positive here is that the Grudge has an awesome design and I really like the sound effects. They are really scary and this is a film that will always be scary to watch. I would go as far as to say the Grudge may have the scariest design for a horror villain but I would have to think about it. The close runner ups who could also take the title would probably be the main villain of Insidious who has the red mask and the classic Xenomorph.

As always this is a very bloody film with a lot of over the top violence and dark themes. We can never seem to escape the cat dying which is a very unfortunate part of the mythos. It really doesn’t add any benefit to the film so I’d rather skip that. Having a little kid get murdered in the opening scene really sets the tone here but then you also have the Grudge possessing people to stab their friends and make the whole thing more personal. This is a very dark and dreary film from cover to cover that doesn’t exactly make you thrilled to watch it.

As I mentioned earlier, the Grudge has no weaknesses so it’s not like there was ever any hope here. Naoko’s big master plan is basically to transfer the curse onto the little kid by having her drink a bunch of blood. Gross factor aside, this plan makes absolutely no sense to anybody who managed to pay attention to the lore at the beginning. The Grudge came into existence in part because of how Naoko’s sister had to drink the blood and dark essence of every curse. Basically the curses all merged into a super dark influence which took control of her and made her commit all of these deeds.

So drinking that blood would just make a new host but wouldn’t stop the demon. In what world would it destroy the demon? Maybe you can say Naoko was planning to murder the kid after that but why would that have any effect on anything? Her sister died a while back and the curse is still here. So in short, I don’t see any purpose in including Naoko in this film. I don’t think the writers really thought this subplot through because it doesn’t work as a twist about the plan not working when it never had any chance of working in the first place. It doesn’t make any senseeeeee!!

At least the Grudge does give us a classic twist ending which is more inline with what you would expect for this kind of film. It works pretty well and the execution is on point. It doesn’t exactly make you feel any better about the film having any kind of central purpose other than showing people dying in all sorts of ways. At this point there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to these film. They’re just like Halloween or other slasher types where it’s really just about seeing a bunch of deaths. Still, at least in some of those you can pretend that the heroes have a shot and it feels like they do because the villains are a bit more mortal. When the villain’s all powerful with no weaknesses then it takes the bite out of the whole thing.

Overall, The Grudge 3 is a pretty terrible film all around. The heroes never stood a chance and you knew it so you’re really just watching everyone getting bumped off and hoping against hope that there is some kind of twist to save the movie. Inevitably it never comes and so there isn’t really a reason to check this one out except to have a grudge against the film itself. It’s not the kind of film that will be saving the horror genre or anything fancy like that.

Overall 1/10

When a Stranger Calls (2006) Review

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It’s always rare for a horror remake to beat the original but this is one of those rare times where it worked out. Now this still isn’t some amazing film or anything like that so lets not get ahead of ourselves. That being said, it is well above the average horror title so you love to see it. Add a few more interesting characters and you could almost have made a good film out of this. The potential is there at least.

The movie starts with Jill getting ready to babysit for some rich folks as they head out for a while. It should be an easy gig and the kids are very young so they’ll just be sleeping the whole time. Yeah it doesn’t get much easier than this but then things begin to get a little tricky when she receives calls from a nefarious character. He starts out by being really silent but then starts to threaten her life. He intends to murder her before the night ends and makes it clear that he can see her. Jill has to find a way to murder this guy before she is destroyed but can she pull this off?

The whole film is basically her in the house trying to figure out what’s going on. For this reason the film can be a bit of a slow burn. Things don’t really happen until we get near the end so they do overplay the phone calls a little bit. I feel like he probably calls her at least 20 times during the film and each time she has to try and scramble to gather her bearings. She does call the police which is good but they basically say they can’t help her out since the threats haven’t been direct enough and it might be a prank caller. I dare say this is where she should have exaggerated a bit and talk about glass breaking and loud explosions in the background. Something to get the cops here a little quicker.

Where the film also drags a bit here is that Jill is basically your average main character. What that means is a lot of tears and panicking the whole time after each of the calls. It’s realistic perhaps but not the most entertaining. I’d like to see her talking smack back to the guy, grab a baseball bat and get ready or something like that. Unfortunately she makes a ton of the rookie horror main character mistakes. For one thing she turns off the alarm system for a while. Gee I hope he doesn’t get in the house while she was messing around….

Jill takes a massive risk in running next door to the spare house in case a neighbor was back home but this was a pretty bad call. There’s no positives to doing this since she had already called and there was no answer. So either the neighbor has already been murdered or he is the villain. In either case going there by yourself and leaving the kids is a bad move. In fact I’d argue she should have brought the kids with her way earlier in the film. Find a room and barricade yourself in or make a break for it with them. By staying so far apart you’re just creating a whole lot of vulnerable areas for the guy to make his move. Trust me that’s exactly what you don’t want to do.

There isn’t much of a supporting cast here which is another weakness. You can tell the film does not care about anyone other than the lead and villain so the rest of the characters are paper thin. You have Tiffany who apparently worked as a homewrecker in cheating with Jill’s guy which hurt their friendship. Things don’t go well for her and there’s actually not a big body count here but the rest of the victims are basically non characters here too. The way the film forces characters into this abandoned house plot can be a little funny but the film should have leaned into it more. Have the milk delivery guy show up, maybe a debt collector, etc. Have a bunch of people show up to get bumped off. It would be a little dark but you could also play it up as some dark humor for a while.

Where the film works is a lot of the scares are more about the atmosphere as opposed to being over the top violent. Knowing that there is someone out there getting ready to murder you is pretty unnerving. Particularly if you aren’t able to do a whole lot about it at the moment. The attacker usually has the edge over the defender for this reason because Jill has to be tense and stressed out the whole time while the murderer can relax and choose when he wants to make a move. The rich house makes for a good backdrop since it is absolutely massive which means there are a ton of hiding places available.

There’s an entire mini river in the house after all and it’s all super dark. Again this is why you need to pick a room or escape as soon as possible. One thing I was surprised didn’t happen was for Jill to use the emergency system to her advantage. When she tripped the alarm at the start is caused security to call her right away. So trip it again and if they call say it is a real emergency this time. Or if it’s later in the film and she can’t come to the phone then they should ideally show up pretty fast.

I was going to take some points from Jill at the end for when she stabs the guy and then runs off instead of finishing him. It’s still a risky move and I get that it’s a stressful situation but if you have the guy on the ground you have to finish him right there and then because it could be your last chance. Fortunately the film basically ends there so no harm no foul. We do get one of those sorta twist endings but it’s very weak compared to most. It’s clear the film wasn’t trying as hard as it could have to get the sequel set up. I mean it makes for a bit of a happier ending sorta compared to what it could have been but the twist ending is a horror staple. You have to have that!

Overall, This film was better than the original in just about every way. I’d still say it was not a particularly strong film because there are no real likable characters and there just isn’t much to it beyond being a horror film. You have a bunch of jump scares and a tense atmosphere which works well enough but you aren’t given enough of a reason to really care about anything. The villain not having a character was actually a good move though. Don’t give me some kind of tragic sob story. It makes sense once in a while for the villain to not have some kind of personal relation to the main character. He’s just a random psycho who happened to target her this time, sometimes it’s scarier for it to just be random like this. If you like the premise t hen give this one a shot but it’s really nothing special.

Overall 5/10

Prom Night (2008) Review

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Why’s this poster so awful?? Seriously you can’t tell anything about the film from this and if anything it just makes you want to stay away. Trust me this is not the way to advertise any kind of film. Regardless this is a really bad title though so you will want to stay away. It ends up being a painful experience from start to finish with no real smart characters.

The movie starts off with Donna watching her family get murdered by a psychopath named Richard. We jump to the future where she is now being taken care of by her uncle and aunt. She is still rather traumatized but wants to at least try and enjoy her prom. It should be the perfect day and so she heads out to be with her friends. Unfortunately though Richard has escaped from prison and because everyone is incompetent in this film it took 3 days for the cops to be notified. They let the guardians know but instead of taking Donna out….they decide to let the prom continue since it would be too traumatic to cancel. Okay……how many victims will it take this time before Richard is stopped?

There are so many issues with this film but I think it’s safe to say that the biggest issue you will run into right away is just how depressing and mean spirited the film is. A high body count is to be expected but so many people keep dying and nobody is safe. A lot of these characters had nothing to do with the story and they’re still getting bumped off. Sure that’s technically true for a lot of slashers like this but I think part of the problem with having this take place in the school is you’re basically having a bunch of kids get murdered the whole time. We had an elementary school kid get bumped off in the intro even which is taking things a step farther.

Allowing the prom to continue is also complete insanity. Winn has a moment where he mentions that they don’t see any reason why Richard would come here. Really? They see no reason why the crazy psychopath who made it explicitly clear that he would do whatever it took to go back to Donna would try to attack her now that he’s broken out? That had to be one of the silliest lines in the film without a doubt. I could barely believe what I was hearing. Come on………come onnnnnnnnnnn.

Okay so the prom’s going to continue, but you’re going to let the hotel staff know that there’s a crazy guy on the lookout right? No, the hotel concierge asks the police officer if they should be afraid and he just says “Nah, probably nothing to worry about” and leaves. The hotel staff don’t know anything is wrong until near the end of the film so of course they start to get picked off too. I’d be fuming if I was the sole survivor from the hotel staff because that makes no sense.

Then of course Winn isn’t able to get the villain at the hotel so he tells the two police officers to keep a lookout at the house. Naturally both have to be completely isolated so taking them down is child’s play. Why even stay at the house? The first order of business should have been to take the characters over to the police station. Keeping them in the house that Richard knows the address of is crazy. Even worse is that Donna is kept to her room…where she is right next to a window. You can’t make this stuff up.

Now granted, Richard still shouldn’t have gotten as far as he does but apparently he is so skilled that he can take out virtually every opponent without making a sound. The house is also sound proof I guess because even with the door open and Donna screaming, the parents and Winn can’t hear her while not being all that far away? The amount of plot holes and stretches of imagination here are really pretty insane.

Going back to the tragic part though, it just feels like the film should have let more of the characters get a happy ending. Pretty much everyone was destroyed and the sole survivors are going to have a complex for the rest of their life. It doesn’t stop the film from having a fairly upbeat song for the credits but there’s nothing happy about the ending. There’s nothing really happy about the film in general which is something I have an issue with. A slasher film will rarely be happy of course but the tonal contrast here was a bit much. The film would try to be really happy at times and it didn’t work because obviously you can’t feel that good when everyone’s getting destroyed.

The film’s not as bloody as you would expect but it still tries to be as violent as possible within the confines of not being an R rated horror flick. Characters get stabbed tons of times and the deaths are all rather grisly. Nobody seems able to put up even the slightest amount of a fight against this guy and the whole film feels futile for the heroes. Every scene has so much build up that you see the deaths coming several minutes in advance which is annoying. There are a ton of fake jump scares but they’re always before the real death to the point where you can pretty much set your watch to them.

At one point Dillon even has a dream of the future about what’s about to happen and….she decides to do everything that she did in the dream anyway. A bit of an odd choice if you ask me, wouldn’t you want to not do what you did in the dream even if it wasn’t real? I just don’t see why you would actually try to copy your answers there. Seems like a recipe for disaster by any metric. It’s why hiding under the bed wouldn’t be a good idea since that worked last time so don’t do the same thing twice. It was also rough that she didn’t step in to save her mother. Obviously that’s easier said than done and in the moment it’s hard to make that decision but it’s yet another brutal scene. The cast of characters are all pretty forgettable and the romances are all paper thin. There’s just nothing of substance in this title. The film almost should have just played this off as part parody with the heroes deciding to have the prom party instead of cancelling it.

I keep going back to that because the whole scenario is absolutely crazy. Nothing makes sense in this film, people don’t act the way they should with a mass murderer on the loose with an obvious place of attack. At least in most films the characters reasonably don’t know where the villain will be but this time they actually do know. A whole lot of lives could have been saved if Winn did the responsible thing instead of waiting to see this all play out.

Overall, Prom Night is a film that you should absolutely avoid. There are no redeeming qualities to be found in this film. It starts off rather brutally and ends on that same note. There are no scenes that are actually all that happy because they are happening in the context of ugly things about to happen to the cast. There was basically no escape for them and any victory is a rather hollow one. The slasher genre tends to be doomed right from the jump and this film doesn’t do anything to convince you otherwise. It’s very by the numbers and for a genre like this that’s about as bad as it gets.

Overall 1/10

Event Horizon 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

Event Horizon is one of those films that reminds me why I’d never want to be stuck anywhere in outer space or underwater. At the end of the day you’re stuck with a bunch of people that could go crazy at any point. Sure you might know them to an extent but being on your own for a long amount of time can change everything. This film slowly has the cast cracking and the whole time you’re shaking your head. They lack the willpower to succeed!

The movie starts with a crew being formed to try and find a spaceship that went missing many years ago. The crew isn’t thrilled about this since they were on vacation but hey a mission’s a mission right? Well Dr. Weir will be coming with them to explain the specifics since this mission is very different from most. Of course that’s another reason for the crew to dislike the mission since they aren’t finding out the truth until they’re stuck in space. Basically they have to use some super experimental technology to jump through a wormhole into another dimension to grab the ship and then head back. Sure it didn’t work for the first ship but the tech is better now! Well they do the jump and make it to the other ship but now their ship is busted. The heroes are ready to make the repairs but weird things start happening. The crew see visions and are slowly going crazy. Will they ever be able to go home?

So this film’s mostly pretty bad but I can say it wasn’t all bad. I really liked the music. Seriously it was pretty great, felt like I was entering some kind of big action movie. Mix that in with the sci-fi effects and yeah this definitely seemed like a winner. That being said, It’s one of the only positives I can really say about the film. The rest of it tends to go for a lot of shock value and just doesn’t seem like a good idea when you’re trying to be a good film. The characters make a bunch of awful decisions and while you can blame some of it on “the darkness” it doesn’t help them.

Okay so lets start with Dr. Weir. At first he seems fairly reasonable. He wants to complete this mission and is taking it super seriously. He doesn’t get into space as much as the crew so he doesn’t really comprehend the dangers but he did build this experimental sci-fi tech so if anyone knows how to pull this off then it should be him. Unfortunately he has significant skeletons in the closet which start to break him. The ship shows everyone illusions and so of course his are easy to pull out from the past. It’s a rather brutal one and the whole build up to the tragedy is rough.

The film loves its special effects to make the characters as ugly as possible. Lets just say there is a ton of violence in this film. I would easily put it on the high end for a horror film. Not just because of what happens in the present like multiple characters getting impaled, disfigured, and blown up in the vacuum of space but also in the quick flashes the characters get when the ship is messing with their minds. It’s typically all happening so fast that you can barely even tell what is happening, only that there’s something bloody and disturbing on the screen.

Still even with the visions it’s hard to feel any sympathy for Weir. The guy is really responsible for this mission in the first place so he needed to hold it together. By the end he is a complete pawn who wouldn’t even be all right if his plan succeeds which hurts quite a lot. As a villain if you don’t really have a grand master plan or anything like that then you are basically just spinning your wheels. You’re not actually doing anything and at that point you’re just a psycho.

Starck serves as the main heroine here and does her best. She is able to resist the illusions better than most of the characters and has to put up with everyone being really slow on the uptake. The most annoying moment for her had to be when the captain told her to find an explanation on what was going on. She did find the reason (evil spirits) but he didn’t believe her. It’s a shame because by this point in the film you’d think that would be a very credible option. Seriously you had everyone seeing crazy illusions, things not working as they should and a mysterious reactor turning on when that’s supposed to be impossible? You’d think the captain would hear her out at least.

Miller is the captain and for the most part he looks good. While he didn’t believe Starck, at least he did spend most of his screen time trying to keep the crew from murdering each other. He had a tight grasp of what it means to be a leader and was always making the hard calls. I would say he was the most reasonable member of the team and was also able to realize that the spirit was manipulating him with the past later on. He has a big scene in the end as well. The guy was definitely real determined.

Throughout the movie you’ve really got a big survival thriller feel going on. In general that should be solid as the characters try to live but with the evil spirit using the powers of memories and illusions it’s just not thrilling. You already know the characters will fall for this and that there isn’t much they can do about it. That’s the most annoying part about all of this. For example one character sees her son running around the spaceship. Obviously there is no way he can be here and yet she falls for it anyway.

It’s up to you to determine to just what extent the spirit has full mental control over the characters but evidently it is a massive amount. The characters seem to be completely unable to resist its control at times and other times they at least know that something iffy is going on. I think if you cut out all of the random violence then you may have something here. Perhaps it will be less “exciting” in terms of action but I think the movie would be able to hold its own. The way it is there just isn’t anything to like about it once the spirit starts to make its presence felt. Seeing the characters start to get corrupted one after another is supremely annoying.

As you’d expect the ending does have a bit of a horror zinger to end things off with but it’s a bi more passive than you’d expect. I actually think the movie could have been a whole lot bolder here. The ending is definitely throwing some strong implications at you and of course I’m on the side that everyone’s doomed but you can always look at the ending in a different way. It’s certainly open for interpretation.

Overall, Event Horizon really went off the deep end. The initial scenes are decent, I would say it started out well. It all just goes downhill once the evil spirit starts to consume everyone and trick them into being destroyed. The film starts to feel aimless as it’s just about everyone dying in gruesome ways. Additionally there seems to be no real way to escape the evil influence or to fight back against it so everything seems futile. The idea of being alone in space with something after you is absolutely solid but they should go with a more tangible threat next time. Something like….an alien!

Overall 1/10

Die, Monster, Die! Review

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This movie definitely doesn’t feel like the average horror title and I’d say that shows how Lovecraft handles things a bit differently in general. This is more of a slow burn with a lot of solid atmosphere and suspicious things going around. There is a violent visual or two but for the most part this film isn’t going for a lot of violence or anything like that. I think it could have stood out a bit more with a more engaging plot and cast of characters but it’s a decent title.

The movie starts off with a guy named Stephen looking for his girlfriend’s house but whenever he mentions the name of the place people refuse to talk to him. Nobody will give him the time of day at all and it’s starting to tick him off. Finally he finds the place and her father Nahum insists that he leave. Stephen will do no such thing and gladly meets up with Susan anyway. She introduces him to her mother who seems nice enough and now Stephen can stay to have a good time. But will it be a safe time? He hears weird sounds in the night, Nahum continues to be really shady and in general the place feels like its got a rotten edge to it.

If I was Stephen I’d probably just ask Susan to come with me and get out of there right away. The longer you stay at this place the worse it gets but once you’re thrown into the mystery it’s hard to leave at that point. What is Nahum hiding? Until Stephen figures that out then he knows Susan will probably be in danger. So one way to escape danger is to leave. He seems like a reasonably tough guy too and wasn’t taking the town’s nonsense. You need to be a bit stubborn like that if you want to succeed when going to a new town for the first time. I was also glad that he was not intimidated by Nahum and intended to say from the start. Now, it’s clear that Nahum cares about his daughter but at the same time he’s just not really doing much to protect her at all.

That’s my main problem with Nahum. He is so passive about the whole thing. Sure he tells Stephen to stay away but on his own what is he really doing? It’s not until the very climax of the film that he makes the obvious call to deal with the threat and by then it’s a bit late. Lets just say that there’s some radiation involved and Nahum did the equivalent of throwing the source in a box. That was never going to go very far and in the meantime casualties were piling up.

I guess you could chalk some of this up to the film going for a vibe of being very strange but it wasn’t the most satisfying execution. I’d also say that Susan seemed really slow on the uptake since she didn’t really seem to know what was going on and Nahum wasn’t being very subtle about how shady he was. Seriously the locked rooms, “You can’t go in there” and other lines didn’t set off any alarm bells? The whole place even looked spooky during the daytime which is a massive red flag.

As always the townsfolk were really not helpful in the slightest though. They could have at least given Stephen a hint as to why they wouldn’t talk to him or help the guy get to the house. Instead it was the same vague warnings of not saying anything so I can’t give the town any credit at all. Having them do something could have given this film the bolt of energy that it needed.

Because at the end of the day I wouldn’t say the film made any big mistakes. If anything my only real problem with it was that it could be a bit dull at times. I wouldn’t say this film was a real page turner. You didn’t care much about the lore as it was happening and this wasn’t a film that was going to suddenly start throwing in a lot of fight scenes or plot twists after all. So in that case you need top tier writing or something to really give the film energy.

The writing is good. I may not say amazing but it’s got that retro feel that I always enjoy and so that part’s okay enough. It just needed more though, whether it be a fun antagonist or something like that. Maybe the problem is that for all the build up of the odd mystery within the dungeon, it wasn’t as exciting as I expected. The film did surprise me since I hadn’t guessed what the actual twist was going to be, but eh it wasn’t enough. So I wouldn’t say the movie’s bad or anything but it wasn’t very solid either. I’d end up putting it right in the middle.

Overall, The movie’s title is a lot more colorful and intense than the actual movie itself. You’d expect a monster running around and some kind of crazy climax but that isn’t the case at all. There is sort of a “monster” running around if you really stretch the term and of course there is a climax but it’s just not what you would really be expecting. It’s not a frenzy of action and if anything you just feel bad for the victims who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. When you finish this film it will quickly be smothered by the more popular horror titles and you’ll be lucky to remember more than bits and pieces within a year. If you’re a big fan of Lovecraft works then you should check it out but I expect most of the other titles will be more memorable. The suspense is what’s supposed to sell you after all and I’m confident that more of them would be able to pull this off. This one just couldn’t get the vibe right.

Overall 5/10

The Hand that Rocks The Cradle Review

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This review is based on the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

There are some films where you wonder how the plot can work without the main characters looking awful and then you realize that they just do look awful and that’s how the film happens. This should be over in a few minutes if the main characters played it smart tbh but that’s how it goes I guess. I’d say this film’s more of a skip, you don’t really need to check it out.

The movie starts off with Claire and her husband Michael getting ready for her next baby to be born. Unfortunately the doctor at the clinic turns out to be a full criminal and takes advantage of Claire so they sue him and the guy quickly deletes himself. His wife tries to stay strong but fails and when she faints her baby is lost. The wife swears revenge on the main characters and changes her alias to Peyton. Peyton quickly heads to the house and is immediately hired by Claire to be the nanny to help out around the house. Now Peyton can begin work on splitting the family apart and ultimately murdering Claire. How will she pull this off though?

So it turns out that letting a random stranger into your house without any real background checks can be a real danger eh? Peyton starts misplacing items, destroying reports, and basically making Claire look really bad since it’s like she’s losing her mind. Peyton makes sure to threaten the gardener, manipulate Claire’s older daughter against her, and even directly handle the baby far more often than Claire so he stops liking her. Yes it’s all very easy…because the characters make it easy. Seriously none of this should be working out at all.

First off we have Peyton hanging out with the baby more than Claire. Claire should be with the baby as often as possible. Sure, she’s busy but why is Peyton basically left all day to give the baby walks, put her to bed, etc? That should still all be Claire’s duty and not because it’s a job but because you want to be with your baby right? Claire does have asthma and can get sickly at times but not all the time so this always felt a little forced. When you’ve just had a kid you’re usually going to be staying around the house a lot. I know they hired a nanny for a reason but yeah this was not a good idea.

Put it this way, even if Peyton wasn’t evil, it’s still possible that the kid and baby would end up bonding with the nanny over the parents if they spent so much more time with her. It just makes sense. It also would help if the parents actually listened a bit more. When Peyton frames the gardener, they don’t even try to listen to their daughter about how it was all fixed. Yeah the evidence was pretty bad so I wouldn’t expect them to be too reasonable but at least listen to her side for a bit right?

For the most part I would say that Peyton’s not even that subtle about all of this. Wearing her necklace as if to boast about how she’s the mother now, her seduction attempt on the husband, etc. At least to the guy’s credit he never cracks or comes close to cracking on that front but these are all massive red flags. Peyton’s initial appearance was a huge red flag since she wasn’t from any agency and happened to be in the neighborhood? Cmon now it may be a beautiful day in the neighborhood but you don’t just happen to be wandering around one.

Then even once they find out Peyton is the villain and have to take her down they handle is horribly. The husband lets himself get thrown down a flight of stairs and the main heroine’s stab attempt didn’t go very well. This is why you need to at least know some basic self defense. Or if you’re going to run, then run right away. Waiting at the house to pack everything up is always going to take way too long when you have a villain on the loose. You feel bad for Claire’s best friend quite a lot since she was at least making some headway but got way too sloppy towards the end. The classic reverse psychology trick worked on her.

The whole deception to make Claire jealous by revealing that her husband was hanging out with the friend was also really contrived. Look, surprise parties can be fun but never if it means lying to your wife about it. What matters more, keeping the secret or keeping her trust? It should be a really obvious decision or at least I would hope that it is. That’s where you just tell her that there is a surprise party coming up and to keep it on the downlow or something like that.

He has to know how it would look since the friend was an old ex of his. In general you don’t want your husband or wife to hang out with an ex in general, let alone in secret. Now it all comes down to trust so if you’re comfortable with your partner still seeing an ex then hey, power to you. Me personally? Nahhhhhhh, the ex needs to leave the picture completely. It’s way too dangerous to keep an ex around so there’s no hanging out as friends after that. It’s tough terms but that’s just how it has to be in order to keep the relationship strong.

Then you have Solomon who has a rather tragic role for most of this. He’s disabled so he already has a tough time explaining himself or talking so when he’s framed there isn’t a whole lot that he can do about it. He’s just trying to help but he’s in a really tough position the whole time. Especially since you see this coming right from the start of the movie, you can only watch and wait for the inevitable.

Aside from the story being rather weak and forced, the movie just isn’t generally high quality. Using the doctor for shock value at the start of the move is a whole scene that could have been completely skipped. Make up some other reason for revenge, but starting off the movie with Claire being attacked like that was pretty bad. The film also had some obvious fanservice in feeding the baby and while that shows how insane Peyton is in her role, you definitely don’t need to linger on those moments. Mix in the sub par writing and you don’t have a winning movie here.

Overall, This is a movie that only works when all of the characters make the worst decisions as if this was a horror movie. The story only starts at all because they happened to pick Peyton out of all the available candidates without bothering to look into her records at all. Who wouldn’t do their due diligence when you have a baby and a kid in the house right? Then you have the husband randomly keeping a secret when he shouldn’t have, a “accident” murdering the friend and not immediately grabbing a shotgun, the important report completely vanishing, etc. At least Claire picks up on the list of odd coincidences later on but sure took her time in doing so. Yeah this is one you should definitely skip.

Overall 2/10

Ghoulies II Review

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Ghoulies may have been a dreadfully awful film but would the sequel be able to save the franchise? Unfortunately I can confirm that it did not. It does defeat the first film but it’s a marginal victory at best because these two are still on the same level. It may be taking on a different approach than the first Ghoulies but I wouldn’t really say that it learned any lessons. The only impressive part about this movie is how it’s not rated R since it felt extremely violent but I suppose it’s because most of the more painful deaths are heard/implied but not really seen. It’s clever directing but not going to save this one.

The movie focuses around an attraction at a local circus about scaring people. I forget the term for the scarehouse but basically you go in to get spooked by people in costumes and scary images. Unfortunately it’s not doing so well and corporate has decided to shut the place down. They have one last weekend to get their sales up but the main characters aren’t so confident. The only 3 employees is a teen who’s in over his head, a short guy who has trouble being convincingly scary, and an old man who is constantly drunk. Yeah this may be the end of the line but at least they can escape with their lives right?

So where do the Ghoulies come in? Well they get summoned by the old man because that’s how this works now and they decide to start bumping people off left and right. Now again you have to consider that this is part comedy to explain why the film goes the way that it does. It’s heavily being inspired by the Gremlins so the characters are being a little extra quirky and manic the whole time. They have a lot more personality than last time at least but I still couldn’t say that they ever got all that interesting either way. At the end of the day they’re still just sinister monsters without much reason and purpose.

It can be rather frustrating when you see them murdering everyone and the audience is just cheering as they watch what they think is a show. Of course it should be obvious but hey these are not the brightest bulbs in the bunch. Not by a longshot unfortunately. The Ghoulies also don’t seem all that powerful so you constantly wonder how they are doing so well. This movie does establish that they are super durable. Acid, stabbings, and bullets are not enough to put them down. They seem functionally immortal as every injury promptly heals itself. So that definitely puts the characters in a bit of a bind. If they would use basic teamwork or stop taking their eyes off of the creatures this would be easy but unfortunately that never happens.

I’ve always said that small creatures are more terrifying than huge ones and I think this movie supports the point well. Put it this way, if you’re faced off with a massive monster then you’re probably dying instantly when it steps on you or fires off a massive energy blast. With a small creature it’s death by a million cuts, bites, etc. It’s the worst way to go. They chose the most disturbing death in the film for the corporate guy and you can’t help but feel bad for him. He certainly wasn’t a nice guy by any means but you hate to see anyone go out like that.

Many characters are destroyed in this one as the Ghoulies really take names and add onto their body count. It’s impressive on one hand but the film quickly loses focus of anything else. It’s not devoid of plot like the first film though. At least we do have the drama with the circus and a number f real characters. There is some drama with the main heroine getting ready to leave the circus and so you actually remember things about this movie aside from the ghoulies. Ultimately it just isn’t enough to save the film.

Even if you put aside all of the excessive violence here, there aren’t any real strengths that would make you watch the film. The old man getting massively drunk on the day when he knew his friends were counting on him was awful. Seriously you can’t let people down like that and it put him in a very poor position to fight back. Then the film can feel a bit mean spirited with a lot of random teenagers getting murdered who didn’t do anything to deserve it. At least let them go out quickly as opposed to all the creative way the Ghoulies get them. An instant death would definitely have been way preferable.

There is a bit of a romance plot here but it doesn’t really serve any point in the film. The film really should have spent more time giving the characters development so you can root for them to fight the Ghoulies. For example one scene that was actually decent was when the main guy calls all of his friends from the circus over to help and they actually do. They all drop everything to help out and it was nice to see that they all had each other’s back. That’s what you would like to see in this kind of situation and it’s annoying that the fight was still really close.

Again, the Ghoulies are super durable and can keep on regenerating but in terms of strength they shouldn’t be that bad. Just keep your eye on the monsters and you should be fine. We do briefly get an even bigger Ghoulie later on which was interesting but you don’t want to leave your hopes in the hands of a monster like that. When you have guns and the numbers advantage this shouldn’t be so crazy. If the Ghoulies could talk then at least it would be interesting to hear what their plan for the world is beyond total chaos.

Overall, Ghoulies II is really more of the same as the first one. This one is definitely better to be sure but not enough so to earn it any extra stars. I wouldn’t say there is any true reason to check this one out. You’re just watching the Ghoulies murder everyone in gruesome ways and that is absolutely not enough to constitute a real plot. Throw in some better characters as well as some restraint and then we can talk. In the meantime I don’t have much hopes for the next two Ghoulies films to be honest. Maybe they can be decent but I definitely have massive doubts.

Overall 1/10

Ghoulies Review

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The Ghoulies is one of those films that really doesn’t seem super sure on exactly what it wants to do. One one hand it’s usually a very disturbing horror type film with a lot of crazy visuals and goes fairly high up on the violence chart. On the other hand you have many scenes with comedy music playing and so you’re wondering just how seriously you’re supposed to take all of this. It’s certainly a tricky call but in the end all I can say is that it wasn’t able to pull this off.

The movie starts with a cult trying to sacrifice a baby but the baby’s mother is able to put a talisman around him for protection just in time. She’s destroyed but the baby is allowed to leave. Years later Jonathan has grown up to be a rather ordinary person and he ended up inheriting a rather spooky house. That’s his queue to invite all his friends over while he and Rebecca figure they will have the time of their lives. It all goes sideways rather quickly though as Jonathan wants to do a summoning and then monsters start to murder everyone. Is there any way out of here?

In a way the film is trying to emulate the success of the Gremlins but it is failing spectacularly. I wasn’t a particularly big fan of the Gremlins myself but you could tell that it tried more. The humor landed a lot more naturally and the main cast was better. A big issue here is that Jonathan isn’t likable at all even before he gets controlled. He’s really insistent on all of the characters performing the summoning to the point where he starts to get really upset about the whole thing. You could say that the atmosphere was already starting to control him but I think the guy just wasn’t very well balanced from the start.

As the film goes on he keeps on making more and more mistakes which endanger everyone around him. There’s no point where we get to see him just being a nice guy and that’s something that really hurts him. It’s not like the other characters were much better though. The teens were busy getting drunk and messing around the whole time. None of them thought that this whole party was a bad idea and none of them seemed to have any restraint. They’d all be considered as bad influences out in the world and you wouldn’t want to be in this friend group.

Whenever I see all the memes about how the characters really put themselves into these dangerous situations in horror films like wanting to use a spirit board or driving into a seedy hotel it does make you wince. This one’s the same thing with the whole summoning. Even if you thought it was all a joke, why even go through with it? What’s the upside? Are you so bored that doing this is the best form of entertainment you can think of? Because if it’s the latter then that’s really bad. You have the whole place to yourself and all your friends so entertainment should really be just about unlimited.

As mentioned the film could also be surprisingly violent at times. Characters are often wounded in the face/neck and the effects all seem rather practical so you feel the intensity. I was even surprised the film was PG-13 because of how graphic it could get. Maybe it’s just the way the bites went since it looked painful but technically wasn’t as explicit as it could have been. That’s certainly a possibility at least but eh they definitely should have toned that down somewhat.

The movie also started on a low note with the cult trying to sacrifice the baby. At least it didn’t actually happen unlike another movie but the fact that the mom ended up getting sacrificed and nobody did anything about it was rough. Of course it’s a cult so likely everyone there was basically evil but it’s still annoying regardless. It’s also one of those things where the villains have so many powers and the heroes can’t do anything about it so it isn’t even compelling. With a stronger hero cast perhaps there’s something you could do but that wasn’t the case here.

The story also ends early on as it’s just the characters messing around and getting folded by the enemies everywhere. The main villain Malcolm is one of the most generic evil masterminds you’ll ever see. I guess the guy just wants destruction but there’s nothing about him that stands out. If he wasn’t so powerful then he would be doomed. He’s not too smart with how roundabout his plan was and he fumbles the ball constantly. With his abilities he should never lose so that means he has to make odd choices in order to give the heroes a shot. Again, that’s not a high value villain.

If I’d give the film credit for anything, I’ll say that the creature designs weren’t half bad. They’re not amazing or anything but the small green monsters were a little intimidating. In particular there is one scene where they jump out of one of those small wooden jesters that was intense. Still not enough to outweigh all the negatives of the film but hey it’s a start right? Now just take away the fanservice, the awful romance, the terrible characters, the bad plot, etc and then you can start a real conversation about this one.

Overall, Ghoulies is a film I absolutely recommend skipping. There is nothing much of value to be found here and it’s really just an excuse to see monsters eating everyone. The plot was probably just written around that concept instead of being planned out first. It’s just one of those films with the characters messing around with satanic elements and quickly finding out that this was a bad idea. Should have been obvious but that’s how it goes. At least we did get a half hearted ending cliffhanger which the film still can’t decide if it’s trying to be funny or not. I figure at this point the enemies are on their side so it’s more of a happy ending than anything but at the same time could you ever really trust them? I’d be very hard pressed to trust any creature that just tried to murder me.

Overall 1/10