Tag Archives: Horror

Jeepers Creepers 3 Review

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

It is time for the return of Jeepers Creepers. I wasn’t exactly a big fan of the first two and I can’t say that anything has really changed with the third one. This time the Creeper actually gets to be outshined by his own truck though so that’s a bit of a twist. It does make for a very imposing threat since you can see how the heroes would have almost no shot of getting out of it. The movie doesn’t really do anything all that different from the first two though so there’s not much reason to check this one out.

The movie starts off with the Creeper messing everyone up as he escapes with his van from police headquarters. Dan arrives and informs the local police chief Davis that this is just the beginning. Apparently everyone has their big awakening where the Creeper is concerned where they decide to do something about this madness. He makes the case that Davis needs to help him track the Creeper down now before he gets away again. What can you do against something that can fly, regenerate, has super strength, speed, and a car of gadgets that would even impress Batman? Well they have another one of those spear gatling guns. These films seem to love this thing despite it never working for long but hey it’s better to try something as opposed to nothing right? Meanwhile there are a bunch of teenagers running around and you figure that they’re doomed.

The film doesn’t have many positives so lets go over those first. First off we have the ending of the film which does a nice job of tying all 3 movies together. Presumably the 4th movie would have been really solid if they had actually stuck to this plot. Okay…that’s probably giving it too much credit but I do think that it could have been rather decent compared to this one. The ending leaves things off on a hype note even if you figure that the characters don’t have much of a chance of really making a difference.

I also thought that the plot with Sheriff Dan was decent for a while. It’s certainly more engaging than the main one at least as everyone is very dramatic and they all talk a good game. The problem is that this doesn’t directly translate into wins. No matter how much planning they do, it’s not like they’re ever closer to actually securing the win. That’s probably the most annoying part of the movie, there is never a single moment where you think that they have a shot. The Creeper is just too powerful with no true weaknesses so the movie feels futile right out of the gate.

There is a whole subplot about finding out his past but it’s super pointless. Basically if you grab onto his hand you see things…presumably his origin story and stuff like that. At no point in the film does it ever become important or useful in the fight though so I don’t know what the writers were thinking. Gaylen grabs the hand first and is taken into a trance but for the rest of the film all she can do is talk cryptically. It would be nice if she could have hared the intel…you know so nobody else has to grab the hand? Since she does not then Dan has to do it next…and also doesn’t tell people anything useful. Sure we get a sign at the end taunting the Creeper but does it matter?

Sounds like they’re trying to hurl some insults by saying that they know about his past but why would he even care? Apparently he does but they really couldn’t have known that. A significant chunk of the movie is spent on this pointless mystery so that didn’t do the film any favors. Dan looks all the worse for it since he deserves a lot of blame on the planning. Davis at least did decent in covering him with the gun. I thought he meant well and while he didn’t stand a chance, he didn’t back away from danger.

Gaylen at least told Addison to leave so she wouldn’t be in danger but didn’t do much beyond that. She was just way too old for this kind of adventure. Addison has a little romance plot running around but her family is rather annoying which doesn’t help matters. Her brother is a juvenile delinquent who runs around putting animals in cages for no good reason so of course he gets bumped off. His friends aren’t much better and everyone takes years to take the animal out of the cage. Cmon now guys.

Addison and Buddy also handled one situation terribly. So they drive up to this ranch where everyone is hiding underneath their cars. You might figure this is a great chance to just drive on out of there, slowly back up, dial 9-11…or something. We know you wouldn’t get out of the car…right? Wrong! Buddy gets out and walks up to the guys asking why they’re hiding under a car. No matter what the answer is, it’s probably smarter to be in the car. Maybe it’s a guy with a gun running around, a bear, hornets, etc. Why get out of the car? He’s lucky he wasn’t taken out on the spot by the Creeper but that guy likes messing around to increase the level of fright since he still consumes that as energy. Addison and Buddy did not handle anything very well here so they could be annoying.

The film’s writing is bad for all the reasons I already listed above. It’s also about as violent as you would expect with this kind of slasher film. Everyone is getting bumped off left and right by the Creeper and are unable to do anything about it. The van makes for a very unique set of deaths for the heroes but ultimately this isn’t a movie that is used to showing a lot of restraint. It’s just going for the shock value and at the end of the day that isn’t going to really help it surpass the earlier films. The Creeper is also still such a bad villain, there’s nothing cool about him. The design is weak and while his powers are good, there’s just not much to him.

Overall, The only appeal to this movie would be the ending as the franchise starts to form something of a real story but since the sequel never came out there is no longer much reason to watch this film. It goes through all of the usual motions of a slasher film but the writers couldn’t figure out what kind of plot they wanted to tack onto it. As a result you’ve just got narrative dead ends that don’t do anyone any good. The movie just needed to be honest with itself about wanting to just have an excuse to get everyone bumped off.

Overall 1/10

Count Yorga, Vampire Review

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Now this is an awful film so prepare yourself. Dracula already set the bar extremely low with all of those installments but somehow Yorga is even worse. The film’s extremely annoying with characters not making the right moves and it goes for being gritty for no reason. They definitely want to show that Yorga is as demented as possible but he’s the Count so we already knew that.

The movie starts with the main characters doing a seance so that Donna can see her mother again but unfortunately the whole thing doesn’t go well. It just gives Count Yorga a chance to mind control Donna a bit. He scurries off but later on Erica and Paul end up driving the guy home which is a big mistake. Now the Count has them in his sites and things get tricky from there. Will the count be taking everyone down or can Dr. Hayes be brought in to stop this?

So where to even start with this one? We’ve got the usual blood sucking everywhere but that is really the least of our worries at this point. Where the film really surpasses its limits here is it decides to also give the Count a sidekick. This guy is basically desperate to have a lady of his own and so he ends up attacking one of Yorga’s mind controlled victims. This is the scene that absolutely should have been cut out of the film. It’s off screen but he basically has his way with her.

It’s purely here for grit and shock value because it has nothing to do with anything. This guy has no business being in the film in general. We’re here for the vampire, not the right hand man who is messing around here. The film was basically doomed to be a 0 from this point although that was rarely in doubt.

Yorga is also shown to be one of the more perverted villains as the guy has fun commanding the victims to mess around with each other while he watches. You wouldn’t see this kind of behavior from Dracula who at least kept some dignity most of the time. This guy also can’t handle himself in a straight fight. Half the time he has the mind controlled zombie vampires go in to fight for him. Near the end Yorga is confronted so he immediately runs off.

Then he has the element of surprise along with his supposedly superior vampire physical abilities and yet he gets rocked. The guy has no defense to the stake but he also doesn’t have the speed to dodge or the strength to mess with the aim? He just looks so weak by the end that it takes away from his tough talk the whole film.

I’ll just give him one thing, I liked his banter with Dr. Hayes. It’s the only good part of the film as they both subtly threaten each other. Hayes hints that he knows Yorga is a vampire while Yorga advises him to leave while he still can. I like these threatening conversations like this. It keeps things interesting and you keep wondering which character will back down first.

That is the only good part of the film though as the rest goes back to the film just being awful again. Why do the heroes decide to attack only once it’s night time? I suppose they still thought there was hope to save some of the captives but they really took forever and should have attacked at the crack of dawn when they had to leave early. That would have definitely been their best play here and it would have taken Yorga by surprise. Once it was night time the deck was stacked against them.

Another issue with the film is that none of the characters are particularly likable. Donna doing that seance didn’t help matters and everyone was rather rude about it the whole time. Just don’t participate in it at that point. Paul and Erica were messing around too much in the van and didn’t keep their guards up.

The only good character here was Hayes and unfortunately things don’t go very well for him there. He definitely should have prepared himself a bit more but at least he did last for most of the film so I’ll give him some props there. It’s not like he had a whole lot of help in the film anyway.

Michael was the only other one to fight and unfortunately he lets his guard down a lot too and was too slow to help in the end. We do get the classic jump scare at the end of the movie though. It may not be the most impressive one but it gets the job done. You’d expect nothing less here.

It’s hard to make a vampire film that’s all that good but you could absolutely do one that’s way better than this. Make the Count someone who needs to drink blood to survive so you keep his cocky attitude and have him take everyone out but he just destroys them instead of keeping them alive to play with. Remove his right hand man and make the main characters a little more likable. Have them be more focused on trying to figure out what the Count’s deal is and cut out the half hearted romances squeezed in for no reason. Then without all of the shock value scenes perhaps this could actually be a decent movie…perhaps.

Overall, Count Yorga is a huge miss. It’ll end up sinking the vampire genre to new lows for you so I’d advise you to just skip this one entirely. There’s no reason to check it out at all so instead watch a Dracula film if you have to but of course I would advise just completely not watching a vampire film as it is. It’s just very rare that they end up being good anyway so why bother right? I doubt anyone will remember Yorga in a few years though. The guy is already over the hill.

Overall 0/10

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Review

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

The big Alien vs Predator sequel has made it but unfortunately this would have to go down as the weakest film in the series. It goes way too far in just how gruesome and edgy it wants to be. This time you have kids and actual babies being taken out as well. Ultimately there isn’t a whole lot to like in this one and not even the crossover element is enough to get this one to win.

The story picks up where the last one left off which is that there was an alien growing inside of the Predator. It ends up hatching and causes a ton of damage before crashing back to Earth. One Predator decides to go down and take the Predalien out but it won’t be easy. A lot of aliens have quickly started to grow on Earth so the infestation is back to being just as strong as it was before. Any progress that could have been made for the humans is effectively gone now. The humans in this area need to try and escape as soon as possible.

Lets get the violence out of the way here first. A big part of why this film is no good is just how extreme the violence is all the time. It sets the tone early when the kid and his father get brutally murdered by the aliens and it just keeps on going from there. Going after the babies at the hospital was just crazy and I could also deal without all of the chestbursters everywhere. Those are always the worst part of the Aliens. Just give us the full sized Xenomorphs and stick to those. I guarantee it would make for a better film all the way around.

The film is also infamously dark as you’ve probably heard. Everything is in the shadows so it feels like the film isn’t particularly confident in its special effects. Just give us the full fights. The Predalien has a cool design and the fight with the Predator is cool while it’s in the special green vision but otherwise the fights aren’t impressive because of this. So that’s part of the big hook of the film in theory and the movie doesn’t take advantage of it. So much for this being a big crossover.

Then we’ve got the humans and none of them are really any good. Ricky is the main guy here and he likes Jesse but she is already dating the school bully. That should be enough for Ricky to just acknowledge that it’s over and move on but he doesn’t go down that route. He throws a joke at the bullies which leads to him being beat up and then he’s still willing to rebound with Jesse after this.

The romance is really bad the whole time and the characters aren’t likable. Why was Jesse with this guy in the first place? It seems like this wasn’t the first time the bullies have messed with Ricky so he didn’t play that very well at all. His older brother Dallas at least seems reasonable as he tries to handle things peacefully and helps find the keys. He also handles the whole alien infestation calmly which is more than can be said for some of the characters.

One of them decides to just believe the government which is never really a good idea. I do like the government here. They’re definitely really sinister and shady as you’d expect but they make for a fun antagonist. Any scene with the government has them in a very darkly lit room acting suspicious even when they are supposedly trying to help out. I imagine they don’t seem as suspicious on the phone but I was glad that at least one person took notice.

The film does have a reasonable twist ending which is good to set up the next film even if it’s not as impactful as you’d expect. To me it implies that the humans are aware of other alien races and might be ready to make a deal or a move with one of them. That would have been really interesting to change things up as opposed to the usual aliens vs predators direct line up. Maybe even have the two forces team up? Would be tough since the Xenomorphs are usually mindless though.

Too bad the government didn’t appear more. I think that could have helped the film quite a bit. They were way more interesting than the main characters after all and at least they had some kind of a plan. Lets just say they make the climax a little more explosive. If you had good main characters then this wouldn’t be necessary but we didn’t have great characters. The writing isn’t good and there’s no memorable soundtrack so at the end of the day there isn’t much to the film beyond that.

I also think the Xenomorphs look a bit weak here. By this point it’s apparent that a single Predator can take them down by the dozens which is a little extreme. Outdoors perhaps the Predator has the edge but half the time he’s beating them in confined spaces and indoors as well where they should have the edge. I want to see the Aliens holding their own even when there are no cheap shots involved. How can this be a real rivalry otherwise? The Xenomorphs have a lot of physical strength so that should be enough to tip the scales.

Overall, Aliens vs Predator 2 is just a bad movie. The camera work isn’t great, the whole concept of the battle between the two series takes a back seat and there’s barely a plot. Half the time we’ll just be introduced to new characters so they could be murdered as normal. The cast is small enough where they literally are bringing in characters just to have them destroyed. What this tells me is that the film’s story wasn’t long enough to actually stretch into a full length movie without this and so the writers should have gone back to the drawing board.

Overall 0/10

Halloween: Resurrection 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 uncut version would be more negative

Halloween has returned and you can bet that it is just as gruesome as ever. It suffers from all of the usual issues such as a weak cast, over the top violence and characters making the worst decisions possible. I wouldn’t say that it is the worst film in the series as it still ends up beating two of the prior ones but it’s all relative in the race to the bottom. The movie’s quite short at least so it’s over in a flash.

The movie kicks off with explaining how the ending of the film didn’t have us watch Laurie destroy Michael and instead he tricked her by swapping masks. This may sound a little crazy because it is but I guess that’s just how it goes sometimes. A few years pass by and Myers attacks Laurie again but she handles herself well and defeats him. Unfortunately she decides to go in close to try and remove his mask as if this was Scooby Doo and so this allows him to turn the tables and destroy her. He’s now ready to go back home but it turns out that a group of teenagers are filming a spooky reality show in his house. Myers figures that it’s time to take them all down.

Right off the bat it is annoying that Laurie would make the mistake of underestimating Myers by getting too close like this. The film tries to blame it on her feeling guilt so she had to make sure that she got the right person but it didn’t matter in this instance. Whoever was behind the mask was clearly trying to murder her so take him out and then worry about whoever is behind the mask. That would have been the best way to handle this and then she would still be around. Definitely a shame.

The security here also seemed pretty bad. This is evidently a bit of an insane asylum with the patients behind bars so how is it so easy for the guy in the clown mask to keep escaping? It’s treated as if this was a normal thing and you’d think that they would be a lot more serious about it. The guy may seem harmless but is he really? He’s a little too interested in the murders so I have my doubts on that one.

Once we get to the main cast we’re reminded why nobody tends to like the horror casts all that much. While there are a few exceptions, the characters always seem to be super annoying and as a result as unprepared for the dangers ahead. They throw in so many fake jump scares and cry wolf to the point where nobody believes them when the danger is actually real. That’s on them when everyone is slow to react when things really happen. I’d also say that going to the Myers house is in really bad taste. I’d say the same is true of picking someone older, but someone who (seemingly) just died 3 years ago and the victims are still fresh in everyone’s memories? Yeah this is definitely going to be an exploitative scary show.

The guys here are only interested in booking up with the girls while the main girl’s friend just wants to be famous. The main heroine Sara is really here out of peer pressure which is a common factor as her pen pal Deckard goes to a party for the same reason. They need to learn to just say no to going places where they don’t want to be and it will absolutely help them out later in life. You can’t let peer pressure just toss you around like that. It’s not a good idea in the slightest!

As mentioned the film is fairly short at around an hour and a half and it feels short so I guess that’s good on the pacing. On the other hand, while usually you could at least expect to be engaged in the human scenes when Myers isn’t going around murdering everyone, that isn’t the case here since the characters are so bad. That puts you in a rather tough position because there is nobody to really root for here. I guess I would go with the head of the show Freddie.

The guy may be the head of this operation and so he’s really the one getting everyone into trouble but he can fight and gets some good lines against Myers. In fact I would go as far as to say he gets all of the best scenes. I liked seeing him glad Myers on and actually land some really good hits. Wishing him a Happy Halloween was really intense too. You just know that he better get as far out of the country as possible because if Myers gets back then he will absolutely be holding a grudge here. He’s not really the forgive and forget kind of guy.

If the film did something right here it’s that the characters actually fought back against Myers more. Laurie took him out early on, Freddie got multiple victories against him and that’s good because he is just a guy with super strength. You should be trying to push him around because of you can take him out at least for a little bit then you’re all set. It may backfire but it’s better to go down with a fight than not at all.

The death scenes aren’t quite as brutal as in a few other films as they don’t tend to be as prolonged but make no mistake, the film is still intensely violent and one of the reasons the movie won’t make it to the big time. There is still quite a body count here before the film is over as nobody is safe from his rampage. At least we still have a solid soundtrack as always. The Myers theme is iconic at this point and for good reason. It’s very distinctive and has that spooky kind of feel to it as well so it just works really well.

There’s just not much more to say about the film though because the writing is just that bad. Just think about it for a minute, it’s actually hard to make all of the characters this bad. Freddy is the only silver lining here as everyone else is absolutely out of their league and not doing much to make themselves likable characters. If they would quit it with the jump scares and all then maybe they would finally be better than average but that’s too much for the Halloween series.

Overall, At least the movie is short but this is one that you will want to skip. It really doesn’t do anything to add to the Halloween mythos and is instead a film that you will forget right away. It’s easy to see why people didn’t like this one although I can’t talk as much there since I haven’t liked any of them. At least we always have the iconic Halloween theme which is still a classic. That theme holds up well to this day which is quite impressive. You can’t say that about every theme.

Overall 1/10

Christine 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

You may remember Christine as the bully from Carrie but the name is a coincidence. This car has been a demon for a very long time and is around to dish out the pain. The movie is about how corruption spreads fast and you have to be careful who you hang with or you could be in trouble. The main guy’s friend is annoying with how quickly he goes on the dark side though.

So the movie starts by introducing us to Arnie who has had a rough time of things. He gets picked on, has really strict parents, and just doesn’t have a high opinion of himself. Well, one day he finds a super beat up car that looks like it’s on its way to the scrapheap and decides to buy it from this shady old guy. His friend Dennis tries to convince Arnie not to do this but he does anyway. Miraculously Arnie is able to make this car look brand new and all of a sudden he has become an overconfident school delinquent. Dennis sees that Arnie is getting worse and worse but what can he do about it?

I’d say that Dennis is definitely put in a really tough spot here. There’s only so much that you can do as the best friend. He’s not family and it’s not like he’s an adult figure so his best bet is just trying to reason with Arnie as friends. Unfortunately that guy is so far off the deep end that it’s really tough to do so. Dennis is a stand-out character for trying so hard. Additionally, Dennis did risk his life in stepping in when the bullies had Arnie outnumbered 5 to 1 and disarmed the guy with the knife.

It was a great scene for him and he really didn’t lose faith in his friend until the end. Dennis really did everything he could. Meanwhile you can basically flip everything that I said for Dennis for Arnie. That guy was annoying on every front. Look, he definitely did have a tragic origin story, I can’t argue against that. The bullies scene was really rough and knowing that he has to go through things like that at school is tough. It’s also easy to see why he has so much self doubt.

The main issue is once he gets the car Christine and suddenly does a 180. If the car is going to mess with his mind, I’d like to see it be gradual so that we know Arnie is actually fighting. Instead the guy goes crazy almost immediately and starts taking this out on Leigh, his parents, and everyone around him. He stops being sympathetic real quick and at the end of the day he chose the car over everyone else. How much of that was mind control and how much of that was really him is the question that the film leaves you with.

It’s hard to say but I’m always big on willpower. If you didn’t produce then that’s game over. So Arnie letting himself be turned evil like that was just bad. Especially when he turns on Dennis who was always in his corner. Beating up on the bullies and taking them out? Yeah that’s rather intense but you definitely see how it could happen. Once he started driving crazy on the highway and acting hostile towards Dennis then things were really crazy. Likewise with taking such a hard stance with Leigh after she had nearly just died by choking in his car.

Arnie’s pretty bad but then I’d also say that Leigh should have completely cut ties with him after the first incident as well. Don’t go back to him after that no matter what he says. Following him into the garage led to another blow-up since the car was his top priority and even after that she’s trying to save him. Perhaps she was extra perceptive that it was the car messing him up but realistically that’s not the first thing that you would think of. She was rather easy on him.

Another character who suspected the car awful quickly was Rudolph. He’s a detective but a rather odd one. I don’t see how anybody could jump to the supernatural conclusion too quickly but this guy seemed to suspect it right away. He was asking a whole lot of questions about the car and how it was fixed so quickly but I’m not even sure what he was getting at. It felt like he had to be hinting that he knew the car was supernatural but that’s really a headscratcher. How he could possibly have jumped to that conclusion (Even if it was correct) is a bit beyond me there.

Props to him being a great detective I suppose. He was a nice character though and I would have liked to have seen more of him. As for Christine, well she’s evil from the jump so it’s not like you can reason with her. She gets jealous quickly and is always ready to exact lethal revenge. If she hadn’t gone after Leigh then you could have at least tried to paint her as a more sympathetic character trying to protect her owner but since she is possessive like that, then there’s no shot. Of course she did the same thing in the past to the previous owner’s family so she was just always like that. I’m cool with the film not going any further into the past because I think it actually makes things more scary to know that she was just randomly an evil, sentient car as opposed to some long backstory about how she turned out that way.

The film isn’t quite as violent as the average King title. The car does take some people out for sure but usually not in super gruesome ways. The violence at times is more implied than shown explicitly. One guy gets rammed to death for example but whereas in another film we would see every moment of that for a drawn out period of time, it’s not quite as intense here. Christine is in general a bit of a mean spirited film though with the average bullies running around and causing trouble. They really go all in by attacking a second time and then you have Arnie’s boss who is rude to everyone for no real reason.

The romance here is really on the weak side for obvious reasons. The relationship with Leigh and Arnie was never going to work out with him being on the dark side and all. I really hope the film wasn’t gunning towards a rebound later on but I’ll choose to believe it wasn’t since it ends pretty quick. I was expecting a different romance plot to continue but the other girl pretty much got completely written out after the opening scenes.

Overall, Christine isn’t really a fun film to watch but at least it’s fairly tame so I wouldn’t say that it’s too bad. There just aren’t very many happy moments and with Arnie being corrupted immediately, you can’t even root for him to really be saved by the end. If you really like evil cars then that might be enough to push it over the edge for you but otherwise I’d say to skip this one. Meanwhile one character nearly chokes to death here and it reminds me why I have to eat so slowly at Jumbo’s pizza. The cheese is so thick that I swear it’s a choking hazard so I always warn people about that when I recommend the place. Top 2 pizza in the whole world but definitely an intense one so don’t take big bites.

Overall 4/10

Carrie 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

Carrie is a very well known movie. I’d wager that every horror fan has heard of it at some point or another and so you generally know the climax before actually watching it but the rest of the film is the adventure. Unfortunately I can safely say that this film is definitely not going to rank at all. Right from the start the movie begins on a low note and doesn’t really let up from there.

When a movie starts with an extended fanservice scene at the showers you know that you’re going to be in for a looooong ride. The whole first scene may introduce how Carrie was brought up in a way where she doesn’t know basic facts but it’s probably one of the worst ways to go about it. The bullies are everywhere and taking names as expected and you’re ready to move onto the next scene. Carrie was bullied so thoroughly here that she was traumatized and at home her abusive mother Margaret blames Carrie for this since Margaret has very crazy views on the world and sin.

Out of all the girls who messed with Carrie, the only one who feels bad about this is Sue and she wants to find a way to make it up to Carrie. So she has an idea, she’ll convince her boyfriend Tommy to take Carrie to the prom and pretend to like her. This will in theory get Carrie’s confidence up and allow her to make friends which will buffer the impact from Tommy leaving Carrie to go back to Sue afterwards. This plan is anything but full proof however it’s the best that she’s got and Tommy decides to roll with it. Little do they know that the main bully Christine also has plans of her own for the prom to try and wreck Carrie’s life once and for all.

The whole town is very mean spirited that’s for sure. The only two really decent characters here appear to be the teacher Miss Collins and Sue. Tommy’s okay as well I guess but very weak willed and probably should have said that the plan was not a good one. At the end of the day he just listens to Sue’s ideas without really throwing his own views into the mix and that was a big mistake. I didn’t think the plan was very well thought out at all because no matter what, someone is going to be feeling real bad by the time this is all over.

Lets dial it back though and first we’ll talk about what didn’t work for the film. Obviously the fanservice is the big issue right off the bat and destroys any momentum from the outset. Not to be stopped there though, the film even throws animal violence as the villains slaughter a bunch of pigs in order to get the blood they’ll need for the plan. It’s yet another edgy moment in what I would call a very edgy film. The movie didn’t even need to go that far because things were already really dire and a lot of other traps would have worked without the animal component.

Then we have the crazy mother where all of her scenes are definitely real sketchy. She’s always trying to drill fake lessons into Carrie’s head and mess with her further. It’s rough as Carrie is trying to do the right thing in not talking back to her but in the end that just results in her having to give in. Margaret’s just way too far gone at this point for anyone to help her out. Considering that Carrie has powers and is seemingly in control of them when she wants to be, Margaret is lucky that she’s still around at all.

We can’t forget about the bully Christine who is basically around just to try and make Carrie’s life as miserable as possible. I liked that the teacher actually stood up to her though. A lot of the time it seems like the bully gets away with everything but here Miss Collins actually took a swing at her and forces Christine to run off. It’s one of the rare times where the teacher actually got a complete victory over the student which is incredibly rare.

Billy is just as bad for going with the plan. I wouldn’t even say he was coerced into it, the guy was thrilled to help out. They had a very toxic relationship from the start that’s for sure. All of their scenes are painful as well and you’re waiting for them to get bumped off but they actually lasted a bit longer than you’d expect. In the end all of these bad characters and scenes add up to make for an awful movie though. You can’t really go back to back scenes without something bad happening. The film rarely gives you a chance to actually be happy.

Take Carrie for example, she is doing her best to have a fun life but you know that trouble is around every corner. I don’t blame her for saying no to the prom at first because in 99% of the cases she would be right that it was a trap. It actually wasn’t this time but it very well could have been and why put yourself in that position? Then Margaret was pressuring her from the other end so Carrie ended up going and the whole thing didn’t work out. Even in the brief moments in the party where she was having a good time, you knew that it couldn’t last.

Carrie was a good character though and I can see why she would blow up at the end though. After a while it was just too much. Too bad she couldn’t target only the villains though but by then her headspace was a little too cluttered. It’s ultimately what ended up turning her into more of a villain rather than ending things off with an anti-hero development. A part of me thought that Sue would end up turning into a traitor in the end so I’m glad that this didn’t happen. While I didn’t like the plan, at least she was trying to be helpful so I can give her that. Likewise for Tommy but then he loses all of those points when he actually does have an affair with Carrie.

He may be doing Sue a favor but cheating wasn’t included in that. He’s still her boyfriend after all so you can’t really cross that line without making things into an issue. Finally Miss Collins was definitely the best character here. She took charge and kept a level head. Considering that she was dealing with so many troublemakers, I’d say that she did a good job in keeping them all under control. By the end she may have made a mistake in how things were handled but from her pov it is easy to see how she would make that mistake. The party was really hectic and she couldn’t let any bullying go on over here. It was just game over there and she had a grisly end even though she tried being helpful.

They did a good job with the fire effects here. The climax felt like something out of a thriller film with explosions everywhere. The film also had a suitably ominous soundtrack going on for it. So on a technical level I can give the film some props there but at the end of the day it’s just too relentlessly depressing for all of the characters involved. The film would need a lot of clean up before I could say that it was ready to be a good film. Maybe throw in the government and some kind of subplot about tracking Carrie down and the origin of her powers. I wasn’t a big fan of the writing so you could also change large parts of the script and scale down Margaret’s scenes.

Overall, The cast here is very weak which mixed in with the rest of the film’s issues made this one an easy L. You’ll want to avoid it even if the film does have a fairly legendary reputation. There just isn’t a lot of fun to be had here. The whole town may not have been on Carrie’s side but ultimately there was nobody to rescue her from her home situation or help out at all so they may as well have been. Carrie really was all alone for most of the day and ultimately this ended up catching up to her.

Overall 1/10

Annabelle: Creation Review

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

Annabelle was so big that she got an origin story which is impressive since that doesn’t seem to happen very often unless you’re a really big character. I guess that fits the bill for her at this point though, she has earned that reputation. The film pretty much plays out as you would expect but in this case almost all of the characters are kids so there isn’t a whole lot that they can do against Annabelle. The film could have used a few more grown-ups to try and make the fights more interesting.

The movie starts with Samuel and Esther losing their kid Annabelle in a tragic hit by a car. Many years later they’ve decided to open up their home as a shelter for a bunch of kids who are homeless after the orphanage was removed. This group is led by Sister Charlotte and the place is quite large so they’re happy here. Samuel is rather withdrawn and his wife Esther never allows them to see or talk to her but…well it’s a place to live. The main problem is that strange things begin to happen here.

The main kid is Janice and she has a tough time walking due to illness so she has to use a cane everywhere. Naturally since you’re watching a horror film you know this puts her at a big disadvantage right out of the gate. She is told that the whole house is good to walk through except for one closed door. You are not to go in there under any circumstances but of course Janice does go in there and opens up the door which had been locking out the evil demon for a long time now. Annabelle is now on the loose and she wants to take over Janice’s body. Can this kid stop the demon or is it game over?

That’s the question which limits the film’s potential a bit when you think about it. Of course the kids can’t do anything against Annabelle. Even the adults are usually rather helpless against such a threat but with the kids it just feels a little too one sided. In general kids are rarely very interesting characters in film so I prefer when they take a back seat. Having them here 24/7 as the leads wasn’t the best idea if you ask me.

Most of the kids are also just annoying. You have the classic bullies who are mean to Janice because she can’t walk properly like they can. Janice only has one true friend in Linda but the others are as petty as possible and you can expect that they won’t be doing very well against Annabelle either. I at least liked Linda who had Janice’s back from the start. Her best moment is definitely when she decided to take charge and ran outside with the doll in order to throw it into the pit of no return. It was a brave thing for a kid to do and took a lot of guts considering the powers it had. Things almost got dicey for Linda since she sure was taking her time closing the lid but that was a good moment.

As for Sister Charlotte, she did well in what was a pretty lousy situation all around. There’s only so much she could do with the orphanage being destroyed and I’m sure it was a lot of work to find a suitable house that would work for everyone. The owners may not have been the best people around but at least they did have a place for the group. Charlotte also did her best to keep the kids in line, they just didn’t make it easy on her.

Samuel has to be one of the worst characters here and of course the same is true of Esther. They absolutely knew about the demon and yet they decided to open this place as a shelter? I don’t care if it was purified several times, the demon was still around which is why the door was closed. Allowing the kids into the building was negligent. If you absolutely wanted to atone and do good by the world, at least find a way to get the priests to completely destroy the building or the demon within the doll. Sealing it away isn’t actually removing the problem.

Then Samuel is also completely oblivious to what’s going on. I feel like it’s intentional but when Janice and the others start talking about weird things happening, he doesn’t seem to care. “Samuel, your wife visited us in the middle of the night!” “Gee, I don’t think so, she’s still in her room….” Samuel knows well and good that she was in the room which means that it was the demon or some kind of supernatural thing going on. By the time he’s actually ready to help it’s way too late. I also thought he was rather cold to the kids for no reason. If he’s still torn up about the past then perhaps inviting the orphanage was not a good idea.

Likewise, Esther is just hiding out in her room the whole time. You have to at least meet the kids, this just makes the experience a little creepy for them. The doll mask seemed to cover her face rather well so just use that and meet up with everyone. Otherwise she really isn’t doing anything to help the cause and is just holding the experience back. That said, I still wasn’t expecting her end to be quite so violent, Annabelle was not holding back here.

In general I wouldn’t say the film is super violent though. Moments of Annabelle shredding everyone is typically rare and the film has a ton of build up. Things don’t really start happening until it’s nearly time to end. We do get one barfing moment from the villain which is always a rather crude way to take possession. I prefer going with the smoke method personally or something like that.

We do get to connect this to the first ending in a way similar to Rogue One so that was interesting. Of course you feel bad for the new characters even if you do know what is going to ultimately happen to them. It’s the kind of twist ending you’re expecting though and even if you haven’t seen the first film it would work in that sense. I did like that we got to see more of Annabelle’s true demon form here though. It certainly looks intense and could probably hold its own movie in that form as well. Now that’s a figure that you wouldn’t want to have to fight.

The special effects in the film are pretty solid. There’s a lot going on and it’s always visually interesting. More so than the movie at times but that’s how it goes. It’s definitely one of those futile movies where the characters never have any shot at directly stopping the villain and just have to try and survive. I think the movie would be more interesting if the characters could be aged up so they could at least try thinking of plans. That’s a staple of the big horror movies even if the plans usually don’t work out. You at least want to see the characters trying some options but that doesn’t really happen here.

Overall, I thought this was a little better than the average horror film and the kids could have been worse. Linda gets a lot of props for actually trying to help out and take Annabelle down. Janice gets considerably less points here because it felt like she kept on adding to the trouble by going where she wasn’t supposed to and all that. You do feel bad for her since she can’t just run and escape the way most main characters could though. The film’s a slow burn but with kids as the focus it’s not as engaging as it could have been. I’d say this is a safe skip.

Overall 4/10

Carnival of Sinners Review

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This film has the original French title La Main du Diable and a more directly translated title but since this seems to be the main English title it’s known as, I figured I’d role with it. I haven’t seen too many French films but the ones that I’ve seen usually have very intriguing premises. This one is no exception as it’s effectively a take on Pandora’s Box and how greed will doom you right from the jump.

The movie starts with everyone enjoying a nice dinner at a hotel until they hear some shooting outside. Shortly afterwards a mysterious guy named Roland shows up and he’s missing an arm. The guy is rather defensive about it as well and he’s carrying a box. The guests all wonder what’s in it but don’t want to mess this guy and go about their business. A few cops even show up asking about a man in black before rushing off. Roland doesn’t seem to be the one they’re looking for but the whole thing is suspicious. Just then, darkness enshrouds the room and when it lifts, the box is gone and a few guests were attacked. They remand answers from Roland and he decides to tell them a very grant story.

See, Roland was a painter who wasn’t very talented at his craft. Despite this, he had a lot of confidence, so much so that he asked out a girl named Irene. Unfortunately she wasn’t thrilled with his paintings either and began to ridicule him quite cruelly. Roland was depressed but then the chef Melisse said that Roland could buy his magic box for a single penny. It would grant him all the skills he could ever need and make Roland a living legend. The whole deal was fishy and inside of the box was a moving hand but Roland was desperate and made the deal. Unfortunately it’s like a chain letter or a pyramid scheme and Roland was the last one.

He does get the talents and skills so that wasn’t false but he has to give the Devil his soul. The only way around that is to pay him the money back but it doubles each and every day. The Devil is also fully willing and able to cheat at this game in order to make things tougher for Roland. You can bet that this won’t be easy and Roland must hurry or all is lost. The plot itself is so unique that it takes a few paragraphs to really get it out there.

We can blame all of this on Roland though. He absolutely was aware of the main stakes in how fishy this was when he saw the moving hand. Also, why would this guy be so willing to sell the magic box for a penny if it was so good? It’s all so obvious and yet Roland still tries to go for this. It’s one of the biggest sucker moves that I’ve seen in a long while. You even have a guy named Angel telling Roland not to buy the box because it’s cursed but he doesn’t listen.

Roland makes a lot of bad choices throughout the film though like when he keeps going after Irene. She made it perfectly clear that she didn’t like him throughout the constant insults and was through with him. She only changes her mind after the box because now Roland is skilled and making a lot of money. Now that we’ve established that she’s only here for the money, you’d think that Roland would realize this but that doesn’t happen. He’s just so happy that she’s with him that he overlooks all of this. Then as the stress continues to grow he realizes that he made the wrong call but it’s way too late for that.

He lets his emotions run wild with him all the time and comes across as way too desperate. If he wants to be a great artist that’s fine but then he should not want to take any shortcuts. Where is the satisfaction if you are getting all of your skills from a box? It’s clearly not his own abilities so that should take away from the happiness. The worst part is that Roland has several opportunities to give the box back, the devil even gives him one chance to mess with the guy but of course Roland makes the wrong move either way.

The movie could not have made it any more obvious to Roland through a variety of characters that he was on the wrong path but he persisted anyway. This guy was extremely annoying the whole time. Then you have Irene who is definitely as mean as can be. I still found her less annoying than Roland though because he should have been the one to get out of there instead of just taking it the whole time. He was courting misfortune the whole way.

Likewise, Melisse was crooked in passing the buck onto Roland but Roland should not have fallen for it. Melisse just wanted to save his own skin at that point and he certainly succeeded. If you think about it, almost everyone is an antagonist here. Then you have the Devil who is obviously the biggest villain around. He is all about manipulation, the whole thing is just a game to him. Of course there is no way to beat him flat out as he has all kinds of powers while these characters are only human. The best way to win the game is not to play at all which is a lesson that Roland could have used. The Devil gets quite a bit of screen time as he mocks the lead and messes around a lot. I thought he made for a very intense villain.

The writing is on point and the pacing for the movie is good as it all goes by rather quickly. The only weak part here would be the romance and of course as a result, the main character as well. I also did miss the present time a bit. I know ultimately that was just a way to set up the flashback but the whole time I was ready to see what they’d think about all of this and how it would go. Unfortunately, by the time the movie goes back to the present it is almost over so there isn’t a lot of time for them. That’s why most of the film is set in the past which makes sense but another 15 minutes or so would have been really good.

Overall, Carnival of Sinners is a rather intense film. It’s mainly scary in the sense that the main character has to slowly come to the realization that he is doomed. He bit off more than he can chew. There aren’t big jump scares here or anything like that. The Devil is not fighting him mano a mano or summoning giant monsters. He’s winning with superior financial resources and a debt that keeps on growing. It’s a very unique way of putting despair in Roland’s heart. I’d recommend this film so long as you don’t mind watching a film with subtitles. (Unless you know French of course!)

Overall 7/10

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!

Blair Witch Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 3/10