Tag Archives: Horror

The Black Room Review

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The Black Room is a reminder that sometimes characters really don’t know what they are doing and fall for the most obvious traps imaginable. While watching this film, I had to see character after character just make absolutely massive mistakes. They were all very preventable which was the worst part. The film can be funny at times in an ironic kind of way but as a whole I would say the film still ends up falling flat. It’s definitely far from my highest recommendation within the genre.

The film begins with a king being rather worried because the prophecy says that his younger kid will murder the older one within the Black Room. An advisor wisely says to just bury the room so the king does. Many years pass and Anton decides to go home to see his brother. Gregor had always seemed worried that Anton would murder him so Anton gave him space but by now things should be fine. He is rather surprised to learn that everybody hates Gregor but doesn’t put much stock in it. He knows that his brother is a force for good after all. Well, as it so happens, Gregor is a rather big villain who had been disappearing all of the women in the village and doesn’t really bother hiding this. Now that he needs to since Anton’s IQ is in the single digits. Can Anton escape with his life?

I’d say all of the characters have a little bit of blame in a film like this. First off is the fact that the Colonel never made a move against Gregor sooner. He finds the guy deplorable but still plays chess with him often and isn’t trying to arrest the guy. After a point if people keep disappearing after seeing Gregor you gotta make some kind of a move. It’s also not like Gregor is denying anything, he just relaxes and acts smug the whole time. The Colonel only cares once the situation involves his own daughter and even then he is slow on the uptake.

“I’ll expose you to the world and get you hanged! Now let me make a call to the police” Naturally turning your back to a supposed mass murderer when you’re alone with him in a room full of solid objects is a really bad idea. Then you have the house attendant. “Hey, I’m going to spread some really bad rumors about you to ensure you will never get with the girl you like. Don’t you dare try and stop me…” This line of argumentation didn’t go over very well for her either as you can probably guess.

Anton’s is probably the absolute worst though. He follows Gregor into a basement where Gregor starts to talk about all of his crimes at length. Anton is in such denial that he starts spamming questions. All of Gregor’s responses are a simple “Yes”. Anton finally runs out of questions and slowly it begins to dawn on him. He will not be leaving this room alive. He’s really not all that bright but neither are the rest of the characters.

Even Gregor as the first time he is found out for his hand writing, it’s a rather obvious blunder. Just write with your non dominant hand. It might look a little messy but taking a big gamble there isn’t very smart. He really only has himself to blame for getting exposed as the guy has no patience. He’s also lucky that this was the most subdued mob ever s usually he would have been torn apart the first time they visited the house. The film had nonstop plot armor the whole time which was just annoying.

Even the main heroine Thea came across as hopelessly naive. It felt like every character immediately liked her. Her own fiancé warned her about this and she was quick to dismiss his worries. Another idea that didn’t go well by just continuing to make appearances. She needed to find a way to just leave town along with him. Even if the main villain wasn’t crazy, it’s probably not a good idea to hang out with royalty when there’s even a chance that they like you romantically. That kind of deal goes badly even in real life because of how much authority they have. The fiancé is also taken down rather easily although at least unlike the other victims, it was in a way that he could not possibly have escaped. It just makes Thea look worse for being ready to move on.

Rebounds are always sketchy, but especially when your first partner goes out in such a violent way. The movie isn’t particularly dark or violent as the deaths are pretty quick or off screened but it definitely does get annoying to see them all make these mistakes over and over again. At some point you really need to just connect the dots. Like I said before it can be funny in an ironic kind of way at times but that’s definitely not what the film was going for. It’s just easy to poke fun at how badly the characters handle every twist of fate. How the town let things get this bad is beyond me.

It’s implied that Gregor made many women disappear. Not just 2-3 but quite a lot and the families just let this go every time? That kind of plot works when it’s the King and he has an army or something but it’s well documented here that everyone hates Gregor and he has no backup. Forget the mob, some vigilante would have taken him out by now right? The world building just didn’t connect with what was happening on screen and the villain got away with too much.

Overall, The Black Room is definitely not a good film. The characters are all as dumb as rocks and the whole movie would not be happening if the characters were thinking straight. They really should have handled things way differently and the fact that they didn’t feels like plot armor that was not nearly subtle enough. It’s not a particularly scary film either and I was actually expecting more supernatural elements. I dare say that those would have really helped the movie out in the long term. Not like it would have saved things either way I guess. In any event, you can definitely do much better within the genre.

Overall 4/10

Poppy’s Playtime Chapter 4 Review

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It’s time for a very emotional game. Poppy’s Playtime has been a fairly intense video game series where almost every journey ends with tragedy. Most of the characters do not get a happy ending and at this point they are just hoping to get out of this place alive. It’s hard to say how many chapters there will be but this one does feel as though we are approaching the ending. Potentially just one chapter left now but we’ll have to see how that goes. This was my first journey where it was just one chapter by itself so that was different. It does mean that the game goes a lot faster than the collection.

Chapter 3 ended with the hero finally getting close to the safe haven so things should go well from here. Poppy will go check on Missy while you go forward to save the day. The only thing you did not count on was that the danger is still ever present. Well, I guess you probably did figure on that to be honest. You’ll have to use your wits and reflexes to stay alive once more because these villains still intend to destroy you as soon as they can. There may not be a whole lot of enemies left but each one packs a punch. Are any of the creatures on your side? Or are you walking right into a trap?

Along the way you will learn a lot of lore through your surroundings as well as the various audio tapes. They can get a little repetitive at times though as it feels like the game is drip-feeding you the information much slower than before. You need multiple tapes just for the characters to be begging for their lives during the experiments. It’s pretty clear that the villains got away with a whole lot back in the lab and you can definitely see why they are all eliminated.

The gameplay itself is solid but the story does often tread into the valleys of being a little too extra grim dark. You’re more interested in the present and staying alive than the mystery of what happened before. Personally I would say the best thing for the game to do would be to keep it as secretive as possible. The more open you keep the past, the better it will work for theory crafting. I suppose its existence does give the game a lot of replay value though as I’m sure a whole lot of people enjoy going through the rooms slowly to try and find every possible collectible. Even outside of those, you will often find messages on the tables and walls .

I would say the core gameplay is platforming but there is also a lot of puzzle solving. You need to connect different objects and also piece together patterns. For the most part the game is reasonable with these but there was one puzzle involving anatomy that I thought was a little unreasonable. I had to brute force it and am still not really sure how to do it logically. The red smoke made it so hard to explore and it felt like this puzzle had a number of red herrings. That only made things even trickier. When it comes to the platforming itself, I found it to be much easier than the third game. I still did die a whole lot during the game but nothing quite as crazy as the final boss in part 3.

The toughest segments for me here were typically when I had to use stealth and get past the monster. Their hearing is quite sharp and sometimes their speeds were lightning quick. It’s why I was really grateful for all the checkpoints in the game. Without that it would have definitely taken even longer to complete the game. It would certainly be easier if we could carry a better weapon. The flare gun that the lead has is okay but certainly not the most powerful thing around. It’s mostly good for just scaring the opposition.

The story took around 3 hours to beat and we got over half of the collectibles but not quite all of them. The platinum trophy actually looks rather difficult so that would add a lot of replay value. Of course keep in mind that the game is fairly cheap even when it just came out so it makes the play time a lot more tolerable. You are still getting a good amount of value for your purchase with this one.

The graphics are also pretty solid here. The game definitely does get the horror vibe across well. Even I got startled a few times in the game when I would get caught. It’s a mix of well placed sound design as well as a color scheme that just really works with this. It’s hard not to get scared at least a little while playing the game. The soundtrack is less impressive but I do get why they would do that. If the soundtrack got too hype or something like that then it could definitely take away from the scare factor of it all.

My main complaint with the game would be that it does have the most breaks in action. Or at least it felt that way where there would be several points of listening to long monologues from the villains while you can’t move. With the audio tapes those are optional and you can still move so that’s fine but when you can’t move you wish the villains would pick up the pace a bit. You also figure they should have been able to beat the main character several times so the longer they talk, the more you have to suspend a little disbelief here. It’ll be interesting to see who the main character is by the end. By this point all signs are pointing to him not being some ordinary human.

Overall, Poppy’s Playtime Chapter 4 isn’t quite ready to give us any of the important answers but you still feel that we are getting closer to the end. There just aren’t many villains left to defeat after all and it’s also the kind of game where I’m not expecting that we will get all of the answers. Although there will likely be a lot of them that I just don’t notice during the main story so that’ll be where Youtube comes in handy. If you’ve been keeping up with Poppy then you should definitely jump in now. The game is reasonably difficult and quite intense so you will definitely be kept interested the whole time.

Overall 6/10

Meg 2: The Trench Review

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It’s time for the big sequel to the original Meg title. The first one wasn’t exactly a top caliber film and unfortunately neither is this one. The Trench certainly does throw in a whole lot more action when it comes to the human combatants but it will also be a long while until you see the Sharks in action. In a sense that can be a good thing for the film since the sharks are usually going to be the title’s downfall. At the same time, you know they will show up eventually so either way it’s not like this will have much of an effect long term. In that case, you might as well get it over with. Sure enough, the film does fall into old habits at that point.

The film focuses around Jonas who has been fighting off eco-terrorists and saving the day from the shadows. His crew is also busy raising one of the Megs and Jiuming is even so overconfident as to think that the Meg won’t eat him. This puts him into danger almost immediately but somehow he manages to get to safety. Everyone tells him what a bad idea this is but he doesn’t care. The heroes go further into the ocean than they had planned and end up finding out that there are several Megs. They just won’t have time to do much about this because of an insurrection. Turns out corporate still has a few tricks up their sleeve and now the heroes will be stuck underwater…forever. Can Jonas figure a way out of here?

A good chunk of the film is really an underwater survival mission. How do you get out of a submarine with no escape pods left and the villains watching your every move? This will definitely make you even more paranoid about being left so far under the sea. It’s just not a good business move especially when it seems like there is a traitor behind every door. Corporate doesn’t have the greatest of plans here as they basically pull a Jurassic World but we have the villainous smirks and cackling throughout the film which is the real important thing. You can tell that these villains really think the world of themselves.

Jonas is a solid lead as always. He is a solid fighter and doesn’t underestimate the terrors of the deep. He is always the voice of reason here and ultimately is the one to get things done. Without him the rest of the crew would not have lasted more than a few minutes. They are seriously outmatched without him there at all times. That’s why Jonas is the head honcho after all.

Meiying is supposed to be the fun child character but she does tend to be more on the annoying side. Stowing away on a dangerous underwater adventure is really not the play. She may have some scientific knowledge that comes in handy from time to time but she also spends a whole lot of time just slowing everyone down. She is physically unable to compete when the going gets tough and that is exactly why kids stay out of missions like this.

Unfortunately Jiuming may be even worse at times. He was a second away from completely traumatizing the kid by getting eaten by the Meg. He was way too confident in his sonar gadget and should have been doing a whole lot of further test studies before actually getting in the ocean. He had to rely on pure luck to stay alive and I can tell you now that this is not a good meter for success. You can’t count on luck to bail you out of every opportunity. That’s just not happening, it’s not a good way to play the odds.

The guy doesn’t really learn his lesson as he is constantly running into danger. Now you may be wondering if every character was completely unprepared for action but I can at least say that DJ was ready. This guy decided to properly arm himself in case the going got tough. Some would call him paranoid, I would call him realistic. This is exactly the kind of initiative I like to see in these events. He had some hand to hand skills, a taser, and other miscellaneous equipment. He saves the day on several accounts here. Every time you think DJ is done, he pulls something else out of his toolbox.

He really stole the show in his quick scenes here. I wish I could say the same about the villains. The lady had a great line though where she asks if another villain is crying. That about sums up how threatening these guys are to be honest. This does give us a chance to give Jonas a solid one liner as he kicks someone off a bridge later on though. When the film leans into a little bit of cheesy behavior, you know that it has a ton of confidence. On the whole the film had a good blend of action and humor. I would say the tone was solid and the fight scenes even had some good choreography. One mistake the film had was in having the best action scene be at the very beginning of the film though. When you peak that early there are always going to be some problems.

So like I said the sharks don’t appear for a while. Unless you count the opening scene I suppose. So the film was mainly doing good but once the Sharks show up then the animal violence begins. One of the big problems with creature films like this is how the monsters don’t actually end up being all that scary. The main character is ultimately able to take a few on with just basic equipment after all. Not the best look for these creatures right? So sadly they are stabbed and blown up. Also the opening scene is fairly graphic with all of the animals getting chopped.

It’s why the creature genre tends to be doomed on arrival. Either the monsters show up and get crushed, or they don’t appear much and you were in a whole bait and switch operation. In either event, the film is probably not going to get the highest score. I would say if you take out all of the animals then this could have been an easy 6 out of 10. Throw in all of the shark bashing and of course it’s going to go lower. Props to the film for not bumping off the dog though, now that would have been really crossing the line.

Overall, Meg 2 feels impressively long but I can’t tell if that’s a good thing and the writers packed a lot in or it means that the pacing was a bit slower than I thought. Either way if you’re here for the sharks then you may find the first half way too slow but if you’re here for the character banter then the second half may not match up for you. If you’re a Dinosaur film then you’ll probably have a good time here because their role is way bigger than I thought it would be. Personally I figured that would maybe just be the opening scene or something but they actually stick around. I think it’s probably time for this series to retire but if we get a third then the only way to top this will be to finally add aliens or something like that.

Overall 3/10

Puppet Master 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

It’s time for one of those disgraceful movies. This one never even got to start on a high note and so you knew immediately that it wouldn’t be any good. Puppets can make for interesting villains at times but this one is definitely just going for shock value the whole time with no real substance at play. Throw in a bunch of annoying characters and you have an absolute recipe for disaster.

The film starts off with the Puppet Master bumping himself off instead of fighting off the evil villains. We then cut to the present where a group of psychic power users are summoned by their old “friend” Neil. These people are the best at what they do. Whether it is seeing the future, seeing the past, or being able to use wards, they are ready for anything. You might call them something like the Psychic Avengers! When they all walk into a room you will be shocked at what little aura any of them possesses. It’s almost as if they drain it from the room. Here’s the strange thing though, Neil is dead and has clearly been that way for a long while. How come none of these psychics sensed that? How did Neil summon them while dead? Well surely it wouldn’t hurt to stay in his mansion for one night?…….can they survive the puppets?

I mean maybe you could feel a little bad for them if they were upstanding citizens but they all look terrible from the jump. Frank and Carissa are way too self absorbed as they mess around when this should be serious business, Dana seems rather desperate and Alex completely wastes his future ability by not actually doing anything about it. It’s clear that they are all out of their depths and completely unprepared for what is about to happen. These psychics are all about to get exposed.

Neil’s wife Megan is rather suspicious the whole time. She is easy to offend but also seems to know more than she is letting on with Neil. The film shrouds her in mystery the whole time but she still never manages to be all that interesting. She gets to spend a decent amount of time with Alex but of course she was just married so you hope there is no romance brewing. Alex just seems oblivious to all the danger throughout the movie though. Even in the dream where we see the future, he just mindlessly walks into a trap. Yes, it was a dream but it is treated as something he would have done if that was the situation. Cmon now.

Frank and Carissa are some of the worst because they know they are in imminent danger and decide now is the time for bondage play. Really? Reallllly? That’s one of the most contrived kills I’ve seen in a long time, especially as Carissa has several minutes to free Frank but panics instead. The whole scene is just soooo bad and drawn out. They were going for max edge on both of the kills here and it was all so overdone.

Then for Dana, she seemed like the weakest anyway. Aside from her only noticeable trait being that she was crazy, she just didn’t handle this very well. I’ll get into this more later on but the puppets are really weak. At least for Frank and Carissa you can make a few excuses even if they are weak ones. Well, Frank has a legit excuse, the rest are dicey. For Dana she is just flat out defeated which is crazy.

These puppets are nothing like Chucky or Talking Tina. They don’t seem to have infinite regen or teleportation. We see characters tossing them around and plucking them apart like actual toys. They look so weak (Thanks in part to the low budget) that they should have lost immediately. For example one of the puppets is like the Thing. He does the “It’s Clobbering time!” barrage of fists. His fists don’t hurt too much as different characters eat a few punches and then toss him away. The main problem as always is they don’t finish the job. Rip the puppets arms off, keep the head detached, etc. Instead they just wait as the puppet very slowly puts himself back together.

Yeah the small hits will add up eventually so just take them out. Near the end we get an extended fight scene where somebody takes on multiple puppets at once and you just can’t help but feel like he could have done a lot better. The movie never actually makes the puppets look all that scary. I mean they were scared of humans with guns in the opening scene after all. They are fighters but not particularly good ones.

I’d also say that the ending is rather rushed with the puppets doing a 180 for no reason. You’re not sure why the main villain is suddenly afraid of them or why Alex suddenly wants to help the villain. Did he think the death would be too gruesome? I just don’t see why, if Alex frees the guy then Alex will quickly be murdered. It again makes Alex look dumb as rocks here. So not only is he making all of the wrong decisions over and over again but now he’s actively going out of his way to help the villain?

The writing throughout the film is terrible but that’s par for the course. The villains aren’t very intimidating at all and the characters are really bad. The violence is extremely over the top and so the movie doesn’t really have much of anything going for it. It’s not very long at least which I can say is a good thing. That may be the only real good thing I can say about it. There was a lot of potential here but the film used none of it.

There is one good thing I can say about the film and that is that I liked the designs of some of the puppets. The one with the knife was rather scary and I also liked the one with the big fists. The sound effect every time he would punch someone was intense. Maybe a bit funnier than scary but it worked well. The puppets could hold their own in a survival setting. The movie just didn’t execute on anything around them.

Overall, The idea of a bunch of psychic people getting together to solve a mystery of their dead enemy is really interesting. You could have done a lot with that but instead they don’t actually get to interact a ton before they split up and start getting picked off. None of them have any survival instincts with how they drink a lot and get tied up. Different members felt danger and evil when they walked into the mansion, did they just forget that? They underestimated the dummies to a painful degree and I’d argue the only smart thing to do would have been to leave the house immediately. If not, at least stay together and it would be hard to be defeated. Their overconfidence got to them and I still find it hard to believe that the franchise got so many films. Maybe the sequels will be better but this was a really rough start for the franchise. It was just L after L and you want to stay very far away from this one.

Overall 2/10

Poppy Playtime Triple Pack Review

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I’m sure everybody here has heard of Poppy’s Playtime. Well, the name may not have an s in it, but that’s the way I’m used to saying it. This thing was aiming to be the next Five Nights at Freddy’s or Bendy. The horror and scares were going to be next level and now I finally get to play it as a triple pack. It’s definitely a solid title with a lot of scares the whole time. The lore may ultimately start getting a bit try hard edgy near the end but ultimately this is an experience you will not forget.

The game starts with the main character inside the ominous Poppy’s Playground. The game is in first person so we never see the main character. I suspect that he is one of the animatronics to be honest or a zombie since he might be dead but either way there are a lot of theories you can go with. I’m sure the fans who listened to every tape and 100% completed every chapter will have a better idea of this though. Either way you now have to try and get out of here but to do so you will have to find a way past these vicious monsters.

The first part mainly has you trying to escape Huggy Wuggy. Part of the fun in playing a collection like this is that you get to see the subtle gameplay shifts as you go on. This one is the simplest as you are basically walking around and interacting with objects. There are no special abilities or anything like that. You have to make sure and run fast too because one hug from this villain and it’s curtains for you. We don’t learn much about any of the characters or lore yet but this is just the beginning. For this reason the first part is the most ominous and I dare say that it is the scariest. You just don’t forget a title that has such an intense climax. Neither following part could match the sheer intensity of this one.

In the second part, we start getting a bit more technical with the puzzles. At one point you gain a new hand which helps with that. You are interacting with less random objects and now it’s more about specific puzzles. You are tested with a lot of new minigames to conquer by the Mother who is the main villain this time around. We start getting more lore here as well thanks to Poppy herself. Definitely not a character I would trust but then again I suppose I wouldn’t trust any character in this game. Being locked in a horror environment like this would just give me trust issues I have to admit.

The increase in platforming works well and in terms of pure gameplay I would say this one has the best mixture out of the 3 parts. It does well in keeping the main horror gameplay while also putting in a bit of that platformer kind of energy. The main hub world is also quite large with all the different areas to go through. The climax is also pretty intense and we have our full plot by this point. The Prototype is out there trying to murder us all.

In the third part the game goes even more ambitious as we enter full platformer territory. The puzzles are the largest yet as you run from room to room to deal with each impending threat. The hub world is also the biggest by far, the game is the most difficult as well with some really tricky segments as well. You even get a flare gun in this part which may be pushing the envelope a bit since a game is inherently less scary the instant you get a weapon. There are a lot of scares still for sure but slowly you’re more worried about the other creatures running around as they get picked off instead of being worried for yourself. There are still a lot of close calls though and I’d find myself flinching in every game. Even when you know that the monster is coming, you just can’t help but get terrified.

Each game has a really solid cliffhanger which is nice since it absolutely gets you ready for the next big adventure. I’m eager to see what happens in part 4 now and the main character does seem to get closer and closer to getting out of this place. Once he has escaped then things will really be looking up for him but it doesn’t seem like the kind of game where there will be a happy ending. Something tells me that the main character is going to be absolutely cooked here. He just needs to make sure that he doesn’t go alone and at least takes most of the monsters with him.

As with most of these big horror games the more of the lore you know, the less you want to know. I would say the best thing to do with these games is to not really explain anything. Just let me try to escape the monsters while getting some evil speeches and such. Keep it all shrouded in mystery because inevitably it involves a bunch of kids dying and gets all so tragic. At least based on how this game is going, you’re rooting for the monsters to wipe out humanity because all the people here seem super evil. At least all of the grownups I should say since they are constantly pulling off crazy experiments. No mercy or escape here.

The graphics are solid as it really feels like a horror title through and through. It’s part of what makes all of the jump scares work. Additionally the sound effects and quick musical tracks really work well to that end. They even made a whole parody of a happy intro at the start of the second chapter which was really unexpected. The game definitely has a lot of effort put into it which I appreciate. I would have liked to keep the flashlight in part 3 as sometimes it could be a little hard to see but I also get how it would make the game a little less scary.

In terms of replay value there are trophies to get and they seem quite difficult. You have to beat parts 2 and 3 in a very fast time to get the Platinum. It basically means mastering each game which takes a lot of dedication. I see that a lot of people have pulled this off based on the trophy percentages so maybe it’s not as hard as it sounds. Maybe… but I have some doubts on this. Either way at some point I’ll try to improve my rank since I have a D in two of the parts.

Overall, Poppy’s Playtime is a game you won’t want to miss. It is definitely intense and disturbing at times so you have to make sure that you’re into horror titles but as long as you are then you should be having a good time here. There is a lot of exploring to do within the game and more details that you will pick up each time. The games go fast but as a trilogy there is a good amount of content to enjoy. I’m ready for that next bundle pack at some point.

Overall 7/10

Donnie Darko 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

It’s time for one of those films where the main character is slowly going crazy but you have to determine if this is actually what’s going on or if there’s more to the situation than meets the eye. You’ve got the classic delusions and even a giant 6 foot Rabbit so this film isn’t afraid to get supernatural. Unfortunately the build up is rather large to what I would consider to be a lackluster climax and getting there is rough with the characters all being super annoying and terrible for the most part. There aren’t really many people to root for here and so that’s something sequels will need to try and fix.

The film starts off by introducing us to Donnie who has been having some mental issues for a while now. He takes pills to reduce the effects but sometimes he skips them and starts to crash out. He’s been wandering around the city at night and seeing a large rabbit man named Frank. Frank tells Donnie that the world is going to end in a few days. Donnie might even believe him but officially tells his therapist that he doesn’t think the world will end. Donnie actually has two friends and then even gets a girlfriend in Gretchen but for the most part has trouble connecting to people. Even the famous motivational speaker gets on Donnie’s nerves. Will he be able to stop the world from ending or is Fran really just a figment of his imagination?

This is one of those films where you will definitely need to stay focused because we jump from day to day. There is a timer about how many days are left until the end of the world and so sometimes there are whole weeks left and then there are just a few days in others. So you have to read through these carefully because the film isn’t always linear but the events are normal enough where you might not even notice at times. A engine fell through Donnie’s house but fortunately he wasn’t hurt but the cops are acting a bit weird about the whole thing.

Like I said before the main problem here does come from the characters though. Donnie is extremely hard to root for. He shows up with a bad attitude from the start and never really gets any better. From insulting his sister and mother to crashing out during lessons, he just isn’t a very heroic figure. During his therapy sessions he has a hard time focusing and it doesn’t seem like anything really interests him. He’s very odd the whole time and you can be odd without being a jerk but he never really chooses that option. I would have liked to have seen him resist Frank’s influence more as well.

Donnie seems easy to manipulate and always tends to choose the worst outcomes. Even through to the end I don’t think he made the right call. He basically decides to give up, at least that’s how I would frame it. He could have tried a lot of other paths but he chose the easiest one which doesn’t even guarantee a happy ending. In fact you could say that in some ways this is now the dark ending but it depends on how you interpret it. I’ll go into my interpretation near the end of the film.

For the most part I’d say the film has a generally dark tone. Everyone’s been through a lot and there is another tragedy along each corner. You’ve got Gretchen’s backstory which is naturally dark and then gets even darker with what happens in the present. You have the motivational speaker’s secret which is again super dark and so the town doesn’t seem to have a lot of hope with it. One girl is bullied a whole lot and naturally the main character doesn’t do much about it. Just about everyone is needlessly mean spirited like when a bunch of kids make fun of an old lady.

There’s quite a bit of language here and none of the characters seem like someone you would want to be friends with. Of course the characters are not responsible while the parents are away and throw a big fight as well. People are doing drugs, the romance is rushed, etc. This film definitely takes itself very seriously but this kind of grim title needs a bit more of a hook.

That’s where Frank really should come in. Lets get some more answers out of this guy and learn about the end of the world. Well, for the most part he just talks cryptically the whole time and isn’t very helpful. Sometimes he helps out like when he had Donnie burn down a house that exposed a villain. That was good but is takes him a while to get to that point. Before that Frank just seems generally demonic and it’s still hard to tell what his actual goals are. Is he just here to spread chaos? Because I could definitely believe that.

Okay now to discuss the ending. Skip these next two paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film yet. My main theory here is that there was no real time travel per say and instead we got taken to a new dimension. Throughout the film they talk about time travel by going through a ship and entering a portal to go back. Well, we get to see Donnie arrive back at the start but he chooses to stay in his room so the engine crashes through and murders him. At this point all of the characters across the film wake up, seemingly very startled. Some are panicking, sweating, etc.

It seems like they all regained their memories of the lost time here. So even though it’s the past, the events all seemed to happen. For that reason I would say that Donnie was able to open a portal through dimensions. In this way it’s like a parallel universe where everybody is around but now events are playing out a bit differently. Unfortunately because Donnie won’t be around to burn the house, that means the speaker will still be up to his criminal activities. Then again if everyone remembers, maybe they can shut him down quickly. That’s basically how I interpret the ending and so it’s a pretty sad one since Donnie gave up and just let himself get blasted. He should have gotten out of there and used his advanced knowledge to really make a difference. There are a ton of ways you can change the world when you have an early start like that. It also seems like this kind of thing has happened before with the old lady who wrote a book but Donnie should have checked in with her right away. The whole alternate universe would also tie in with the planet ending like Frank said. In this way it really did end as that universe/timeline no longer exists.

Well, there are a lot of ways to look at the ending. The film is definitely weird enough for it all. Unfortunately it’s just no weird in a good way. You absolutely could have pulled this off if the characters were better but this cast? Yeah they were definitely not even remotely ready for this. A good surreal kind of film needs to have quality characters, a really engaging plot, and of course an interesting climax. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is an example of a really weird film that works after all.

Overall, Donnie Darko is held back in a lot of ways by Donnie Darko himself. He isn’t quite the lead character that you need to make a film like this succeed. Instead he just keeps the film from reaching its true potential. The rest of the characters don’t really help matters either though. Frank had potential here but the way his character goes out is pretty lame and he lost all of his aura the instant that the mask came off. There just isn’t much that is appealing about this film. I give it some props for trying to have a very unique story but it did not work.

Overall 2/10

Imaginary Review

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Blumhouse continues to surpass the average horror films with its products. They’re rarely ever great but they avoid a lot of the pitfalls of other titles. Give me this over titles like Alien, Friday the 13th, and a bunch of the other big horror franchises. These films tend to avoid getting too violent or anything which is nice. That said, at times it can also feel like the villain is being too merciful to the point where it doesn’t make sense. After a point you gotta just take the opponents out right?

The film starts off with introducing us to Jessica and her husband Max. Max had a messy divorce a while back but he is hoping things will be stable now and his two daughters Alice and Taylor will like Jessica. They all moved to a new place for a fresh start but unfortunately this house comes with a dark secret. There is a teddy bear named Chauncey here who quickly becomes friends with Alice. Nothing wrong with having an imaginary friend right?….well there might be a problem with this one. Chauncey is constantly in a bloodlusted state and continues to get more and more demented. Can Jessica stop something that may not have a physical body?

Now I will say that the premise is handled in a rather generic way. This is pretty much the same as M3gan, and all the Chucky films. You have a stuffed animal that talks to a kid and gradually gives more and more demented conditions to friendship. The little girl Alice is incredibly naive and not particularly smart so she falls for this every time. It’s a story concept that we’ve seen many times before. Now granted, this does beat all of the Chucky films and M3gan but you will still be surprised that it didn’t try something a bit different. The film doesn’t really make use of its premise until the very end.

I would say Alice is super annoying here the whole time. I understand that she’s young but she should still be old enough to tell that Chauncey is psychotic. Telling her she has to hurt herself is just unhinged and that would be the time to tell her parents. There is no indication that there is any mind control at work here or anything like that so instead that just means Alice is making these mistakes out of her own free will. It’s a really bad look because this just goes past the realms of common sense. Even right up through the end she is still making a lot of mistakes.

Her older sister Taylor isn’t the smartest either though. She is also naive but in other ways like when she invites a guy over to her house while the mother is gone despite not even knowing him. Naturally the guy is into drugs and is not a good role model at all. So things could have gotten even worse for her if Jessica wasn’t around. Taylor just likes to be a rebel even when it doesn’t make sense to be one. It’s hard to sympathize with her when she is in the wrong on every scene. Not a very reasonable person at all.

As for Max, he seems okay but doesn’t really end up being helpful at all. He is gone for large portions of the film and is generally oblivious. It might be for the best since I can picture him being annoying and not believing what is going on. As for Jessica, she is a good character even if I find it hard to believe just how much of her past she forgot. The film’s weak rationale for the memory loss just doesn’t work. Well I suppose that’s more about suspension of disbelief than blaming the character.

There’s nothing bad about Jessica, she does an admirable job of trying to bond with the two kids. I also think she was very appropriate in jumping into the conversation Taylor was having with the guy to set boundaries. So Jessica had a solid backbone the whole time and did her best with stopping the villains. She was more proactive than a lot of other characters would be in her place.

I do have some problems with Chauncey though. The first is that he’s on fraud watch the whole time. He doesn’t manage to take down the boy who messed with Alice’s stuff. Since Chauncey is supposed to be super protective why not bump the guy off? That part didn’t really make any sense. Then once the characters are in his domain, he isn’t able to take down almost anybody? He takes out a single victim and that’s it. Very disappointing showing for this guy. I also think his true form could have been cooler.

The giant bear is hype but the shadow human silhouette? Nahhh that was a bit too generic. The eye popping out effect also looked a bit more strange than scary. Honestly the film just overthought itself. The big bear form was plenty scary, focusing on that would be a really good idea. Chauncey’s also not that spooky when talking through Alice. Having him do more on his own would be a good idea. Even the final jump scare of the movie is really half hearted. Should have gone a bit further/had some movement to really work.

A very valid criticism for the film is that it’s not particularly scary. At its core this feels more like a film about Jessica trying to fit into the family and it’s a wholesome enough plot. The horror around it feels rather mild the whole time. Again that is probably good in terms of keeping things from getting too violent. There is really only one bloody scene and it’s mainly off camera. They still could have found ways to have had Chauncey be a little more relevant though.

We do have a spooky next door neighbor character though. Would have been nice if Taylor had more common sense though. Why go into a stranger’s house in the middle of the night? I don’t care if the lady is 90 years old, that still could end really badly especially with how over the top shady she was. Everybody tends to be shady in this kind of film. The weakest part of the film is probably Jessica’s past with her father though. The movie spends a decent amount of time here without a great payoff. At the same time, the two scariest moments of the film involve his transformation so maybe it was worth it to include him in there. It might sound crazy to say this but the spider monster was scarier than Chauncey.

Overall, For a film about an imaginary friend you would expect more scenes that revolve around the supernatural world. The imaginary friend part isn’t really relevant until the literal climax of the film and that’s where the missed opportunities were. I think the climax should have been longer and should have started earlier. That’s the meat and potatoes of the story after all. The twist about Chauncey’s true target was really good and I also liked a good fakeout there. It’s really good stuff but all crammed in at the very end of the adventure when that should have been the main focus. Check this out if you want a decent thriller title but don’t expect to get scared at all. It’s not really that kind of film.

Overall 6/10

A Quiet Place: Day One Review

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That tagline is ripped right out of the Wolverine tie-in game for Gamecube. I can’t believe it. “Stay low. Stay quiet. Stay alive!” Still one of the more memorable superhero lines since I had to hear it over and over and over and over again since I died so many times on that level. It was definitely not a game for the faint of heart. Unfortunately that tagline is tough to follow for the main characters of this film who panic continually and can’t stop yelling. I didn’t like the main characters much at all and the whole film feels like a bit of a waste of time. They didn’t bother answering any of the important questions about what happened when the aliens first landed which defeats the purpose of a prequel.

The film starts off by introducing us to Sam who has cancer and it seems to be pretty far along as she doesn’t know how much longer she has to live. She is taken care of at a hospice along with a lot of others and one day the nurse Reuben says he is taking everyone to see a show. Sam gets lured in by the promise of pizza but once they’re there, the plans are changed as the government has declared a state of emergency. Giant monsters are showing up and eating everybody. Sam decides she will get her pizza anyway but along the way she bumps into a guy called Eric who is super annoying the whole time. Can she shake him and get her pizza or is it too late?

No offense to the characters or anything but who asked for this? We wanted a prequel to explain how the government possibly lost to a race of aliens that are extremely primitive and have numerous weaknesses? You can drown them, burn them, overwhelm them with sound….they’re not even bullet proof. So I was hoping this prequel would answer that. It could focus on the army the whole time as we learn some uncomfortable truths about how they were helping the aliens or something. No…once again we’re following some humans who are outmatched and outgunned here.

I mean the main heroine is dying of cancer, obviously she isn’t going to be able to fight these monsters. It’s just a really strange choice and I can tell you now that the film doesn’t bother even trying to tell you how we lost to these things. It’s just taken as a fact and you really have to stretch your disbelief here. Ah well maybe we’ll get a spinoff to the prequel one of these days that focuses on the army. That would be a good idea I’d say.

Okay so for Sam, she’s not a terrible main character or anything. She doesn’t have the best attitude but she’s in a pretty sucky situation as it is since cancer is rough. So I can cut her a bit of slack even if I think she still doesn’t handle the situations very well. Yelling through the rain is just not a good tactical decision and can get you in a whole lot of trouble right out of the gate. Also her final decision was not a good one. Yes, it’s always tempting to end things quickly with a decisive move like that but you have to try and survive for as long as possible. You can’t just give up no matter how rough it looks.

As for Eric, I have less patience for this guy. For starters, he keeps on following Sam around everywhere even when she doesn’t want to be followed and in a world like this it puts her in direct danger. He needed to mind his own business and stay away. That would have been the only smart thing to do here. Then when he is around he’s bumping into stuff and also yelling a lot. She now had to take care of someone in addition to her cat which isn’t easy. If he could fight that would help but he’s mainly here to hold her back.

I will give the film kudos for not bumping off the cat. That would have been terrible so the film at least managed to avoid doing that. Would have really blown the film’s score up. Even without that, the film has a lot of problems though. A good portion of this feels like a complete retread to the first film. It’s not really doing anything exciting or different with the premise. It’s just the characters hiding around trying not to make noise like last time. Sure, to an extent that is going to be the case due to the nature of the monsters but at the same time there has to be some way to differentiate it at least a little bit. Otherwise what is really the point of all these adventures.

That’s part of why it feels like a waste. It’s just everybody getting murdered by the monsters and since it’s a prequel you can’t even say that they’re making progress or learning any new information. Instead we actually know less than we did the last time since these characters have no way to have learned anything about these beasts. We do get quick cameos and guest star roles from future characters that will be showing up like the guy from the second movie so at least that’s neat.

The film could stand to tone down the violence somewhat. Seeing the monsters ripping up the humans and devouring them the whole time gets old pretty quick. Maybe if the humans could fight back more it could be better but as it stands it is just one more thing against the film. I also think that the film could benefit from having the characters talking more. It’s something they can’t do because of the plot though so the movie sort of starts to trap itself here. It’s hard to keep your interest when everything is so silent the whole time. It ends up making the film drag on which is not the effect that you want to have.

You also have to really stretch your disbelief every time the heroes are running away from the monsters. Seriously this happens over and over again where they start running and the monsters don’t catch up immediately. This should be a really quick catch for the monsters based on how fast they run. Almost every scene feels like plot armor so you’ll start shaking your head very quickly here. It ultimately just doesn’t add up at all.

Overall, A Quiet Place isn’t treading any new ground here. You may as well watch the first one again and I hope that they find some way to change up the formula in the next title. There is just so much more that you should be able to do with this series. Lets start humanity’s comeback or something. Or if we get another film in the past, it needs to be about the government. I need to understand what happened to cripple the planet so badly because the current responses leave a lot to be desired.

Overall 3/10

A Haunting in Venice Review

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I remember when the trailer for this film first came out. The idea of a horror mystery was a pretty interesting one since Poirot is usually very down to Earth. I suppose the catch is that you know there will be a logical explanation like in Scooby Doo but it would be fun to try and piece together what was happening the whole time. The movie does a good job of giving you hints as the adventure goes on. That said, you feel like the horror stuff is a bit of a distraction from the mystery and ends up weaking the experience.

The main character as always is Poirot here and the guy has retired from the spotlight after the last cases. He just wants to eat his pastries in peace but this is all broken when an old associate of his shows up and says that she wants Poirot to come to Venice. There are some spooky things going on within a haunted house there and she aims to write another book. This one will be about how even Poirot got stumped (Or her fictional detective stand in anyway) since she believes it’s all real. Poirot is not convinced and heads over to discredit the whole thing. Will he be able to find the proof in time?

As always you have a bunch of suspects here and everybody is running around causing chaos. I’d be with Poirot in this case as I definitely wouldn’t trust the medium. It’s like with hypnotists where I just roll my eyes at the whole thing. Yes, people can be hypnotized but it takes time and effort, you can’t just do it in a matter of minutes. Well when someone gets murdered Poirot is forced to lock the place down. He must find the killer, whether it be a person or a specter. The victim craves justice and Poirot will obtain this…or die trying! Does he have what it takes?

For sure you will see Poirot panicking a whole lot more than usual. He’s super jumpy and falls for quite a few of the jump scares. There is even one really embarrassing moment where his head is shoved into one of those apple bobs and he can’t get out. The fact that he nearly died there is crazy. The film made the mistake of showing us the hold for the apples earlier and it was a small stand. He could have at least kicked it out of the way even if he couldn’t somehow find his footing and get up. Honestly, not falling seems like it would be harder than falling in this case.

So he looks pretty bad for most of this I gotta say. Sherlock Holmes would have handled the situation many times better. The fact that the film has an explanation for it doesn’t fully absolve Poirot either. He just felt off his game in this one and to an extent you needed that in order for the plot to proceed. Usually things probably wouldn’t have gone to this level although I expect we’d still have a number of victims since that happens every time.

The visuals are really sharp as always. Venice is certainly no somewhere I’d ever want to live because that much water really doesn’t call to me but it still looks nice. The mansion was on point too and the various jump scares are handled well. Some are perhaps a little too obvious and you can see them coming a mile away, but it’s still nice to see because it’s just so foreign for a Poirot film.

Now lets talk about the suspects. First you have the twins Nicholas and Desdemona who have been working for the medium. They want to get to the United States and so that’s a pretty good motive to start bumping people off. They need money and they need it fast! Desdemona is a fun character in particular as she isn’t afraid to be throwing punches and slapping people. Get in her way and you may be doomed! Not as much to say on Nicholas but he’s fun enough. Both of them seem very loyal once you have won their trust but whether you are on their side or not is the real question.

Then we have the kid Leopold who claims to be able to talk to spirits. He’s one of those kids who seems to have all the answers but you also wonder if he may just be bluffing. He’s definitely the most annoying character though. They say that thinking you know everything can be worse than not knowing anything and this is one of those cases. He causes a whole lot of problems. Perhaps he is actually the one going around murdering everybody.

Next up is Joyce who claims to be able to talk with spirits and has built a whole business around it. When Poirot tries to call her out, she flips the situation back on him. She destroys him verbally and even puts on a mask and cloak before he can react. It’s clear that she has the upper hand at all times here so perhaps this is all personal and she is the ultimate villain of nightmares. You definitely can’t discount the possibility.

Ariadne is Poirot’s old contact and as an author maybe she needed to murder someone in order to get the plot going. She’s a very experienced player in these things so it is definitely possible that she lost her humanity at some point. Sometimes it just happens and since she knows Poirot so well, it could help her in deceiving him.

Rowena is the mother of the girl who died (Alice) and it’s because of her that everyone is assembled here in the first place. She wants to know which ghosts are haunting the halls and if Alice has anything to do with it. Perhaps losing her daughter has made her want to lash out at everybody. Perhaps she is the one who took her daughter out. You can’t really count anybody out.

There is Alice’s fiancé Maxime who is a big time chef. The guy called things off but perhaps that wasn’t the full story and he needed her out of the way. He’s a bit of an enigma and is always ready for a fight so the heroes have to watch out for him. Even if he’s not the guilty party, it’s possible that he will lash out here.

There is the doctor Leslie who suffers from some serious trauma and doesn’t always seem stable. It’s certainly possible that something happened which put him down the wrong path. I will also say this is where characters can look a bit too similar as he gets in a fight with one of the other characters and it’s hard to tell them apart mid fight. The film could have really stood to make the characters all stand out a bit better.

Finally you have the housekeeper Olga. The housekeeper is often a suspect in these things but she seems nice enough upon first glance. As you can see, there are a ton of suspects here and the problem with the horror stuff is that they can’t all be fleshed out as well as they could have been in a standard case. You also start to pay more attention to the scares than the actual mystery so even the final explanation at the end isn’t as gripping as it could have been.

All this is to say that compared to the average mystery I had a good amount of issues with it. That said, as a stand alone title it is still good and beats the average horror flick. I’m not all that into horror after all so in this way the mystery aspect of the film helped to elevate the horror parts. It was able to reach heights that it wouldn’t have otherwise been able to attain. The pacing is good and the film does keep your attention without a doubt.

Overall, The actual mystery takes a backseat to all the jump scares and horror shenanigans. That’s more or less what you would expect so I’m not saying that’s a terrible move or anything but I do think the film could have stood to focus on the mystery a bit more. The best parts of the film are when Poirot is interviewing everybody after all. Give me more of that and less scares and you would have the classic experience. It is a change of pace though and if you’ve seen the rest of the films then you should check this one out as well.

Overall 6/10

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 3/10