Tag Archives: Thriler

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors Review

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Time for an anthology! Usually these as an absolute recipe for disaster but I’m always ready for one to prove me wrong. In theory you just need to have a writer with a solid vision for different stories. Usually all of the focus is put on just one story and then the others all suffer as a result. That’s exactly what you really want to avoid here. This one ended up being a lot better than most of the others that I’ve seen. It still couldn’t help but fall into some issues along the way though. Due to the structure of the stories and everything, this review will have a lot of spoilers. I usually avoid them but when the stories are this short, it’s hard to talk about them otherwise. So you have been forewarned.

The movie starts off with 5 guys all riding in a train along with a suspicious older man. The old guy says that he can read the future with his tarot cards. The 5 men are rather bored right now so they decide to entertain this idea. Each story is a cautionary tale about what they will be running into soon. Will this knowledge help them escape absolute despair?

The first story features a guy going back to the house that he sold a long time ago. His family had owned the place for many generations and so he was called in to do an inspection. The current owner aims to do a little redecorating and this seems like an easy enough request. Unfortunately things quickly start to get a little spooky as the last burial ground of a werewolf is discovered. It won’t be easy to destroy a werewolf if he has been resurrected but what is a guy to do?

Now keeping in mind that the film has to get through 5 stories in a fairly short duration, the movie has really quick pacing. This Werewolf story has to quickly show off two suspects and then move through the story right away. Each segment is like a Twilight Zone episode where you can expect a twist at some point. This one was pretty solid overall. It builds up the atmosphere well and a Werewolf is something that everyone can understand right away. I’ll also be rating how survivable each encounter is based on if they go to the location or if they choose to bypass it.

After all, the point of these tarot cards is so that the men can avoid their fates right? Well, this is probably one of the easier ones to avoid. The guy can decide not to go to the house. Now given when we know from the twist, the Werewolf may go to him but his advanced knowledge should help a whole lot. I give him a 60% chance of surviving if he doesn’t go to the house, 20% if he ends up going.

The second story feels like something more out of a Japanese horror story. A guy is enjoying his new house with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately it turns out that the vines are alive and are slowly seeking to spread their influence. They even murder the pet dog which was terrible and something that the film could have really cut out if you ask me. Sometimes you just don’t need those extra details and they just serve to get in the way of the story. This was one of those cases. Without that element, this would have been the best story because it really makes you think. How do you deal with vines like this?

I would argue that it’s probably the happiest of the 5 stories though. It ends in a rather light way if you ask me. Yes, the vines are smart and can work on putting out the flames but it definitely won’t be easy for them. It’ll take effort and the humans can use that time. It’s also just a very creative threat. If the guy doesn’t go to the house with his family, I give him 100% odds on surviving. If he does go, I still give him 90% odds because he knows what the threat is.

Then we have the third story which is the first one where the main guy was asking for trouble. Everyone told him to leave the voodoo stuff alone but he couldn’t help it and throws himself into the situation. A really dumb move if you ask me and the guy basically just does his best to mock all of the traditions until he’s beat up. The ending of that one makes me think he was still alive but they’ll probably finish him at some point. As long as he goes there and doesn’t stir up trouble then he has 100% odds in both scenarios.

It’s just a bit harder to feel bad about this guy because he was actually given fair warning. He was really testing everyone’s patience that time. I don’t know why his story got off so easy compared to the others. I guess you can just chalk it down to getting lucky I suppose.

Then we have a story where the main guy is completely to blame and is an actual villain. You have a pretentious art critic who really enjoys going out of his way to make fun of another artist. The artist finally gets back at him and the critic decides to take revenge by running the guy over and severing his hand. Well, the severed hand has a mind of its own and is now trying to choke the critic out. It is sort of a play on the classic question of what would you do if a slug was following you across the world.

In this case a hand is more dangerous. It may be slow but once it has a grip on you, that could be game over. The hand cannot be destroyed and will eventually teleport into your proximity. Personally I would say that the best way to deal with it, is to keep it in a cage within your eyesight so you can notice when it starts to get close. It’s not fullproof though and of course this will be stressful all the way. If the critic chooses not to injure the artist, then he has 100% odds of surviving. If he does this but knows that the hand is after him, maybe he has 20% odds? I think the hand would eventually get anyone, you have to sleep at some point.

Finally we couldn’t end this without a vampire story. One guy is told that his wife is a vampire who is terrorizing the village. In particular she keeps going after a local kid. So the guy makes the tough choice to murder his wife but it turns out that the doctor was in on it and so the guy will spend the rest of his days locked up or executed in short order. This one feels like an easy one to survive for the main guy. For starters, he could ditch the wife early on, or live somewhere else and play dumb. It doesn’t seem like she was going to end up targeting him but I guess we don’t know that for sure. If he goes there, it’s tougher because the vampires don’t evaporate after dying so he will be on the hook for a crime either way. I give him 70% odds on the first and 50% on the second.

What I didn’t get is why the guy didn’t just talk to his wife. He went straight to deciding that she had to die but maybe they could have found some better way together. As his wife, the vampire deserved some time to talk things out. It just feels weird that you would completely side with the doctor over even giving your wife some kind of a chance. Not the strongest marriage bond here, that’s for sure.

Then we get back to the present to wrap things up. The ending is pretty effective and the movie really did a good job of keeping things moving at a solid speed. The best story was ultimately the Werewolf one and the worst was the Voodoo one. None of them were all that bad though and part of what helps with this are the special effects. The film clearly didn’t have much of a budget to work with and so there isn’t a lot of blood here. The deaths in the film tend to not be very gruesome either and even the dog who died wasn’t as gruesome as it would have been in just about any other film. For that reason it doesn’t hurt the film nearly as much as it would have otherwise.

Overall, This is one of those rare horror titles to actually get a positive score. It’s the kind of title that actually has a good amount of replay value and some good twists within it. Each story was crafted well and this is the kind of horror title that I look forward to. You don’t need all the gruesome details, just a good premise and some solid scares within. This one works as a good template all the way and proves that even anthologies can be good.

Overall 6/10

Baffled! Review

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Films that involve time travel tend to be the best but films that have some kind of look into the future can also be pretty solid. It’s an ability that can be useful but I imagine in most cases it will just be annoying. After all you generally don’t know how far into the future the visions are and depending on the circumstances, it can be difficult to prove what you know. It’s an ability that you definitely have to navigate carefully and this movie does a good job of keeping things interesting. It’s a bit of a slow burn but with solid enough writing to get you through.

The film starts by introducing us to Tom who is one of the world’s greatest racecar drivers. Unfortunately he crashes out during the race because he started to see some rather odd visions. A lady yelling out some kind of address, a mysterious house, and the ocean. It was all quite bizarre but he is ready to get back into the races. At least he was hoping to do that but a lady named Michelle shows up and it turns out that his visions weren’t just random hallucinations. Something is about to go down in that house/mansion and now he has a duty to help out. So the two decide to form an alliance and head there while pretending not to know each other.

At the mansion, a lady and her daughter have just arrived because her old husband has been writing her. For a long time he was rather cold and distant but over the last few months the letters have really changed. Perhaps they can finally be a family again. Oddly enough, he isn’t there when she arrives. Instead there is just the old lady in a wheelchair who assumes he’ll be coming home soon, an odd couple that may be into drug dealing, and a rather creepy lady who always has a lot of makeup on. It’s a rather colorful bunch you might say. Is this all some kind of elusive trap and can Tom save them all?

In part I would say this plays out as a mystery since Tom is trying to find clues in order to figure out the true meaning of his visions before they come to pass. In other ways it plays out like a classic horror flick with jump scares and all of these creepy characters running around. It’s unlikely you will be scared at any point though with the happy music playing in the background. I could definitely see this being a pretty fun show because the dynamic with the main two is solid enough to carry most of the interactions. Then you’d have different issues in each episode.

Tom’s ability is also just weak enough where it is perfect to keep things from being too easy. For example at one point he sees a leaf, then later on he sees the leaf is leaking, and finally it turns out that it is being poured into a cup so somebody is about to be poisoned. It takes him a while to figure this out and ultimately the knowledge isn’t really able to help much as it’s one mystery he couldn’t solve in time. I figure this will be the case in many instances because the visions are just too vague and not always actionable. Still, he’s ready for the main mystery but he needs a lot of plot armor for it.

For example, at one point he hears someone calling for help so he chases the voice all the way down to the coast where he ends up falling into the ocean and nearly dying. Considering that he had just told Michelle he would be careful, it was definitely not the best decision. He lets his guard down a whole lot considering that he knows something foul is going on here. At least he does show up for the final fight of the film. The battle is actually rather good with a lot of back and forth. I was not expecting a big battle there so that was really a surprise. Definitely an excellent way to end things off.

Meanwhile Michelle gets a lot of credit here because she was super helpful. For starters she is the one who was pro active enough to go after Tom early on and then she did a lot of info gathering during the movie. She felt like a side kick who was truly carrying her own weight and not just being there in awe the whole time. She would also give Tom tips on how to use his abilities which was helpful more than once. It’s another reason why the duo work well together, they each have a part to play and handle their roles well.

As for the characters in this case, I felt the two suspicious people who kept driving off to town were mainly pointless. The big reveal of what they were actually doing is a bit underwhelming. It is fun to see the suspects gradually be taken off the case of course but they definitely could have been a little more relevant. Even the butcher character got more to do than these guys. That guy was also ready to hit Tom over the head with a wine bottle and seriously injure him so even with any twists I can’t exactly call him a good guy.

The daughter is the worst character in the film as she falls for the tricks way too easily. Yes, you have some magical mumbo jumbo going on with the amulet but before even putting that on she was already being naive and meeting with strangers. I don’t care who the guy said he was, you don’t go off by yourself and you definitely run home as soon as anything suspicious happens. Most of the film wouldn’t happen if she wasn’t tricked so easily.

Her mother also looks rather bad the whole time. She lets things get out of control way too easily and doesn’t take things as seriously as she should. The daughter’s 180 personality change is so drastic that it should raise every red flag in the book. I wanted her to do something serious about it. Finally the climax was her worst look as one of the villains basically tells her to sign a document that she is giving away her daughter. Instead of jumping into a rage and hitting anything that moves, the mom just yells “nooooo” and stuff like that. I understand that this is a fight that she couldn’t win, but there is nothing to lose at this point. You try to fight and do your best.

So the characters don’t always make the best decisions here but I did think the film was engaging. It has a bit of an older charm to it as this feels like one of those old school shows. It balances out all of the tones pretty well but at its heart it’s a pretty fun film that knows when to throw in a few jokes without going overboard. It’s got perfect balance all the way through.

Overall, I can recommend this to just about anyone because it feels like the kind of film that can appeal to most groups. It’s got a little bit of everything here and has a satisfying ending. The cliffhanger definitely gets you ready for that hypothetical sequel. The fact that this would have been semi plot based with fighting the same group would have been really cool. Ultimately this will probably always be a more obscure film but it definitely had some real quality to back it up.

Overall 7/10

Stealth Review

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stealth
Time to review a film that’s a lot more fun. It still has its flaws to be sure, but Stealth excels in two areas to an extent that is almost unprecedented in live action world. That’s not bad eh? The poster looks pretty intense and it makes you wonder why more people didn’t see the film. It certainly could have used the extra cash so that it wouldn’t flop in the box office.

Ben, Kara, and Henry are the main characters. They’re the three best pilots that we’ve got and these guys don’t mess around! One day, their commander announces that they will be getting a new partner. The twist is that the partner isn’t actually alive and it’s just a sentient A.I. That was certainly pretty scary for the heroes and can they really get along with this thing. Even more important…can they trust it!?

First off, I have to say that the three main characters were not great. Henry seems to be sexist and you have to love how he quickly mentions the race card as one of his first lines. It’s very intriguing. Either way, any chance that he had of being a good character is quickly wiped out when he realize that he’s just interested in having affairs with as many people as possible. That’s a sure way to be an unlikable character. Ben isn’t much better. He’s also a womanizer who eventually starts to develop feelings for the heroine. It’s really unbelievable and it’ll just make you wince. It’s sad because he has some cool moments like when he almost attacks the drone and the ending, but it’s hard to ignore the traits that he had earlier. It was simply too late for him. It’s hard to see what Kara sees in Ben and she does realize that he’s a womanizer. There’s almost no way she can trust him emotionally. It’s better to just stay as comrades and not take the extra step sometimes.

Let’s quickly talk about some of the positives. The action scenes are some of the best in cinema. These are Matrix/Man of Steel type of action scenes. Everything moves by very quickly and I can honestly say that modern action films can still learn a thing or two here. Imagine how epic it would look if Iron Man vs Ultron looked like these scenes in Age of Ultron. The Jets are breaking the soundbarrier left and right and the scenes really get your blood pumping. I still think Man of Steel wins as far as action scenes go, but in terms of pure speed it’s actually close. That’s extremely impressive for Stealth and I could not get enough of the cool plane scenes. If the new Top Gun film coming out looks this impressive I’ll have gained a lot of respect for the plane fighting genre. Still, all movies need to take a look at this and apply it when necessary. At the very least, films like The Flash, Shazam, Ms. Marvel, and Superman should always look like this. Superman already pulled it off so now it’s time for the others to do so as well.

That was one big positive and now it’s time to look at the other one. This film has a dynamite 5 star soundtrack. It’s almost perfect and it’s easily a contender for best soundtrack of all time. The impressive part is that this film was able to reach those heights with lyrical songs. If you know me, you know that I tend to prefer instrumental because lyrical songs tend to be edgy at times or the lyrics are simply not engaging. Here, they only picked snippets from various songs so I can’t actually recommend the whole song, but the parts that were used (Minus the rap song) were very good. Ben actually gets a nifty action song when he appears in the jet and likewise for various fight scenes. As a nice change of pace, we also got a cool techno/stealth theme, which worked very well for the mysterious moments.

It’s certainly not every day that you get a film where the special effects are through the roof and accompanied with a great soundtrack. Man of Steel accomplished that, but the film is certainly legendary. The film also took the high road when it came to the animal violence issue. The dog ran away instead of getting shot and I can imagine that everyone in the theater stood up and cheered when this happened. It was simply an intense scene that was extremely epic and awesome.

All right, it’s time to look at the negatives. The romance is one of them for sure. We get some pretty sad scenes involving Ben and Henry as they flirt with various women. There’s no depth here and it’s all about physical attraction. The actual romance between Ben and Kara also isn’t handled well and I don’t see why it was included in the film. It was really only there to fill the quota that every film should have romance in it. That’s what Hollywood seems to believe at any rate and that’s pretty sad.

Stealth has a pretty boring moment where the heroes decide to head to an island for some R n R. They need the vacation at this point right? It’s really just an excuse for more romance and fanservice so it’s pretty sad. We really didn’t need a breather like that one. Some parts of the film also felt rather random like when some enemies took over a lab belonging to Mr. Orbit. Where did these guys come from and what do they want? It’s a good thing that Ben had his drone at the ready.

Speaking of which, the drone made for a great bad guy. He had an epic design and his strategic planning was intense. As a villain, he really knew what to do and how to keep things impersonal. He does have emotions unlike most A.I. which is also impressive. The whole film is basically on auto pilot so everything moves by very quickly. This is a good thing as the film gets to be more ambitious than usual. Typically, the A.I. will turn evil and the heroes will destroy it. What if, the A.I. turns evil, but then sees the error of its ways? It’s something that’s never really been done before and it’s nice to see this film take that approach. It may seem rather hollow since the A.I. destroyed around 1000 people with nuclear fallout though. I thought that part went by a little too smoothly. The people in that area certainly weren’t expecting to be dead so quickly. The drone ultimately tried to make up for this though and I think he really could have become a great hero for future films if he had stuck around.

I was also expecting Ben to try and avenge one of his comrades. (Who died in a pretty bad way. They told him to slam on the brakes, but he wouldn’t listen…at all. It was clear what the drone was trying to do and he simply didn’t listen) When he fired the missile, I thought it was game over, but Ben is just a forgiving kind of guy I suppose. He was against the drone idea from the start, but he seemed to warm up to the drone by the end. You could almost say that they became friends at that point. The drone does sound a little like Hal 9000, which is pretty cool. He also had character from the start and he adopted the name of “Tin Man” since the heroes kept calling him that.

The acting in this film could be rather bad at times like when the hero yelled at the drone not to make him repeat himself, but acting is an extremely low priority on what I’m looking for in a film so this isn’t too bad. If it’s something distracting or seriously messed up, then it’ll start to hurt the bottom line. One scene that was unintentionally funny was when the general called his politician. He made a crazy speech about what separates warriors from politicians and then he pulled the trigger. You can guess what he was essentially saying, but the scene just felt off. The general was probably insane by the end and he’s a villain to be sure, but it was still an odd end. The politician also got the shaft here as he barely got to appear.

One plot that was not quite as fun as the others was when Kara landed in North Korea. Naturally, there are still a lot of tensions between our two countries and it’s always satisfying to see the U.S. come out on top, but it was rather unnecessary. That bit of the plot really came out of nowhere. I have fun looking into how people predict World War III would play out and an unfortunately large group of people do believe that we would lose, but I’d invite them to watch this film. Perhaps this is how it would go. There’s practically a mini army after Kara and they still have a tough time trying to stop her. Imagine what a whole squad of U.S. troops could do. It’s sad that the government left her for lost there, but at least Ben manned up and went in to save the day.

This may not be a horror film, but there is a twist ending. I won’t say what it is, but let’s just say that it’s pretty intense and perfectly leads into a sequel. Unfortunately, we’ll likely never get a sequel. Ah well, at least the film got to go off with a bang. If it ever did get a sequel, I’d like to see the drone and Ben team up against aliens. That would make for a solid story and it would certainly be engaging for new viewers.

Overall, Stealth was a fun film. I definitely wish that the fanservice was gone and the romance wasn’t handled very well. Taking away those two features would have greatly helped the film. After all, the special effects were out of this world and the soundtrack was dynamite. That’s a winning combo for most films, but it’s one that is very hard to actually achieve. The pacing is also really good aside from the brief rest stop at Thailand. Everything just goes by really quickly, which allows the film to go through many plots and a lot of different action segments. We never got the fight between Ben and the drone that we wanted, but we came close in several scenes. The ring of fire that the drone made was cool and it was also neat to see him figure out how to attain fuel the hard way. I definitely recommend this film. You should be wary of the fanservice since it can be rather overwhelming, but once you get past that you are in for an action treat. I don’t think we’ll see any airplane film have better fights than this one for quite a while.

Overall 6/10