Tag Archives: Thriller

Where Danger Lives Review

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You know I’m always talking about how it’s tough to have a really solid film where all of the characters are pretty bad right? Well, this is a good example of how you can still make that work. Noir is probably the best genre for this as you basically have a bunch of crooks running around and you have to decide who you want to pull through in the end. The writing is still solid and the plot is engaging so in the end this one definitely gets a thumbs up either way.

All right so the film starts off by showing us how busy Jeff is. He’s a really highly regarded doctor who has always done a great job for his patients and he is getting ready to leave the hospital and start his own practice. He has also been dating one of the nurses, Julie so this works well since there won’t be any workplace drama. Right before he can leave his shift, he has to attend to one last patient. A lady named Margo tried to commit suicide but ultimately it didn’t work out for her. She runs off but leaves Jeff a note with her address and name so he heads over. She basically admits that she needs him so Jeff quickly betrays his girlfriend and hooks up with her. One thing leads to another and he seemingly murders Margo’s husband. Now the two of them are on the run and the long arm of the law is getting closer and closer.

I mentioned how the characters weren’t very likable and it’s time to explain why. First up for Jeff this should be self explanatory. He had a good thing going with Julie and all it took was another lady to bay her eyes at him? Yeah you could use all kind of excuses like he thought she would try committing suicide again if he ran off or that there was no emotion in the cheating and he was just doing it to be a good guy. Unfortunately none of those arguments hold any weight and the film never really addresses this which is unfortunate. That’s a big element in why I think the ending to this film was really weak. It just takes away a big part of the impact there.

Back to Jeff though, the guy also gets super drunk which impairs him for the rest of the film. It also means that he’s not sure exactly if he did murder Margo’s husband or not. As the audience you know what happened from the jump and it’s annoying to see him getting gaslit the whole time. He’s not really back to 100% until the very end of the film and by then it’s very late in the game. Jeff really should have handled everything so much better.

Then we have Margo’s husband Frederick who handled things abysmally. First off, he takes forever to get to the point. He seems to enjoy messing with Jeff as he builds up the suspense but of course this gives Margo a lot of time to make her own move. All Frederick needed to do was say one or two sentences to get all of the plot twists out there but he couldn’t even muster that. Ultimately this would be his undoing and so I couldn’t take this guy seriously. I did think he was an entertaining character though. The guy has a very smug air about him which I can really appreciate.

Next up is Margo and of course she is the one who is already married but trying to go after Jeff so that’s pretty bad right out of the gate. No way you can spin her as a hero in this one. She continues to dig Jeff deeper and deeper into trouble and the whole time you wonder if she actually likes him or if she’s going to bump him off. If that’s what she plans to do then it’s going to be incredibly easy for her to pull it off. You can tell that Jeff would never see it coming.

Finally there is Julie who isn’t bad but is definitely way too forgiving. She misses out on just about the whole film and after that she doesn’t get a chance to have any kind of reaction to what happened. She should have been able to put two and two together so the ending shouldn’t be too bright for Jeff. Perhaps you can say that right after the film ends she really takes it to Jeff but in the end we don’t really get to know.

So the characters annoying but the film really works because the thrills have aged well. One thing I liked about the film was how things kept going badly for the main characters because they were overthinking things. In one scene the road is being blocked by the police and they assume it’s because of the murder but in the end it was just a drugs checkpoint for some kind of plant. Another time they saw the police around and had to run off but it was just the airport trying to pass on a thank you note and the cops were there purely by coincidence.

Villains would absolutely get paranoid in a situation like this and the movie does a good job of showing this off. It’s not something that you usually get to see which makes this one stand out a bit. Additionally, I liked all of the pitstops. At one point the main characters pass by a village where you are required to have a mustache and actually get pulled over if you don’t have one. The only way to get out of this situation was to get married. The whole thing is so strange and absurd while being rather funny. That was a good scene to include.

Then Jeff crashes into another car and gets taken in by the police chief for questioning. The cops are just happy to have something to do because apparently there is no real crime in this town but of course the timing is tough for Jeff and Margo. All of these little incidents keep on reminding you that these are not pros but amateurs trying to escape a murder charge. It adds to the realism but most importantly it’s just a lot of fun. I really appreciated that.

Overall, This was a pretty good film. It’s a good reminder to watch out for the green grass on the other side because going over there could really end up costing you dearly. Jeff figured this out the hard way and you know many people probably get tricked like this all the time. You have to make sure you take care of what you have, rather than risking it all for a possibility. A solid moral to take away from this title I’d say and I would recommend checking it out.

Overall 7/10

Hard Target 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

All right it’s time for a very old school thriller title. This one has a lot of action, guns, and thrills. I’d say it works fairly well even if it doesn’t really have a ton of identity. I can’t guarantee that I will really remember the film a few years from now but maybe I’ll surprise myself. It still is a good film though, the genre is just rather packed with movies at this point.

The movie starts with a guy making a break for it but he’s murdered before he can make it to the goal. Basically there is a group of villains who make sport by giving someone a lot of money and daring him to run all the way to the goal. You sort of wonder how anyone makes it all that far though based on the amount of resources that the villains have. They’re everywhere and you don’t get much of a head start. Well, what they didn’t count on was the victim’s daughter deciding to look into what happened to him.

Her name is Natasha and the deck is not in her favor this time because she hasn’t seen her father in a long time and so she doesn’t have any recent pictures of him. The cops let her know that this is definitely going to be a longshot as a result. The unspoken vibe here is that they can’t help so Natasha recruits a homeless guy named Chance who saved her from a gang. Initially he doesn’t want to get involved but he owes some Union dues and won’t be able to make any money until he can pay them back. So he agrees to help her in exchange for the money but what he doesn’t realize is that he’s about to enter a large conspiracy.

As with any conspiracy thriller like this you will have to stretch your disbelief at least a little bit. Yes, in the film the villains do reference how they’re always paying a ton of people off until the situation gets too hot and they have to leave. Even with that you have to be a little dubious though. They follow their victims into the heart of the city and just go around shooting. You’d think this would attract a ton of attention and eventually reach someone who actually does care. Perhaps I am underestimating the villains but it can be a bit much.

You also wonder why the victims are so bad at using the terrain at times. Once you’re in the city that is absolutely your best shot to survive. Stay in crowded areas and pick off the villains one by one. Instead they usually run into their own demise. So again I’m not sure how the first guy actually got all the way to the harbor. A few more steps and he actually would have beaten them.

There are two main villains here in Van Cleef and Fouchon. Van Cleef is usually my kind of villain as he is very talented with a gun and can hold his own but he weakens near the end. The guy starts to get visibly afraid and he really breaks down. He’s supposed to be the tough man of the group so he really has no business cracking like this. It destroys all of his mystique and so I didn’t care from him by the end. He’s only good at beating up on the weak.

Fouchon is a reasonable main villain though. Very by the books and while his grudge prevents him from making it all the way to the end, you can assume that he only got this far in the first place because of his big ego. Without that he likely would have lost a long time ago. Every associate who works with the villains is pretty much doomed from the start so you are not surprised in the slightest when they start going down. They were definitely not prepared.

As for the main characters, Natasha is a good heroine even if it takes a while for her to start helping. By the climax she is contributing and even has a gun at the ready. Her main issue was just being a little naive at first but fortunately that did not last very long. As for Chance, he may not be the most heroic guy out there as he won’t generally go out of his way to be a superhero but he will help out anyone in front of him like when he stepped up to save Natasha in the intro. The guy’s also a super fighter as he took down like 20 guys all by himself in the climax fight.

Is it maybe a bit exaggerated? Sure but it’s fun. The climax here is really solid with how extended it is and how bad the odds were for Chance. Every time it felt like he had beaten all of the minions, a few more would suddenly show up. There was just no real end to them. Chance also got to mix in some hand to hand combat skills along with the gun shooting. Yeah if you were wondering how well a roundhouse kick would do against a flurry of guns, wonder no longer!

Clarence also ends up helping out near the end. The guy definitely shows up out of nowhere but knows how to fight. He gets some shots in. There’s also a cop who does good in putting the pressure on the villains which is what causes them to start panicking and speeding things up. So the supporting cast here was reasonably solid. The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side and the slow-mo was definitely overdone but for the most part the action scenes were always really solid.

The film could be a little on the violent side at times but nothing too crazy. The most disturbing scene is likely when one guy’s ear gets taken out of the picture. Definitely why you never want to get involved with the underworld because it comes back to bite you. If you’re super unlucky then sometimes this can happen to you even if you are unconnected but that’s a whole lot rarer.

Overall, Hard Target is a pretty solid movie. Again I do think it’ll get lost in the shuffle a bit as I watch more movies but at the same time it really embodies what you would expect an action thriller to be. There are a lot of fight scenes, pretty good pacing, and always some extra thrills around the corner. I enjoyed the fight scenes and you are invested all the way through. I would check this one out if you’re looking for an action title to watch.

Overall 7/10

Five Nights at Freddy’s Review

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It’s time to finally dive into the online sensation that is Five Nights at Freddy’s! This is a franchise that really took the world by storm with just how ferocious and scary it was. Every minute had you really on the edge of your sear wondering what was going to happen next. Would it really translate well into the movie? Well, the movie is definitely at its best when the robots are running around. The whole time you know that the humans are toast but the film does definitely lose some ground when it comes to the origins of the robots and the human stuff. That should probably have been saved for a future film. Granted, I don’t know anything about the film except for the spooky jump scares so how much of the plot was spelled out in the first game is a little beyond me. It’s been fun learning more about the series but a lot of it is lore and guess work typically.

The movie starts off with one guy making a break for it, but the robots are too powerful and they ultimately take him down for the count. We’re then introduced to a guy named Mike who has just been fired from another job. He’s a hard worker but the guy gets too emotional and jumps to conclusions. He only has one option left, being a night guard at an abandoned pizzeria. It’s pretty shady, dangerous, etc but he needs the money. Mike’s little sister is going to be taken away by a family member who wants all the money and Mike’s best chance at convincing the judge that he has this under control is to have a steady job that pays the bills. So that’s the plan at least but can he survive this? At least the nearby police officer named Vanessa is really nice so he won’t be totally alone.

All right so like I said the best stuff is really what’s going on at the pizzeria. The place has a very ominous feel and when you see the robots running around you always know that danger is near. They especially look huge in person so you would probably be afraid to just be walking around them. One wrong punch and that’s it for you. Seriously the physical strength behind these guys is absolutely crazy. There’s also the fact that they shouldn’t be able to move so well that makes them rather spooky too. The constant turnover, etc.

By having the robots murder someone in the opening scene, you also know that they are ready to cause some danger right from the start as well. I enjoy the chase scenes here and things definitely get intense. That said, the robots don’t do quite as much as you may have wanted. A lot of time is spent on Mike and he’s not the most interesting main character. He’s not bad but the guy doesn’t stand out and isn’t always super reasonable.

For example, early on he turns down the night watchman job immediately even though at that point he already needed the money. Ultimately the situation gets even worse so he takes it on but I was surprised at how fiercely he declined. Then later on he has a tendency to blame Vanessa for keeping a lot of secrets from him when it’s still his fault for bringing Abby around at all. There’s no way you should ever be bringing a kid to an abandoned pizzeria with lots of giant robots. That’s not smart and we learn that it was for selfish reasons which is even worse.

Abby’s okay at best but she is a kid and so she tends to get in the way here. She’s not really sure of what’s going on until it’s too late and can be rather naive. Vanessa’s the best character from the humans but you still have to overlook a whole lot in order to straight up call her a good character. Trust me, she makes a lot of mistakes here and the fact that she never does anything about this situation is a demerit against her. I’m not buying into any mind control here, it was just fear and confused feelings that held her back. Neither of which are good enough excuses.

I did appreciate the evil aunt character who was transparently a big villain. Hiring a bunch of guys to attack Freddy’s pizzeria is one of the worst plans you can do but I liked her confidence. It also meant that we finally had some more villains around which is always a good thing. The film has a fairly small cast overall and you need more victims to show off the robots. The robots themselves are also very distinct. Ironically Freddy himself has one of the smaller roles though.

I’d argue the yellow duck robot had the biggest role. They all get their time to shine of course but since the place is called Freddy’s you just expect him to do a whole lot more. One of the scenes where he is seemingly there isn’t even him, it’s actually Golden Freddy and the film just offers you a little clue into this when the kid says “Not Freddy” during the scene. A lot of interesting setup for the sequel. Part of the fun in knowing a lot of random things about a franchise but not knowing a ton of specifics is that it makes the series even more intriguing. Not only do I not know what I don’t know, but the things I do know tend to be out of context. So that’s fun but the risk can sometimes be that I like the concept of something more than the execution.

For example there is one plot that brings down the movie quite a bit in how dark it is. That’s basically Mike’s backstory where his little brother was kidnapped while they were at a picnic and apparently there was a whole epidemic of a lot of kids being taken. This involves the robots but basically all of the kids were violently murdered. Not exactly what you were hoping to see here and the explanation for why the police never found them is a real stretch. I don’t see how they were never found and how the place was so well kept intact afterwards. Surely they would have emptied out the rooms, robots, etc. to make sure that every place was checked right?

The backstory felt a bit sloppy here. Throughout the film, Mike gets to relive the kidnapping as he tries to ask the kids what happened. The idea is that every night he has this dream, he gets closer to solving the mystery but it’s a very slow process. You get what they’re going for here but it does mean that these scenes can be rather boring without much in the way of plot development. I don’t need to see the kid getting kidnapped over and over again. Even the intro of the film is already rather creepy with the drawings and what’s happening. If you have to go into the origin though, I would have left it at the opening credits and made Mike unrelated to the whole plot. Just make him a random guard trying to survive. I think that would be way more interesting.

In terms of sheer violence, I wouldn’t say that the film is too excessive here. It tends to be more about what you don’t see or what nearly happens as opposed to what does. One character does get ripped in half which is probably the most violent scene here but even then it is done through shadows so you aren’t actually seeing what is going on here and I think that is a very important point to make. If it was on screen this film probably would have had to go up a rating after all.

Overall, Five Nights at Freddy’s succeeds whenever it is about the robots running around and causing trouble. The direction the film went in just didn’t tend to focus on its strengths though. Too much time is spent on Mike and his constant dreams. I liked the scene with introducing us to the guy giving Mike the job and how his tune really shifted upon hearing Mike’s last name. It’s over the top enough that it’s spooky while also being a bit campy which is a good atmosphere to have. For the first film it really should have been more about Mike being stuck in the pizzeria trying to survive the night against the robots though. Or if you wanted to go the more lore based route, have this be a very dense film with tons of theory crafting and the main character reading a bunch of books the whole time and trying to figure things out. In either case I think you’re in a better place. So ultimately if you don’t mind the darker elements, you should have a good time here. The robots are definitely spooky!

Overall 4/10

Rollerball (2002) Review

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It’s time to look at the remake to the original film that I just watched. Seeing both versions on the same day definitely makes for a pretty interesting marathon watch. It’s safe to say that the original is better in just about every way though. This one has a very “Try Hard” feel to it from the start. It doesn’t seem like the creators had a ton of confidence in the story or writing so right out of the gate they’re having to add all this extra stuff and it doesn’t work.

The film starts off by introducing us to Jonathan who likes doing extreme things. He even races on a skateboard kind of device through the streets which looks extremely dangerous the instant he gets on it. Definitely not a very responsible thing to do and when the cops show up at his door, he figures it’s time to finally get into Rollerball. It’s an extreme sport filled with lots of danger. Think of it like Rollerbading meets Hockey and you’re zooming around trying to score while people are driving motorcycles and all violence is allowed. Jonathan has become the world champ here but there is a dark conspiracy afoot. More and more people keep getting injured and dying as the ratings go higher. Is there any way out of this?

I will also say that the remake tries to spell things out for you more than the first. In the first movie we never heard the exact rules of the game but you could just piece it together while watching. In this one we literally have a whole scene for the announcer explaining the rules. It’s not a bad idea by any means but it does give you a glimpse into what this remake is like right from the jump. Everything is less nuanced. The villains are super evil, complete with evil laughter and long winded speeches. The opposing teams are all in the dark as well and when push comes to shove they are ready to help. The body count is much smaller and things are allowed to be happier.

Hey, I’m all for a happier ending but the whole film just doesn’t work. Part of the problem is that this film takes place in modern days instead of in a dystopia. In the latter it is easy to excuse a lot of thing like nobody caring about all of the deaths since humanity was cooked a long time ago. In this case it doesn’t make sense that they’re still getting TV deals and becoming a huge hit. The instant the first death hits you are looking at tons of lawsuits and negative media coverage. Yes, the sport could continue but it would be more of an indie thing and not the massive mainstream audience with top ratings that we see here.

You can cut a bit of slack for this being in a foreign country and the standards are a bit more lax but the more the film goes on, the less weight this holds. You also have this company owning the border guards, and being able to do whatever they want. The host even takes out a gun and threatens the local media companies in the middle of a crowd. Alexi doesn’t care who sees him and this works in a dystopia but not here. So the film should have kept this in the future. It doesn’t make sense to be in present day.

Then to make things edgier, we have a ton of fanservice throughout the movie. The film wants to show us how depraved the villains are, so they’re all living out their fantasies degrading everyone and the scenes have absolutely no point to being here. It’s clearly a desperate attempt for more ratings and I dare say that it won’t work on the average moviegoer. Even having girls playing in this league makes no real sense with how violent it is. Another thing that I could have turned a blind eye to in a dystopia.

In fact, let me put on my conspiracy hat here for a minute. I think there are only two reasons why they added women participants to the sport for this remake. The first is for…you guessed it, more fanservice since they can add random locker room scenes. The other is just so they could throw in a big romance which would give Jonathan more motivation for later. The romance is pretty bad though, one of those really rushed ones with no real depth behind it. I’m sure the writers had a chuckle with the last line in the film as a callback to the first conversation with Jonathan and Aurora but it’s not enough to salvage the whole sub plot.

The actual Rollerball scenes aren’t bad but even this is not as good as the original which is crazy. It’s a case of trying to do too much. Now we have ramps, big jumps, you have to throw the ball into a goal instead of jamming it in there and the stage is much smaller. To make up for that, there are less players on each team but the whole thing just feels more convoluted and I can’t think of any way where it is quite as good. At most I can admit that throwing the ball into the goal would be more practical in real life but that’s it. The rest of the changes just don’t make much sense to me unless making the arena smaller was a budgetary constraint.

The cast is not particularly inspiring. Jonathan was annoying in the intro. He’s a decent guy but starting off as a delinquent isn’t great and in the whole climax he doesn’t have much of a plan except to try and murder as many of the opponents as possible. Only problem is that he’s super outnumbered so he has to be saved a bunch of times. It doesn’t make him look very smart. I don’t have any real issues with Aurora. She does her best to help Jonathan and make sure that he’s doing well while she makes the sacrificial play since she has family that she can’t leave.

It takes Ridley a little while to find his moral compass so he’s not as good but at least once he is in danger then the guy starts to move. So I can appreciate that a bit. Sure, it’s selfish and all but I can picture a lot of people making that call. You want to hope for the best to make all of the money until you can’t deny it anymore. Alexi’s a fairly generic villain. Not much to talk about with that guy, he’s okay at best.

His right hand man Sanjay is actually really interesting though. I could have used more screentime for this guy. He’s more ambitious than Alexi and smarter as well. He really thought things through and had a great scene near the end even if it didn’t totally end the way you would have expected it to be. He’s surprisingly the best character in the movie.

As a side note, the whole climax is easily the best part of the film, starting from when Jonathan breaks a window and challenges the villains. Suddenly it was like Jason Bourne where he is taking everyone on and using every object imaginable. He even has a Captain America type moment where he blocks a bullet. Yeah the editing is so bad that it makes Taken 3 look impressive as there are literal frame cuts so we see Jonathan teleporting around the map but we can assume he’s that fast. I was glad that we were getting some real action outside of the arena at least.

Overall, This film had a ton of problems. They range all the way from narrative ones to pacing issues and just plain ole logistical issues. It was trying way too hard in all the wrong places and so that was a recipe for disaster. It can be an entertaining movie for a while but by the end the negatives just racked up way too high to be overcome. Ultimately you are way better watching the first film over the remake. Trust me, this is one that you will definitely want to avoid if you are given the choice.

Overall 4/10

Rollerball Review

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

It’s time for a dystopia film that also doubles as a sport title. A rather bizarre one at that but the whole movie has a bit of an odd vibe to it. Everyone is so far gone that nobody even realizes how crazy the whole setup is and it’s a grim reminder at how anything can seem normal after it has been the status quo for a while. So just be careful out there.

So the film takes place in the future where there is one sport that unites the world, Rollerball. Basically you have 2 teams of 10 players take the field and the goal is to grab the ball that is fired into the arena and jam it into the opponent’s goal area. Everyone wears rollerblades and is armed with diamond studded knuckles. 3 members of each team use motorcycles to drive around the place. There are penalties that are loosely enforced but you are still encouraged to use whatever means are necessary to get the ball and win. Victory is everything and so this is a sport where you can and will lose everything.

The main character here is Jonathan and he has become a global sensation. This becomes a problem for corporate because part of the point of the game is team spirit. The game must always be larger than the individual person and there seems to be some kind of conspiracy about keeping individuality away in general. So they want Jonathan to quit but he refuses and now corporate is going to play hard ball. They will cause him to leave the game even if it means through death. Can he defy these guys?

The first question you’ll probably have here is why anybody even plays the sport to begin with. Sure, competitiveness and adrenaline will cause you to do a lot of crazy things but playing in a sport where your only realistic outcome is either death or a gruesome injury? Maybe if the alternative is being homeless or something then that’s what you would do but the film doesn’t explore this desolate future too much outside of the game. We see that the rich people have nothing to do in general beyond the game though. They go to the forest and burn down trees for fun, otherwise they just laze around all day. It feels like the world has become empty and that’s a very interesting angle but a lot of it will end up having to be headcanon.

The other question is why are Jonathan’s teammates so slow on the uptake? We see that as early as the semi finals the other teams barely even care about the match anymore. They are focusing on just murdering all of the players. It makes sense as a strategy because then there is nobody to defend the goal. At one point 3 of them team up to execute Jonathan’s friend and it’s not like they’re hiding this fact. Jonathan retaliates by murdering one of them and so the cycle continues.

The problem is how oblivious the other players are. There’s one scene where we see one of the players reach for the ball as if this is a normal sport. He’s promptly thrown into the wiring and murdered. Did the guy not see what was happening all around him? Almost every player loses because they were oblivious like this. Look, if there are no penalties and there is unlimited time, then it makes sense that you have to take out the other team. At the very least you need to practice active self defense so you aren’t just taken out of the picture right away.

Jonathan did good in not bowing to corporate here. The whole thing seemed suspicious and so he decided to stay in the sport all the way to the end. He gave them ample opportunity to explain their position and they never did so at that point he just had to do his own thing. Jonathan was quick on the uptake which I was glad about. At one point they tell him to go in the Helicopter and he will be driven to the game so instead he takes the bus with the team. We all know that if he went into that Helicopter then he would have never been seen again.

His own fame helps protect him a little bit as the company decided not to just murder him in the streets since it would be a big controversy. I think the company may have been overthinking things though because with how brainless the masses were the whole time, they might have barely noticed. They seem to be worried that Jonathan will end up leading some kind of revolution or something but that doesn’t seem likely yet. In fact, their attempts are only making it way more possible since they are attracting so much attention.

So the actual world building was a bit underdeveloped I’d say but the game itself was interesting. While they don’t do a deep dive into the rules, you can quickly understand the fundamentals here. It can be annoying to see the games unfold with everyone acting like NPCs but the matches are handled well. You can see just how dark this future is without the film being downright exploitive about it. I thought the violence was handled well enough and didn’t go too far.

Overall, Rollerball is a decently good movie. I had a solid time with it but you do get the feeling that corporate got real sloppy on this one. It should have been a really easy win for them here but they got overconfident and in the end that was their downfall. They could have had the first girl be a little less obvious about following orders, instructed the wife to be more subtle, bumped Jonathan off with a decent cover story, etc. The ending ends up being satisfying either way though and it was the right way to wrap things up. While we don’t get all of the answers, it does help to keep in a good amount of mystery.

Overall 6/10

Comedy of Terrors Review

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This movie’s pretty funny at first but starts to just barely overstay its welcome by the end. Fortunately that’s when things wrap up or that could have been tricky. I’m always up for parody type titles like this though. You ca recognize how the scenes would have played out if it was serious and then enjoy how it goes instead. It just starts to run out of gags and so it replays them instead.

The movie introduces us to Trumbull who is a super corrupt guy who doesn’t like his wife Amaryllis and only married her so he will have control of the funeral company once her father dies. In the meantime business is slow so he has to work with his partner Felix to murder people for the coffins. It’s slow work though and in the meantime the amount of money that they owe is only getting larger. So at this point the only thing to do is bump off the landlord so this way they don’t have to pay rent. This guy will be tough though. His name is John and he’s known as a very persistent guy who never goes down to the point where he is a pseudo immortal. Can they overpower him?

In a way there’s a lot going on which is why the first half is really good but gets shaky later on. For example I enjoy the banter between Trumbull and Amaryllis. There’s just so much bad blood here and you get the feeling that Trumbull was probably a really bad actor when he asked for her hand in marriage. Somehow it worked out but now he doesn’t even pretend. She tries to get together with him several times and he can’t stand to even look at her. So he drinks and drinks to try and speed up his own demise. The script is fairly clever here and the burns can be funny. It’s the best dynamic in the movie.

Trumbull is also the most charismatic character in general so you always want him to be on screen. Unfortunately when Amaryllis is by herself, her only gag is about how bad her singing voice is so the film repeats this gag many different times. Her character is ultimately used only for fanservice aside from that so there just really isn’t much left for her. You’re rooting for her to get away from Trumbull but not to fall into a rebound romance or anything like that.

Meanwhile Felix is Trumbull’s hapless associate. He has always liked Amaryllis but of course that would be taboo. He talks a good game but always goes along with Trumbull’s orders and is a complete accomplice. I can’t say that I felt all that bad for him. He needed to stand up for himself more and so even if he might feel like a character who needs sympathy, I couldn’t muster much up for him. If you want a sympathetic character then John is your guy. He’s just minding his own business when the main characters keep trying to murder him.

John’s making an honest living and while he may be a stern landlord, he’s not doing anything illegal. You’re rooting for him every time the guy is able to resist the clutches of death. Again this is a gag that might be played up a little too much but I was glad that he never called it quits. This is not your average human and he even had some sword skills.

I can also say that the film has a fun climax with a whole lot of twists and turns. There’s a ton of activity within those final minutes where no character is particularly safe. It ends things in a very satisfying way that makes the rest of the adventure stay as fun as it was. If the ending was bad then it probably would have had a rough ripple effect on the rest of the movie. At the end of the day the ending will always be key for this reason.

The film’s cast is rather small but the film’s not super long or anything like that so it’s balanced pretty well. The character with the least to do was definitely the father since his only role was really to be completely out of his depth and not sure what was going on. You always felt bad for the daughter who saved him from being poisoned many times but he never understood so he blamed her for stealing the medicine. Probably should have found a way to get that cleared up at some point….

If there was something I could have added to the film aside from a larger variety of jokes, it would be to have had some kind of a big final fight with John. That could have been fun and you could have used the immortality for a lot of fun gags. Like they keep murdering him with more and more elaborate traps/weapons and he just keeps on getting up. I did like their extended fight of him trying to get out of the coffin and their sealing it up. Something like that but as a full on comedy fight.

Overall, Comedy of Terrors is a film that has fun with a lot of gags. It could have used more material to really make this a hit but in the end it was still good. I would safely be able to recommend this one. As long as you’re looking for some good humor then there is really a good amount to enjoy here. It’s also not a bait and switch by any means as the first seconds start you off with some gags right off the bat. They seriously wasted no time here which I thought was rather impressive. Although I am glad that they didn’t keep up with the super speed effects and comedy sounds as that would have been a little too much. The film excels with the subtle comedy where everyone is a bit off but they are all technically acting serious. I find that to be a lot more effective.

Overall 6/10

The Ninth Configuration 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

When you have a movie by the same guy as the Exorcist you already know that you’re going to be in for a rough time. It’s not exactly a vote of confidence right? Well, this one definitely manages to live up to the Exorcist’s legacy so you will want to stay far away from this one. It’s definitely not a movie that you will want to stick around for. You’ll have checked out at least 9 times during it!

The movie starts off with introducing us to a castle where the government has made a safe space for veterans who have gone crazy after their time in battle. Their PTSD and delusions act up in many different ways such as amnesia or complete changes in personality. The place allows the inmates to have the run of the place and they just have guards on the outside to make sure nobody escapes. This does seem rather dangerous and while the idea is probably that they’re all good people who have all just gone a little mad…that’s a pretty big risk. Hudson has been sent over here to be the new head of the place. He will be a doctor who can bring some order to this place but is he up to the job?

I think the most tragic part about this film is that the opening minutes aren’t terrible. We get a solid fakeout in the beginning where a doctor introduces himself to Hudson and they have a reasonable conversation only for the dialogue to start getting weirder and weirder. Well, it turns out that the “doctor” was another insane patient who just thought he was one and the guy gets taken away. It was actually a really solid gag and set things off on the right track. See, the opening of the film is actually more of a comedy with the whole place being rather wacky and silly.

Yeah you could say there are some dark undercurrents here since these people have lost their minds which is really tragic but the film is playing it off in this rather odd way. Like I mentioned, the patients are allowed to do whatever they want so there will be scenes where they storm into the room to talk about painting, movies, drama, etc. Their conversations end up going in circles and don’t really have a point to them. Of course that in itself is the point. It’s a bit on the dull side but it’s mostly inoffensive. I’d probably give the first half like a solid 4 or something like that.

Then things take a turn when the film decides to get real dark and edgy. It all leads up to one of the inmates managing to escape only he ends up going to a really seedy bar where a gang has full control of it. Evidently they have had control of this place for a very long time from how everyone is acting. It’s so close to the army base that you’d figure some soldiers would have gone there during breaks or something right? Maybe they just never noticed or didn’t even care since there wasn’t much reaction to the truck in the opening scene.

Unfortunately the whole exchange is the definition of a film killer. It lasts forever and has the villains getting away with too much. They’re up against a soldier whose mind has been fried for a long time so he’s not able to fight back at all and he’s horribly outnumbered anyway. After he’s tortured for a while, Hudson comes in and then the same thing happens to him. They have him debase himself for a while and by the time he gets up and begins his big Shonen Jump comeback, it’s just way too late to care.

When you have the hero losing, you have to make sure you don’t overplay your hand. You need him to start fighting back while there are still things to fight for and before the villains have had their full laughs. The film really mistimed this and had Hudson put up with way too much. The whole thing doesn’t work and I would argue that even accounting for all of the twists in the movie it doesn’t work. Hudson had shown some aggression in an earlier scene when someone was just grabbing an inmate. Here, way worse things are happening and he doesn’t take that same tone/approach?

He had a security guard be afraid of him during one of the earlier scenes because of how intense Hudson got. So the fact that this didn’t happen here was very disappointing. The film wanted to show just how evil the outside world could be but ended up falling into the issue of too much show rather than tell. If you cut the scene in half and have Hudson start fighting way earlier then it would have gone a long way. Unfortunately the film doesn’t stop there. Hudson’s overall climax after this is definitely real bad.

Ironically his moment is supposed to show the moment of human goodness that the inmate was looking for but i would argue that it doesn’t work. It’s misguided at best and ultimately is never the way to go. There are much better ways to prove that. In fact, fighting off a bunch of villains to save your friend would already be a rather solid moment if you ask me. Choosing a certain method to shock the guy back into reality is definitely not what I would choose. So while the film goes for a happy ending approach in the end, it ended up being more on the sad side if you ask me. There was a whole lot of damage done to the characters here and by the end they’ve lost at least as much as they have gained, if not more.

So far films about insane asylums don’t tend to have a good track record. They tend to be rather crazy the whole time with a whole lot of issues. Either the inmates start to get mistreated all the time or they turn evil and start murdering people. I’m still waiting for a wholesome adventure where the inmates are all cured and the whole process is a lot of fun rather than it being all dark and dreary. The odds of this likely won’t be great though because to an extent it does go against the whole point of taking place in an asylum.

Overall, There are some pretty solid plot twists here that end up getting overshadowed by the film’s failings. Hudson’s character was handled well aside from the bar scene and the gag at the beginning that I mentioned was really good. In general the writing and dialogue were reasonable in the first half. Keeping everyone in the asylum would have been the film’s best bet. I don’t think there was going to be many easy ways to fight off the fact that the film could be rather boring but trying to go the edgy approach really didn’t work. So in the end I would say to definitely give this one a skip.

Overall 0/10

Umma Review

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It’s time for a horror film that I would actually say beats the average one. It’s still not particularly good but its main downside is that it’s boring as opposed to being bad. Not a whole lot happens here and so in that way it avoids some of the usual horror pitfalls but what’s the point of ducking those if you’re not going to do much to increase your score with that extra time?

The film starts with Amanda recalling being electrocuted which gives her nightmares. In the present, she lives in a very remote area where she only really see her daughter Chrissy and the guy who transports her honey, Danny. Amanda has cut off ties with the outside world and also can no longer be near electricity. Due to the traumas of her past, it completely spooks her and makes her sick. Unfortunately this has had a rough effect on her daughter who just wants to be able to lead a normal life and make friends. It gets worse when the ghost of Amanda’s abusive mother shows up to haunt them. Can Amanda fight her off?

Now I will say that Amanda gets off a little easy here because most ghosts like the Grudge show up to start murdering everyone with reckless abandon. That doesn’t happen here, there are actually 0 murders throughout the whole movie which might be a first. It’s extremely rare and so there isn’t even a lot of violence in this movie. The electrocuting scenes are definitely on the disturbing side but are mainly off screen and you just hear what happens. There’s also a bird that gets stomped which at least was all a vision and didn’t really happening. Still unnecessary though.

There are a ton of jump scares here but without anything to actually be scary…it’s not all that intense. So this is really a drama film first and foremost with Amanda not being able to let go of the past. I don’t blame her for being traumatized after all of that though. Her best move would really be to let Chrissy go to the school that she wants and just abandon the bee keeping business since she was never all that into it anyway. That would be the best of both worlds for all parties involved.

Amanda says some hurtful things at one point but she was being possessed so you can let it slide a little bit. My main problem with her is by the ending. Ultimately the film is going for a classic message of letting bygones be bygones which is good of course but I don’t think you need to go as far as to have a ceremony and bow to the grave to help the spirit pass on. Ultimately Amanda’s mother was a bad person straight up and doesn’t need to get any respect by the end. There’s no indication that she ever changed her ways and after death it is far too late.

Meanwhile Chrissy was a solid enough character. The whole situation was pretty tough on her with having to do her best without any friends for so long. It’s lucky for her that River ended up coming along so at least she would have someone to talk to. Chrissy was determined to get out there and change things so she had the right attitude here. I think she’ll go far and the bullying won’t stop her this time. Yeah the film brings up that she was bullied a lot in the past which was rather random and I feel like it didn’t really add anything to the film but I suppose it does show how she’s changed now and will be able to fight a lot harder than before.

Then there is River who at first seemed like she was going to be a rather petty character but she ended up being supportive. She helped talk Chrissy through the situation and staying firm in her resolve to go to College. Meanwhile Danny helped the main characters make a lot of money and seemed like a very reasonable guy. It seemed like he was a good friend for all of those years and while Chrissy was mad at him for holding back on the secrets, he really made the right/respectful calls in all instances.

So the family drama stuff wasn’t bad but it was a bit on the uneventful side. I think you would need more characters to really pull it off and probably ditch the horror aspect. This way you just focus on that and we could have Chrissy going through more of an internal debate on if she should stay with the mother or strike out on her own. I would remove Amanda’s tragic backstory as well so it’s not that she’s in this situation because she’s afraid but that she did it to stop the bullying and keep Chrissy safe. The downside could be that she lost all of her friends as a result which will be what makes Chrissy feel guilty about leaving.

At least to me that would be the best way to do it. In general the writing’s not bad and the film is short so it goes by quickly. The horror stuff for the most part just doesn’t land so I don’t expect you will find this film even remotely scary. The transitions might even just make you laugh. One of the jump scares is that we suddenly cut to a bunch of bees eating some honey and then we go back to Amanda. It was one of the most abrupt transitions that I’ve seen in a while and it was just so random.

Overall, The biggest takeaway here is probably that taking care of bees is a really tough gig. Me personally? I don’t think I would have a great time with it. I’m not a big fan of bees as it is and having them buzzing around 24/7 would be really rough. It sounds like the money was good but that still wouldn’t be worth it. If you’re up for a drama film then this is a reasonable one to check out. It’s not the most eventful title on the block but it’s fairly inoffensive. I don’t think you’ll have any real problems with it so if you end up getting attached to the characters that could even raise it up a star or 2.

Overall 5/10

Mad Max: Fury Road 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

“All right so here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna make a film about Mad Max where he’s kidnapped for a good chunk of it. He’s still stuck in the same old desert that he’s been for every film in the series and there has been absolutely no progression in this dystopia over all these years. Sounds good?” “Yeaaaaa” This one of those films where you feel bad while you’re watching it because you know that it’s not going to end anytime soon.

So the film starts off with Max being kidnapped by a bunch of ruffians. He manages to come close to escaping but then they capture him again. In the present, he is tied to the front of the car while having his blood continually drained. It’s a really rough spot for him. Meanwhile, a bunch of women decide to break away from this gang and finally claim their freedom. They’re heavily outnumbered though and will eventually be caught. Their only chance might be to team up with Mad Max.

I’ve got a lot of problems with this film as you can probably guess. The real question here is just…where to start. As always the world is super bleak and annoying. The hooligans run the world as always and civilization hasn’t even started. I still question what the point of this whole series is but I suppose that’s neither here nor there for now. There’s nothing interesting to look at and all of the backgrounds are the same. None of the villains are even remotely interesting as they are just edgy randos.

The film also goes more all out on the violence and being generally disturbing this time. This does not do the film any favors in the last. At one point a villain’s spinning around an umbilical cord and you’re just thinking….why? What point does this serve the film? This is one of those cases where the film is so edgy that it just loses the plot all the way through. Then of course you have one of the main women being pregnant while belonging to the villain and this guy basically does whatever he wants whenever he wants.

It’s definitely a tough life when your kingdom is ruled by a madman. At least by the end of the film things will be better but how long will they stay that way? Without a form of government of some kind, the strong will always rise to the top and the power will corrupt them very quickly. There’s just no way around that. So the film doesn’t even leave you with a ton of hope there.

Max is an okay main character at best but I’ve never been much of a fan. It’s not like there’s much to dislike or anything like that, but there’s not much interesting about him either. He’s just a guy who rides on his motorcycle and fights the villains but in this film he got captured so quickly. It’s only thanks to plot armor that they didn’t finish him off to be honest. Furiosa is the main fighter from the women group who tries to lead them off into freedom. She has the most amount of drive and spirit, without her the others definitely wouldn’t have made it.

As it was, one or two of them were ready to call it quits and turn back. Not very smart considering who we’re dealing with here. I suppose there was a bit of Stockholm syndrome going on there. Furiosa is strong and capable so she makes for a good heroine. She practically has to blackmail Max into helping her and then from there she does well with the gun. Hopefully she can use her power to start taking down a bunch of villains and maybe create a society again. That’s all I want at this point, just create something so the world starts to feel more developed and we can get past the endless desert. It’s the only way these films can ever really change.

Otherwise you can hold the last 3 films side by side and play random scenes. It would be hard to know which scene was from which film because they’re all so similar. That’s a really bad sign for any series. At this point even just have Max go into space or something. Get out of the planet and instead of jumping the shark I’ll say that you made the right move. The planet as it is, just stands out for being so grotesque right now.

Maybe if this was a 50s film it could have been a little different. Part of the problem is that every part of this film is like you’re living in the slums. The writing isn’t particularly engaging, all of the villains talk and act like thugs. sure they’re villains but can’t we have at least one sophisticated one? It’s like this brings all of the worst parts of the wild west without any interesting shootouts or anything. I suppose I can at least say that this one had some decent special effects with the sand tornado. It’s not really my thing but it does at least beat being an even more bland film.

There is a lot of action as the characters drive around. I would say that this is a positive except the fight scenes don’t tend to be all that interesting. Even the driving would be a lot better if they weren’t just stuck in the desert the whole time. You can barely see what’s happening at some points. At one point the heroes literally backtrack most of the distance that they had just gone. There’s a story reason for this but you couldn’t help but feel that it was all a waste then.

Even the initial oasis place they were heading for ended up being a waste for the most part. Every time there is some hope, the film is quick to take it away. It’s why I don’t hold out much hope from the ending either. There will always be another gang and more villains without any heroes along the horizon. The series is like an anthology but one where it’s the same story over and over and over again.

Overall, Mad Max takes another absolutely massive loss with this film. The movie is just way too dreary and devoid of any fun. I want to be having a good time here. I want to be grinning ear to ear and laughing at every scene but there’s just no chance to do that. It’s not right and so I don’t have much hope for the future of the series. Maybe it’ll rebound but I wouldn’t count on it. I was pretty close to giving this one a 0 but I suppose there’s just enough going on where it still differentiates itself from the absolute bottom tiers. Definitely stay far away from this title!

Overall 1/10

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Review

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Strap in folks because it’s time for another Mad Max film. These never fail to disappoint me because the series is so big and yet the films always end up being super underwhelming. This one may beat the original but it’s still not a film that is going to stack up all that high. The film is very dreary the whole time without any big fight scenes to really take it to the next level.

The film starts out with Max getting punked as his vehicle is stolen and so he makes his way to a town that is ruled by violence! They have the famous Thunderdome where you have to fight someone to the death. Max is tough but these guys have a lot of strength too. There are two factions trying for control here. The first group is the one who actually runs the place, Master who is protected by his bodyguard Blaster. Then you have Aunty who has dreams of ruling the place but no way to usurp the throne yet. So she asks Max for help and he agrees so he can get his car and get out of there. Was that a wise move?

The film’s title of being beyond the Thunderdome is pretty accurate since we don’t spend much time in the ring at all. Max is out of there fairly quick as he becomes a runaway and then bumps into a tribe of lost kids. These kids have been waiting for the prophecy of someone like Max to come and save them. They have images of the old world and what the Earth used to be like and that has basically turned into legendary stories over the years. Max breaks it to them gently and works with them to stop the other villains.

Here’s one of the big problems with the Mad Max films in general, you have no real reason to care about the plot. Most of these characters are as generic as they come and there is no real escape. The whole world has already been completely obliterated and even if you escape one group, another one will find you before long. Nobody is trying to rebuild society or anything. There is no progress of that from the first film to the last. If anything I’d say it’s gotten worse. At least in the first film you would still see some semblances of humanity. Now it’s all empty desert which I’m guessing is due to climate change or something.

It’s a world that has given up on being saved and so you just don’t really care at this point. There are no particularly likable characters here and just about everyone is corrupt. The kids aren’t evil yet of course but you doubt that they will be able to become upstanding citizens when they do grow up. Assuming they even live that long with how rough things are. The Mad Max universe is like if everyone was forced to permanently be barbarians until the end of time. As if time never actually moved forward because well it can’t. Without someone trying to change things then we will forever be stuck in the era.

It’s a setting that didn’t work the first time and it doesn’t work now. The film is super grim and while this one is less explicit than some of the other titles, it’s still rather painful. Nobody has a good quality of life here and I can’t think of any real happy scenes here. It goes without saying that Max very rarely smiles but unless you count evil smiles, nobody else is really smiling either. So as the viewer…what is left for me? Not much……not much at all.

The special effects aren’t anything to write home about and I can’t think of any good themes either. The big fight between Blaster and Max isn’t even good because it’s really just a lot of jumping. The way it works in the ring, you use any weapon that you get and you are on a harness so you can jump around a lot. It means there isn’t a ton of actual fighting going on. This is good for Max because it’s made very clear that he wasn’t going to last long in a straight fight against such a built guy. On the other hand, you still could have had some good choreography and martial arts if you really wanted to. Unfortunately the film did not want to do that and so that means there weren’t even a bunch of great fights here.

Then I’m not typically a big fan of kids in these things either and this didn’t exactly change that. The kid mean well but they can’t really fight or anything so they’re not all that helpful for the most part. They help with sheer numbers and back up Max by the end but I definitely could have done without that whole plot. Look, in a film like this I can usually at least jump on the movie having a bunch of animal violence, fanservice, or other issues but at least there’s something to really dive into.

Part of the problem with this film is there aren’t even a bunch of topics to tackle like that. There’s nothing you’re super invested in getting into because the film is just boring. The next Mad Max has more to jump into because it’s a much worse film but the Thunderdome? There’s just not much point to it at all. The whole film should have been about the Thunderdome, at least then we would have a tournament even if my hopes would be extremely low. I have serious doubts that the film would really be able to deliver with the big fights here.

Overall, Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome is definitely not very good. It’s not as crazy as some other titles in the series to be sure but it’s just so boring. You just really don’t care about anything and this has to be one of the blandest dystopia worlds that I’ve ever seen. Give me some high tech devices or something at the very least. I want a cool character or something. Maybe throw in some witty banter? We get absolutely nothing like that. There’s seriously not a single interesting thing about the movie so skip this at all costs.

Overall 2/10