Tag Archives: Thriller

Left Behind (2014)

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It’s time for the Left Behind reboot movie. The first series made it pretty far and even saw the end of the US with the big presidential strike but now we go back to the first big event of the rapture. The unfortunate thing is it’s hard to see us getting back to where the first trilogy left us off anytime soon but hoping for the best. It’s always important to have more films adapting revelations as we get closer to the end every day. When will the rapture occurs? Nobody knows and nobody ever can know so we just have to stay tuned. No point in trying to predict the unpredictable but whether it happens in 50 years or 500, it will happen and this movie is a fun visual on how that could be. It’s noticeably slower paced than the original film so this focuses a lot more on the tension of the characters in an airplane when this happens.

The movie introduces us to Chloe early on who has returned home to see her parents. Their home has not been the same for quite a while now. Chloe and her father Raymond got really distant from her mother Irene after the latter became a Christian. Still, this was going to be a time for everyone to talk but Raymond runs off to cheat with a stewardess named Hattie while Chloe is not ready for another deep discussion and runs off. That’s when the rapture happens and lots of people vanish. Will these characters be able to withstand this ultimate test?

Now one thing I would like to see the films acknowledge more is that even non Christians would bring up the rapture as a possible idea when this happens. That’s because the event is common knowledge at this point so while it may be a theory that goes under people turning invisible or some kind of alien laser, it should be a part of the discussion. It always takes a while for anyone to suggest this in the movies and then it’s always a big reveal as if nobody had ever heard of the concept before. So I would have at least one person bring it up a little sooner tbh. The panic on the airplane makes a lot of sense since I do see people doing that and it was clever of Raymond to take the air out of the plane to knock everyone back to their seats.

My only other main issue with the film is that none of the characters are particularly likable. It’s really hard to tolerate Raymond at all because he’s just such an awful character. I think it always gets worse when you give someone the benefit of the doubt but they don’t live up to it. For example, Chloe seemed upset with Raymond from the jump when she saw him with Hattie and jumped to conclusions immediately. In the moment you think she is overthinking this though because while he was being friendly, I wouldn’t call it flirtatious. When she notices the ring is gone then you know this is pretty rational.

But there’s always the idea that a man and woman can’t possibly be really friendly without something going on behind the scenes and I still say that’s hogwash. Not only is it possible but there are plenty of friends out there and it would be nice to see more of that. So of course when it turns out that Raymond is cheating then his character hits rock bottom and at that point there’s no way I’m rooting for him at all. It’s definitely clear why he wasn’t taken with the others, that’s for sure. Hattie doesn’t even seem to be aware that he has a wife for most of the movie with how he hides the ring before talking to her every time so I’m really putting the brunt of the damages on Raymond here. He’s making a critical error.

So Chloe is justified in being super upset here but she handles the situation with Irene quite poorly. Chloe launches the first shot by taking a dig at Irene’s faith and jump starting the very conversation that she was hoping to avoid. So that was not a good look and from there she spends most of the film trying to find her brother and to get answers on what’s going on. There is also a really rushed romance plot that feels completely unnecessary but I suppose a film’s usually gonna try and squeeze that in.

Then for Irene, it’s a difficult situation. On one hand now that she believes in God she knows that the clock is ticking. Anyone who doesn’t believe in him is doomed to go to hell. I think a lot of times in Church and everyday life we sort of tip toe around this part of the faith. You try not to think about how everyone who doesn’t believe in God and serve him will go to hell but that is quite clear. It’s impossible to believe in God and yet dispute that fact so on one hand that does make it urgent that you try and get everyone you can go believe in him too. On the other hand, going in too hard will just close off their minds to God and you will have backfired in your intended mission. So it’s not easy, there’s a lot of give and take here. Irene did go a bit too hard here but it’s completely understandable. You never know when the end will approach.

I’m sure we all know many who don’t believe in the same faith but seem like really good people. It’s kind of depressing to think that they may burn for eternity when you think of that for only the truly evil. It’s just a tough facet of life and so you have to ask yourself what you’re going to do about it. I can’t say that I ever really spread the gospel or convert people. It’s not one of my traits and I just let everyone live their own lives but in the back of my head I know that’s the easier path, not exactly the right one. So you just pray and hope that everyone you know are Christians and leave it like that. Irene has my respect for trying to do better but unfortunately she just didn’t have the tact for it and ended up pushing her family farther away.

Meanwhile we have Buck the reporter who mostly helps with his camera but he doesn’t get a ton to do here. He tries to gather intel and figure out what is going on but there aren’t exactly a lot of resources to use while on the plane. He’s just as in the dark as everyone else and the crew aren’t the nicest group of people either so they aren’t volunteering a lot of information. Honestly they tended to be quite annoying the whole time. Especially the guy placing the football bets who just seemed to be looking out for himself here. Part of it is played for laughs a bit but for the mot part he’s just not a nice guy. I would have sped up the plane scenes for this reason, because the crew there just weren’t super entertaining.

I’d also like to see more reactions on the ground level. Part of the fun here is people trying to figure out what’s going on. I want to see the reporters running around, the government coming up with a response, etc. The investigative part of the film is what’s missing here. I would also say that the film could have used a church scene or something earlier to set up the Christian elements before all the Christians vanished. This plays out more like a normal drama to the point where there aren’t a ton of Christian elements to be found. Of course if you know the event then you know the connection right off the gate but I think having more imagery and music in the movie would have been good.

Overall, This film doesn’t match the original Left Behind but it’s still a solid drama. It just doesn’t bring anything to the table that the original didn’t already cover in better detail. That’s the one I would recommend to watch instead if you had to make a choice between them but if not then of course you should check out both and see for yourself which one ends up winning. The franchise is still going so we’ll see how the next one does and what approach it goes with. Will it also go for a slower pace to focus on specific moments or is the pacing going to speed up to try and get us closer to the end? Only time will tell.

Super Smartphone Review

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Super Smartphone is a title that really didn’t last very long. I suppose 23 chapters is still enough to cross the 20 mark but even still it’s a shame. It had a ton of potential and could have really ended up being a great title. It starts off trying a little too hard to be like Death Note. You have the really quirky detective like L but one who comes off as eccentric for no real reason and then Kyu as the rational genius who is lacking in emotion. Gradually the series started to find its own identity and even got a whole villain group…but then the series just ends. I’ll give the author credit for this though, he didn’t throw in any time skips or a rushed ending. It just ends as the battles are about to start although it mentions they will eventually come up with more chapters in the volume release to be scanned at some point.

The series begins by introducing us to a genius named Kyu who is super depressed. His younger brother went missing when they were kids and is presumed dead at this point. Now Kyu struggles to find the energy to do anything and just sleeps through life. One day he finds a special phone in his bag, a super smartphone if you will. It tells Kyu that it can search for anything in the world so on a whim Kyu uses it to search for a little girl who had been kidnapped recently. The phone is able to find her and Kyu manages to save her life just in time. Naturally he uses it to try and find his brother but mysteriously an error message prevents him from looking anything up about the brother.

The phone is cryptic about why the brother can’t be searched but does say that Kyu should start earning points. You earn points by using the smartphone and morality isn’t considered. For example using the phone to hack into someone else’s phone will grant you points and doing other things that a normal phone couldn’t possibly do. Kyu then uses his genius intellect to figure out that this implies other people have smartphones as well and it’s a race to the top. Whoever gains an unknown amount of points first will win. Earning points also unlocks new features of the phone like the ability to shield yourself from electronics and scanners. The downside to this is that this can also make it obvious who you are if you shield yourself too much. Kyu is also a a disadvantage because he doesn’t aim to commit any crimes with it while the others will without a second thought. Can he pull this off?

So like I mentioned earlier, I believe what hurt this series and got it cancelled is that it’s trying too hard to be the next Deathnote at the beginning. For example you get long conversations with the phone saying something cryptic and Kyu going off on a speech about how the phone let a lot of things slip with that one sentence. Yeah it can come off as smart but often times it also feels like he is making massive jumps in logic that only just so happen to turn out to be correct. It doesn’t hurt him as a character, I actually like his confidence quite a lot. It just feels like the author is taking shortcuts in making this a very cerebral series.

So what changes in the second half? It becomes a bit more of a thriller series. It’s still about the mind games of course but now we’re getting active battles between geniuses like in Phy Brain as opposed to the classic game of cat and mouse. This works for Super Smartphone a whole lot better than the former approach and really gets things moving in the right direction. The concept of a smart phone battle against others who can hack everything as well is just really interesting. The series does a good job of exploring the ins and outs of that too as each character has to be careful in how they attack. One user may be physically strong like a body builder, one might be rich and have a company to protect him. Others could be kids who never really use the smartphone and this makes them difficult to detect.

It should go without saying but you can’t tell anyone about the smartphone either or it will vanish and you are out of the competition. As long as you have the phone it is easy to get rich and achieve all of your desires but at the same time it also means you will be a massive target so that’s something that you will have to really think about. I’d say you could have made this a fairly long 100+ chapter series with the hero trying to find each owner every 20 chapters or so until you’ve found them all and had a big climax. I’d also expect them all to be fighting each other a lot and making for some good 3 way battles. You can’t really trust anyone with a smartphone after all so that would make for some really fun battles.

The art here is pretty good. It’s actually better than I would expect for an initial series like this. Unless the artist already did another series which is very possible, I tend to forget kind of quick who drew what but this looks like an experienced veteran. The chapters are really easy to read at least. The writing is good too. It may use some shortcuts but on the whole it does capture my attention which is important. I wasn’t bored during the read at all and it makes for a really good marathon.

Kyu is a good lead. He’s confident in his deductions and wants to find his brother which makes for a good character motivation. He does tend to get depressed quickly and while he usually bounces back sometimes it takes longer. It feels like this would have become a longer character arc if the series kept going. Like the way he represses his emotions on a daily basis makes the outbursts worse or something. In the end he starts to learn that sometimes you also need physical power in addition to your mind which is an important lesson. Yeah it would have been fun to see how he did in the battles to come.

His childhood friend Yuika doesn’t get a huge role but I bet she would have been appearing more if the series went on. She’s nice enough and always tries to help Kyu out. She’s just kept in the dark on the smartphone business so there is only so much that she can do. Then we have Nagi who is the L of the series. She’s got a bit of a temper and doesn’t believe in playing nice with people. She’ll jump into her statements right away and delivers them bluntly. She is unable to keep up with any of the smartphone holders at all though. We know she is a genius as they keep saying this a lot but it would be nice for her to get some wins. It’s understandable that she would be at a disadvantage for now so maybe they would build it up as her getting more wins down the line. Perhaps it’s realistic but she was a big underwhelming the whole time.

The main villain of the series is Zenichiro. He’s the first enemy smartphone user to make a move and the fun part about him is that he’s a rich millionaire celebrity. So even without the smartphone he had a lot of power. Just think of everything that he can do now that he has one? The possibilities are near endless and it makes things interesting for the battle with Kyu because beating him intellectually just won’t be enough. You’re going to need some muscle to get past his bodyguards as well. Zenichiro is also super confident in himself as well and it makes him a tricky opponent. The guy has a good amount of character development and was a lot of fun here.

Then there is Moura who is the worst villain in the series. He’s the classic not very smart guy who tends to get into trouble and is being manipulated because of that. I like the idea of not every owner being a genius but can’t we have a villain who is just of normal intelligence? I know they would probably get wrecked quick but it would be better than someone like this. Yes Moura gets a sob story and a lot of emotional character development but I never really ended up caring about the guy at all. He just came and went in an instant. He’s gone and then it’s time to move on.

Imura is super devoted to Zenichiro which is his whole gimmick so I can’t say that I was a big fan either. I mean it’s great that he’s loyal but the guy comes across as super desperate the whole time. You roll your eyes when he’s on screen because Zenichiro is so mean to the guy and doesn’t hide his disgust but Imura doesn’t realize this. I guess he’s not a genius in the situations that count.

The series ends as two of the other smartphone characters are introduced in Boken and Rei. Rei is a really timid character so she’s going to have a tough time in these battles so it’s good for her that Boken is here. Boken is smart and also a good fighter so physically he’s ready for anything. It’s safe to say that he’s not a super genius like Zenichiro and Kyu but he knows enough to get around and is used to using his phone. I expect he would have been a fun friend/rival to have around. He had a good first impression with me at least.

So in the final chapters we see that there are 12 smartphone users in all and we’ve only bumped one of them off. That means there are still 11 and the series was gearing up for some kind of round table elimination game. It’s all vague so we don’t know what it was but they mentioned something about voting others out. If it was an Among Us type game where they had to vote people out in each round that could have been really interesting. Almost like a Liar Game setup but the conditions and win criteria weren’t explained yet. We only just met all of these guys in quick one shot panels before the series ended. Then suddenly there were also aliens involved in the mix which was an interesting wrinkle.

I love the idea of aliens and such just running in to cause trouble and mess with humanity but it is an odd thing to add so suddenly at the end. They seem to have super powers that make them way too much for humans to deal with too like the ability to possess others and freeze people in an instant. Maybe this was actually going to take a really unexpected route and be an action series instead. One thing’s for sure, there was a lot of potential here so hopefully it gets a sequel series soon. If not, maybe the last few chapters will do more with this but at least it’s an epic cliffhanger to end things off with. This is the kind of ending you want to see as it keeps on building your hype for a sequel.

I do think the twist about what the smartphones are at the end was really lackluster though. I don’t think it was thrown in at the end because it was cancelled. To me this was planned from the start but eh….I wasn’t really into it. It could make things more personal in a way but since the A.I. are pretty much emotionless and just serve as devices the twist doesn’t enhance the story. I think doing it more like Wixoss would have been a lot more effective in having each device really feel truly unique. Who knows maybe that would be an upgrade once you got enough points, it’s hard to say.

I’d also like to see more 3 way conversations like the first battle with Zenichiro if we get a sequel. With 12 users out there or at least 6-7 left that we haven’t seen there should be ample opportunity for that. I did like the phone conversation quite a bit and that was before the series really hit its stride. So focus on fun dialogue battles like that in a tournament type setting and you’re all set. You could even structure it in a debate sense like how this one was about convincing the detective on who to trust. Do that in a battle where you have to convince the other smartphone users on who to vote out and we’d be seeing a lot of great dialogue.

Overall, I’d recommend checking this title out. It’s got a lot of detailed dialogue to really get you interested in what’s going on and the premise is unique. A super smartphone is a cool invention and I would like to see Shonen Jump try more cerebral series like this. With how successful Death Note was you’d think more series would be trying to give that type of story a big push and yet it doesn’t really happen. I guess it’s hard to not just jump in with another action series and of course I won’t complain about that since I love my battle titles but you could still do more like this. Of course it’s always a debate on if you should check out a series that’s been cancelled but I always recommend it. You’re seeing a story that didn’t make it all the way through and it’s nice to try and figure out why people didn’t like it and what it could have done differently. For the record, they should have introduced the 12 owners right away to set up this grand battle of wills right off the gate. It would have totally removed the Death Note comparisons and it’s also the most interesting part of the story so you would get everyone hooked immediately. At least if you ask me that’s the right way to go about it.

Overall 7/10

Shadow on the Wall Review

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Shadow on the Wall is definitely a pretty intense noir film although it doesn’t follow the characters I expected it to. It takes the interesting approach of focusing on the kid and the trauma she gets after a pretty big experience rather than the main character. It’s a different approach but not a bad one although I don’t think it would work to do this too often. Either way as long as you’re ready for more of a slow burn experience then you will do well here.

The movie starts off with David finally getting home after being away for a while at work. His daughter Susan is happy to see him and he’s glad to be back but unfortunately he finds out that his second wife Celia is having an affair with another man. He confronts her about this but she knocks him out with a single swing. Her sister Dell then shows up but is upset at Celia stealing her man so she destroys Celia and runs off. David figures he probably shot Celia when he wakes up and is crushed at court and sentenced to death. Dell feels like she’s pretty safe at first since nobody was in the room except is turns out that Susan may have seen everything. Dell figures she has to murder this little girl and quick but how can she get past Dr. Caroline and the rest of the hospital staff overseeing Susan’s trauma?

Dell is definitely a cold customer and a true villain through and through. She does not hesitate when thinking about murdering Susan which is something you could only do if you are a true psychopath. You definitely do not want to get on Dell’s bad side. It’s clear that there is no line which she will not cross. She will do whatever it takes to get her way. The crazy thing is that she’d probably have been fine if she just left well enough alone and minded her business. Keep in mind that David is to be executed fairly soon and Susan is barely in a state to talk about anything. Even if she suddenly says that she saw Dell, there would need to be some convincing reason to believe her over all the evidence that suggests David did it. I don’t see any plausible way for Dell to lose if she just stayed quiet the whole time.

Of course villains do always tend to be quite nervous and overthink everything so at the same time it’s not too surprising that Dell made this mistake. It’s also something to see her quick descent into madness. Murdering a kid is no small thing, it’s something reserved only for some of the most evil and vicious villains out there. Dell definitely does not come across as sympathetic in the slightest and you’re rooting for her to go down the whole time. She was quite manipulative the whole time too.

David is mostly okay here. He definitely gets emotional about his wife cheating on him but I don’t think he would have ultimately pulled the trigger. He was looking pretty shaken and ominous at the same time but ultimately he would have backed off. It’s annoying to see him getting tricked by Dell but at the same time he has no reason to suspect her or any context so there’s no way he could have known that he was making a mistake.

Celia is portrayed as a pretty bad character from the jump. She certainly isn’t afraid to talk really tough the whole time. Ultimately I was expecting her to finish David off at first but at least she didn’t go that far. It’s hard to feel all that bad for her in the end though, it seems like she had a long history of being a full antagonist and wasn’t planning on changing that anytime soon. So when you put that all into perspective then she would have kept doing more damage in the future too. Possibly even more damage than Dell if she was really cut loose onto the world.

The best character here would have to be Pike. I thought he did a great job of defending David’s interests. Moreover he was the kind of guy who would actually listen to advice and didn’t take anything for granted. He thought Caroline was grasping at straws later on in the film and told her as much but he wasn’t sarcastic or belittling about it. He would calmly try to talk things out each time and that’s what I liked about him. He was a very respectful guy but also a firm one. If he didn’t agree about something then he would say that to your face instead of beating around the bush the whole time. Someone like that is who you really want to have on your side when the chips are down.

Then Dr. Caroline also did great the whole time. Rehabilitation isn’t easy and she keeps going through with it to get Susan better. While I think the sleeping bath is super dangerous all on its own, presumably it’s considered to be safe in the movie verse. If not for sabotage it would have been fine. Caroline trusts her gut instincts a lot which is good since it makes it tougher to really deceive her. Caroline handled herself in a professional manner the whole time and got results.

Now the bulk of the film follows Susan and that’s where things can get a little stretched out. She’s super traumatized over what happened so she’s lost all her emotions and just does everything without energy. It’s definitely a tough situation to be in and you feel bad for her but it doesn’t always make for the most interesting scenes. As I mentioned earlier it does make for a fairly unique perspective but you’re more interested in the thriller aspects and what is going to happen next as opposed to her recovery process. Caroline was clever in how she used the dolls to help Susan communicate though.

Still even if I wasn’t quite as engaged in the Susan scenes I would say that the film held its own the whole time. Even though you know who the murderer is you are focused on how the heroes are ultimately going to catch her. That’s the main objective of the film and so since everything is riding on Susan’s testimony that adds a little more weight to her plot. Then of course you have Dell squirming the whole time as she is waiting for her chance to turn the tables and finish Susan off which is still what puts her in a losing position.

Overall, Shadow on the Wall is a pretty good movie. The dialogue and script are solid as you would expect. The pacing is mainly good although I would have substituted Susan’s scenes for more screen time of David in jail or perhaps a longer court scene to show how the deliberations went. I imagine it was fairly one sided particularly since David didn’t remember what he had done but I like court scenes a lot so stretching it out to have everyone voice what they were thinking would have been nice. Part of why I was surprised to see Susan’s plot take the lead at first is I expected a whole lot of the film would be about David’s lawyer trying to get to the bottom of things but that’s not how it was to be.

Overall 7/10

The Most Dangerous Game Review

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It’s time for a very old thriller title that’s also super short. It could have stood to be a little longer because I enjoyed the concept and there’s more you could do with it. Still, you should have a good time either way and it serves as a reminder to always be on your guard. If you let your guard down for an instant then things can get very tricky.

The movie starts with there being a big boat crash and Bob finds himself washed ashore a mysterious island. Everyone else died due to powerful sharks roaming the area. Bob is a pretty big animal hunter himself and on the boat they had been asking him what it would feel like to be hunted. He had figured that could never happen but now what can he do? Well at least the owner of the house, Zaroff appears to be a nice guy even if he’s a little eccentric. There are two other survivors here in Eve and Martin. Eve seems quite afraid of Zaroff for some reason while Martin is super drunk but pretty happy about everything going on. Martin explains that Zaroff is a great guy and has good food. Is there more to this place than meets the eye?

Of course you can probably piece some things together based on the title and the poster. This is going to be a hunt like no other. I will say right off the bar that Martin is the most entertaining character in the movie. He’s just so drunk that it’s really quite impressive. You would think that he would sober up at some point but he doesn’t. He just keeps on going and has one of the most shrill voices that I’ve head in quite a while. One thing’s for sure, you won’t be forgetting him afterwards. Once he’s gone the film gets 100% serious since this guy was the only one brightening things up.

He wasn’t particularly smart or quick on the uptake so it makes sense he would go fast. As soon as people vanished and never returned you’d figure something was up ordinarily but the beers really threw his mind for a loop. Eve suspects that something is wrong but she isn’t really able to do a whole lot about it on her own. Her own physical power isn’t super high after all and running off by herself into the island wouldn’t end up doing a whole lot. She is by herself on the island so where would she even go? Bob arriving is really her only hope to get out of here in one piece.

As for Bob, he’s a reasonable main character. Definitely a little slow on the uptake as well but at the same time it’s not like he has any real reason to trust Eve over Zaroff. He just met both of them so they’re each suspicious in their own ways. At least once it’s time for a fight then he can defend himself as well as anyone else. He is used to hunting animals and so trying to take down a human hunter isn’t as big a deal as it would be for many fighters. Of course Zaroff set things up so he has the advantage with his hunting dogs and minion all around.

This guy has been doing this for a long time after all so he has a plan for everything. Ultimately Bob was fun and for the most part Zaroff was a decent villain. At least his hunting philosophy is interesting but once he started viewing Eve as a trophy then he felt more like a generic bad guy without a whole lot of honor codes and rules to keep himself grounded. That’s my main issue with the guy. It doesn’t line up with his overall character of being so sophisticated and wanting a higher challenge for himself in going after people. By wanting to get the girl then suddenly he was just another guy and it hurt his character quite a lot. It was definitely disappointing to see that’s for sure.

The main climax of the film is Zaroff and Bob going at it as they try to hunt each other in the forest. It really lends itself well to being a fun sequence although the heroine does hold Bob back a lot. I would have preferred this to have been a true 1 vs 1 so we can see how they do. The film presents Bob as being far superior both in planning and experience but maybe if this was a straight forward fight we could have made things be a bit more balanced. It would be a lot of fun to see them laying down traps and all as the entire film.

Again this is where a longer length could have helped the movie. This one’s only about an hour so by the time the characters go outside a large portion of the film is already done. At the same time you couldn’t really cut out much of the intro because that was all needed for the characterization and setting up the plot that was to come. So the only solution is making it longer but I would still recommend checking the movie out. The script is good and you get a lot of good banter the whole time.

The only real issue here is as you can guess with this being a hunting film there can be some collateral. The rest of the hunts are never on screen so you don’t see animals going down for the most part but one does go down near the end. It’s totally off screen or pretty much all off screen but you still know what happened. It’s handled more tactfully than most so I wouldn’t lower this to a negative score but it’s still not quite as high as it could have been.

Overall, The Most Dangerous Game is fairly suspenseful. It takes a fairly simple plot and makes it engaging all the way through. Make a 2 hour movie on this and invite just a few more guests. Then the setup would be absolutely perfect for a true thriller with a lot of chases going on. Yes that would definitely be right up my alley and I would have a lot of fun with that. Of course a remake would have to be careful and not add a bunch of animals in there to fill up the time. That’s exactly what you don’t want to do and I admit that I would be a little nervous about that angle the whole time. Nothing ventured and nothing gained though so I’d check it out and hope for the best. In the meantime treat this film like a proof of concept. Put yourself in Bob’s place and imagine being hunted. It’s definitely a scary situation to be in and the shark infested waters also mean that there is no easy way out of the island. One way or another you need to take down the ruler.

Overall 6/10

Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice Review

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The title probably reminds you of the Baby Jane film right away. That one was definitely no good and this one also isn’t very solid although I would say it’s better than the former. This one only works because none of the characters are very smart and put themselves in a position to lose the whole time. It feels bad because you know that the characters had potential to accomplish big things in their life but never could because this was the end of their journey.

The film starts off with Claire being saddened because after her husband’s untimely death he didn’t leave her anything. She mis timed the moment as he had already taken out his life insurance and so now she is super poor. Claire figures she will start murdering everyone to keep her funds up and so she starts hiring maids only to bump them off afterwards. One day a lady named Alice appears and confirms she has no family or anyone who would miss her. Claire decides to hire her after that so she can get more money eventually. Alice has a little more spirit than the first few maids but is she really ready to handle such a powerful fighter?

Now your main suspension for disbelief here will be how this old lady is casually defeating everyone. It’s not like she is Master Genkai or anything like that. This is an old lady who can barely fight so each time her trick is to get the lady to walk into the grave with her back turned while Alice takes her out with a shovel. It’s pretty sad how easy this all is but at the same time once you’re in that position it would be hard to win. The fact is that you wouldn’t expect to be hit in the back of the head with a shovel so you aren’t prepared for that.

There is no excuse for one of the victims though. So here’s the scenario, the victim already knows that Claire is evil and is being chased around the house. Finally she knocks the knife out of Claire’s hands and gets her to the ground. She has 3 real options from this point forward. The first is to quickly end this by taking Claire down with one more hit, the second is to simply run away and get as far away as you can. The third is to grab the knife and then call the cops while keeping your eye on the villain. The victim chooses option 3 but the dumb version of it as she lets Claire keep the knife and completely gives her back as she grabs the phone. Naturally Claire capitalizes on this and pulls off the biggest comeback victory since the Patriots beat the Falcons in the Super Bowl. This was insane.

You never turn your back to a serial killer like that, particularly when they are armed. What was she thinking here? It was a really bad look and it’s just hard to believe that things would end like that. It was super annoying to put it mildly. Claire does a whole lot here when she should have been taken down ages ago. Surely you would be able to poke holes in her alibi of saying that each caretaker ran off when they were never seen again. Of course these were the days before internet so it gets trickier but there had to be better ways of handling this.

Claire is definitely evil through and through so don’t expect any kind of big redemption arc for her. She stands by all of her crimes and had absolutely no intentions of doing anything different. That’s just how she rolls. There are much easier and better ways of making money but she was never interested in those from the start. Meanwhile Alice was a decent character but didn’t always make the right moves. I liked that she could have a bit of a temper at times but on the other hand she didn’t do much with that. I was hoping she would actively challenge Claire more instead of just having a quick moment and immediately backing off. That’s never as impressive as she seems to think it is.

Her lies start getting more sloppy by the end too and it’s clear that she isn’t used to planning things out on the longterm. The ending could have been a lot more satisfying than how it turned out. Meanwhile there is a whole subplot with Harriet and her kid Jim but it feels like the two plots don’t have a lot to do with each other for the most part. You’ve got a little romance going with Mike and there’s a lot of drama there. You have the characters deciding if they should get together or not but you’re just waiting to get back to the main plot already.

There is a dog that shows up there for some big jump scares. If anything happened there that would have been super rough but fortunately it’s all fakeouts the whole time. I just don’t think there was much point in including Harriet and all the characters in that subplot. Sure, Mike sort of tied both plots together and they got to see Claire being suspicious the whole time but they were still defeated in the end. They didn’t really get to see through the lies and suspense very well at all. Instead they just became more sacrifices to be taken down in short order. Not a good look for them. Also, apparently Harriet’s old husband died a while back and while I don’t think they’ve said how long it’s been, it seems like an odd detail to add before starting up a romance. Makes the whole thing feel like a rebound.

In the end the problem with this film is that you can’t take it seriously. An old lady taking everyone down one at a time like this? it’s really hard to believe but the worst offender is the final victim for not staying alert. The previous maids also looked really bad in not standing up for themselves and just letting Claire walk all over them. I get that they needed the money and all but it’s just annoying to watch in every scene as they are insulted and humiliated but don’t do anything about it. Claire has way too much power the whole time.

Overall, This is a fairly mean spirited film. Characters don’t really think things through and it’s just crazy watching the whole story unfold. It doesn’t play out like it should and they probably should have gone all out with the crazy premise instead of taking it so seriously. You’re just not going to successfully make her a villain to be feared, not like this at any rate. I would definitely recommend skipping this one. The idea of an old lady bumping everyone off is executed as uneventfully and slow paced as you would expect. You’ve got better things you can do with your time.

Overall 3/10

Kiss of the Vampire Review

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Oh no, it’s a vampire film! Uh ohhhhhhhhh. Well this one mostly plays things straight with the main guy not being very smart and the main heroine being super susceptible to mind control. None of them play things very smart here and the local vampire expert has better things to do than try to keep the heroes safe. Fortunately the villains aren’t very brave either aside from the main vampire but there’s not much to salvage here. It’s just a B grade vampire movie and most are at that level by default so that’s saying something.

So the movie starts with Gerald and Marianne hitting a speed bump on their travel destination. They have just been married recently and were looking forward to a lot of fun but now that’s not going to happen. Gerald tells Marianne to stay in the carriage in this unknown place that they have never been before while he goes around and searches for help. Fortunately nothing happens her and they find a nearby inn of sorts. It’s kind of empty and the owner Bruno and his wife are a bit odd. Bruno seems happy enough but the place is empty and nobody wants to talk about it.

Ah well, they just need to be here for a day right? Well, apparently the damage to the carriage is extensive and it will take several days to fix but fortunately the rich Dr. Ravna has invited them over to his house. A cranky old guy named Zimmer warns them not to go but when asked why he basically shrugs and storms off. At Ravna’s house his son Carl overtly flirts with Marianne the whole time but Gerald barely reacts except for some half hearted remarks. Does he realize that they have just stepped foot into the vampire’s den?

I have a lot of problems with the film but it all starts with the main character. Now it’s good not to be too possessive. That’s a definite and jumping into action because Marianne is talking with Carl isn’t a big issue at first. Once Carl starts inviting Marianne to parties and such without including Gerald is where you have to draw the line. Instead he immediately lets a lady named Sabena get him drunk and while he says all the right things as she leads him up to her room you feel like it’s just bluster and he was already under her heel from the start. Not a good look for this guy….not a good look at all.

So yeah he’s a pretty bad main character and he spends the whole film getting absolutely devastated in every scene. Even when Marianne vanishes this guy can’t react properly because he’s so drunk and is slipping all over the place. Yeah the drink was spiked but that’s why you shouldn’t be drinking alcohol like that anyway. Especially when the situation seemed suspicious from the jump. Gerald still tries to help when he can but it’s often futile.

As for Marianne, my complaints are mainly the same as they are for Gerald. She lets herself be pushed around way too easily the whole time. She should have told Carl to back off after a while. Additionally the way she is tricked near the end is embarrassing. You’re telling me that she can mix up her husband just by having someone wear a mask? That doesn’t speak very well to their bond. It’s not like they look that alike and the whole being super silent thing should have raised some warning bells as well. The film doesn’t go over very well for her.

As for Ravna, well he’s less depraved than some of the other vampire villains that I’ve seen but there’s not much to him. He’s content to rub his victories in the face of the main character but what even are his goals beyond random destruction? He has a huge cult following him so why not just break into the inn and slaughter everyone at night? He goes through a lot of stealth and theatrics but when you have an army that all seems rather moot. Granted, his army was rather awful to be honest as they panicked about everything the whole time but the numbers advantage should still be enough. Instead he did not put himself in a position to win and squandered his super powers.

Carl and Sabena are basically just here to mess with the leads and none are particularly likable. If the main characters could stand up for themselves more then they’d be fine. Then there’s no way to like Bruno as the guy is so afraid of the vampires that he basically runs the inn as a way to get more sacrifices for them. Ever think about just driving away during the daytime when they can’t move? It’s really not that complicated here and taking a chance is better than being an executioner like this. In a way it makes him just as bad as the others.

Finally you have Zimmer and it’s great that he knows a whole lot but the guy couldn’t be more vague if he tried. Yeah he tells the heroes not to go but refuses to give any more info than that. He only finally helps a bit during the end of the film and it turns out that he knows magical ritual spells which is super handy. So it’s great to have him around as a result but really is that the best he can do? He waited until just about everyone was taken down so that was really late. There’s also a moment when the vampires visit the main duo in the daytime so Zimmer comes in to stir up trouble but why not just lock the front door or something? They only barely escaped with a few seconds left and that’s because Zimmer showed up and reminded them about the light. The whole scene was very questionable.

As always you have all the blood sucking and everything here too. Everyone is getting drained and the humans can’t do much to stop them. The film can be a little violent with the deaths as Hammer films like you to really see the stabs. The first scene while a bit funny with how everything played out definitely started the film out on a violent note with Zimmer taking one of the vampires down. The movie is quick paced and doesn’t waste a lot of time but the main characters being so unlikable in addition to the vampires not being very interesting made for a losing formula. I’d say to avoid this title.

Overall 3/10

Windchill 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

This is one of those films where I can’t say I was super hyped for it but it still managed to go below my expectations. There are really two ways this film could go. The human villain route where the guy driving the main character is a creep or the supernatural route. I would pretty much always choose the supernatural route but this film shows that sometimes you can still mess that one up too.

Gotta admit that I didn’t even notice that none of the characters had names until I looked it up. It’s a pretty interesting tactic for sure since it lets you just jump right into the story. Would have been cool if I noticed this right away but it just be like that sometimes.

So the main girl is looking for a rideshare to save some money and fortunately there is a guy driving to her destination. This is about as lucky as she can get and so they get into the car but she rebuffs all of his efforts to talk to her. She wants to be an unruly passenger and even insults him while they’re driving so now he feels sad. Eventually they crash when trying to dodge another car and now they’re stranded in the middle of nowhere in sub zero conditions. Definitely not the way you want to go out. Can they survive the night if they stay in the car or should they take their chances and try going back to the gas station?

This film loves its red herrings and making everyone look suspicious. Trust me on that one, we’ve got everything except the villainous smirk that a lot of suspects tend to have. There is just a whole collection of issues here so it’s hard to know where to start. I guess I’ll start with the characters not being very likable at all.

First up there’s the girl who has a bad attitude from the jump. First of all she’s the one who is late to the meetup spot so I don’t see where she gets off being so upset at the guy. She insults his car for no real reason and is just extremely rude. The girl doesn’t really get better until the end and even then it’s a life or death situation by that point so just about anyone would be a little nicer when their life depends on it.

I totally get her being hostile once he took them off on a shady shortcut and crashed the car. From there on out it makes sense to treat him like an enemy 100%. He does nothing to make you feel like you can trust him and only actively makes himself look less and less honorable.

Now for the guy, yeah he’s pretty bad too. For starters, driving off the road to a shady shortcut with no good explanation is naturally going to turn the girl against him. He should have realized that, it’s just patently obvious. The road didn’t look good from the start either. So he was doing this to impress her but there are better ways of doing it.

Then there’s also the fact that he acts a bit like a stalker. He knows pretty much everything about her and followed her around so he would learn about her schedule and be there to be carpool buddies. It shouldn’t have even been hard to keep this a secret but naturally he says things that he shouldn’t know and so she gets tipped off. If this guy is trying to start off with a good impression then he absolutely failed here.

The tension of if the guy is a super crook is definitely intense even if it isn’t quite my favorite scenario here at all. So then we get to the supernatural elements but that’s where the film really falls off of a cliff. So you’ve got an early instance of this where the ghosts lock the girl in the bathroom and turn off the sound so she can’t yell for help. Or more specifically she yells but nobody can hear her.

This doesn’t have much to do with anything so you can write it off as the ghosts messing around. We do see a shady guy at one of the tables who looks a lot like the Patrolman though so maybe he was already making moves. Once the crash happened then they start to really go in.

It takes a while to get going but basically the Patrolman is an evil spirit of a guy who died a while back so now he goes around murdering everyone he can. He has the ability to lower your body temperature to the point of freezing and then you die. It’s difficult or impossible for a living person to stop him since he’s a specter and he can mildly mess with reality/cause hallucinations. I mean his car is clearly very real which is always the annoying thing about fighting guys like this.

They can become intangible when needed and then go physical just in time to land a hit. Unless you have super powers of your own then you’re really doomed. The most annoying thing here aside from the heroes just being doomed against this guy is the backstory is unnecessarily edgy. Basically as a corrupt Patrolman he would force people into his cars and then ultimately murder them.

It’s a pretty tragic circumstance and this guy has been running around unchecked for many, many years. What about all of the victims he murdered? Well they’re all specters as well but are basically powerless to keep on repeating the same actions over and over. They yell and beg to be avenged and all but why don’t they fight back? The guy is able to fight as a specter so what about all of the endless people who died here? They have the numbers advantage with ease so it shouldn’t be a question of power. They should be able to win against a single guy.

It’s just a case of the villain being stronger for no real reason. If you’re going to go supernatural then go all the way with a powerful demon or something but not a normal serial killer who was so angry at the world that he got powers? Eh that’s not a great explanation at all.

There also isn’t a whole lot of scenery over here as it’s just snowy everywhere. It can be a bit spooky with all the ghosts running around too and all but it just wasn’t enough. Nothing happens for a long time and once the flashbacks start to occur then you want to go back to the present already.

Now talking about red herrings, there is a suspicious scene where the guy walks away saying he will check out the gas station but then he returns almost immediately and says that it’s closed. The girl points out that he wasn’t gone long enough to actually check and why would it be closed so early? She almost calls his bluff to check it out but decides not to. My issue is…it was too far for him to check. So did he lie about it? Did the ghosts mess with her flow of time so she was walking around for a really long amount of time? The film doesn’t give you any indication of this so we have to assume that he’s lying and it’s yet another reason not to trust him.

The movie also gets dangerously close to trying to start a bit of a romance here and that’s really not going to work. Aside from the fact that they don’t get along at all, there are much bigger things to think about right now. The ole body heat technique also feels like it’s just around to force some relationship building for them when I don’t see that working very well and you’ll just end up freezing each other.

Overall, Wind Chill is a film that I would definitely recommend avoiding. It’s a fairly classic horror film that isn’t trying to do anything new but doesn’t really commit to the approach as much as it should. The whole time loop with the evil patrolman didn’t do the film any favors either. There are some things you can do with that if the flashback was more interesting or something but this guy was a pretty awful villain so no luck there. He’s also apparently been bumping people off every year since the 60s and nobody’s thought to start an investigation? Definitely give this one a skip.

Overall 1/10

The Siege 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 a film about the scary possibility of terrorists showing up to cause all kinds of terror on the city. It’s a pretty intense film to be sure although the heroes don’t make it any easier on themselves with all of the constant infighting. They seem to get in each other’s way as much as the villains do. It’s got a pretty solid premise even if I’d say it has some issues that keep it from being really solid. It’ll still keep your attention all the way through either way though.

The movie starts with FBI Agents Anthony and Frank trying to defuse a pretty intense terrorist situation with a bunch of people being stuck in a bus that has bombers in it. Anthony is able to at least get the kids out but everyone else dies. The most worrisome thing here is that there are apparently several other terrorist cells already active in Brooklyn so more of these disasters are going to happen. The tough part is how to pre-emptively stop these attacks before people end up dying. If you go too hard then you’re inevitably going to be hurting innocent people and if you stay reactive then innocent people are going to die in the explosions. So it’s a tough situation.

The film does a good job of showing that there are no easy solutions in a situation like this. You’ve got millions of people within the state and they are looking for less than 20 terrorists. Of course that’s just the number that they know but either way it is a very small percentage which does not work in their favor. People are not going to be happy with any option. Ultimately the president decides to call in the army once all other options fail and that brings General William to the forefront.

This guy is a pretty interesting character and I liked him. The whole film he is begging the president not to call him in because if that happens then they are going to be in a lot of trouble. As he says the army is like a blunt object. They will neutralize the threat but there will be a whole lot of collateral damage and it won’t be quiet or subtle. On the other hand the quiet ways with the FBI and CIA have not yielded any true results yet to the president pulls him in.

Thing is, William is very serious about succeeding even if it means that he does commit a lot of destruction. He treats Brooklyn as he would any warzone in which case he is kidnapping people and also resorting to torture right away. This guy is not holding back at all. As the film goes on he starts to look more and more unhinged but what adds to his character is the fact that he initially didn’t want to be called in. It was a real last resort so he knew that he would lose control. There’s a whole lot you could say about a character like this.

Meanwhile Anthony is doing his best here but it sure is tough. He’s trying to solve this case by staying within the rules but that means he has no time to make any true progress. He also has to deal with the CIA agent Elise who is not making this any easier by keeping a whole lot of secrets. She is working with a guy named Samir who is a big criminal himself but she figures he can lead them to the terrorists. Anthony is not comfortable with this plan at all but compromises because he has no real alternatives.

Anthony takes a lot of risks and is always in the front lines so you can definitely appreciate him here. He’s a really good main character. His partner Frank also gets a big role but tends to lose his cool a little too quickly. There’s the scene where he punches a suspect and has to be calmed down and then he really loses it when the army takes his son. It definitely is rough to be treated just like the rest of the suspects after all his years of faithful service. You can understand why all suspects have to be brought in even ones with government ties. It’s the only logical approach but because the army is committing a lot of human rights violations and treating people badly it’s just shining even more of a light on that.

I didn’t really care for Elise though. Sure as a CIA member she has to keep some secrets but I think she keeps too many of them and this ultimately comes at the expense of the other heroes at times. The whole way she handles Samir was not good. I never liked the trope of basically trying to seduce the enemy, it’s too heavy a price to move forward. Then you’d also have to acknowledge that the one you’re trying to manipulate could just be enjoying the benefits while not actually being manipulated.

Having informants itself is a controversial move to be sure since you’re basically allowing criminals to run free in the hopes of getting others. Perhaps it is necessary sometimes but choosing those moments and not crossing the line is not an easy task at all. I just thought her judgment was really off here the whole time. Meanwhile Samir is never portrayed as a good guy himself. He commits crimes and just keeps on moving. He has a lot of protection so he’s never really had to worry a whole lot and it’s sort of annoying to see him be to brazen the whole time.

While I think the heroes could have handled this all a lot better, it’s also easy to backseat coach after it’s all over. Ultimately the film delivers on having a lot of political intrigue the whole time and the characters debating what the right thing to do is. William goes a bit far by the end but it also leads to a really tense scene at the climax that is one of the highlight moments of the film.

Overall, The Siege is a film you won’t soon forget. They really did a good job of exploring what it could be like to have active terrorist cells in the city with the government trying to deal with it. It would certainly be a terrifying ordeal and deciding how far to go would be a big point of discussion. Especially with online discourse you know there would be a million opinions right away. I don’t see things ever escalating in quite the way they did in this film like calling out the army and shutting down a whole borough but at the same time you never really know.

Overall 6/10

Invisible Agent Review

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It’s time for another film in the Invisible franchise although I doubt many people have heard of this one. Invisible Agent is a very different take on the Invisible Man approach but one where the concept is sound. With a more likable main character you could easily picture this being the guy’s superhero origin and being a great template to follow. If there was ever a way to show how the Invisible Man could be a superhero, this would be the path to take.

The film starts off by introducing us to Frank who is the grandson of the guy who created the Invisible Man formula. He has sworn to never give it to anyone but he is attacked by a group of fiends. He barely fends them off and escapes to the police but decides not to give the formula to America either. After that Pearl Harbor occurs and he decides that it’s time to finish off the opposition. He agrees to use the formula but the catch is that he only trusts himself with it. So Frank is to go undercover and another agent named Maria will help him out. Unfortunately Frank has fallen madly in love with her and is determined to be with her even if it means costing the mission and losing the war.

This is where Frank quickly begins to fall off. See, the issue with this guy is that he should be putting his country first but almost feels like he is intentionally sabotaging the war effort after a while. Anything that he can do wrong, he does. He gets in the way constantly when Maria is trying to get information out of a guy called Karl. Frank messes with the guy by eating his food, shoving him, and just being a general nuisance. The scenes may be played for humor but Frank is doing things that would appear to be impossible for a normal person. Naturally this means that the villains who are aware of the invisible serum immediately know it’s him.

With this kind of power the whole point is that you should never have to tip your hand so what happened? Frank just made a mess of everything and as a result you definitely aren’t supporting his romance with Maria. It just doesn’t make sense and she should be so mad with him that she wouldn’t be interested in being with the guy either. It’s all so fast and none of it makes a whole lot of sense. You’re just not going to buy these developments.

Maria had been doing just fine on her own up until that point. She still does her best with damage control the whole time but it’s pretty tough going after a while. Meanwhile Karl’s definitely one of those villains who isn’t very smart and is basically sabotaging the villains himself. He’s like their version of Frank so things start to balance out there. I actually thought Conrad and Karl made for two very solid villains though. The fact that they were from different countries involved in World War II made for some interesting tension. They’re both villains and have an alliance at the moment but it’s not like they can trust each other at all either. Such is the life of a villain right? You’re getting yourself into a very bad spot right out of the gate.

The script is good as you’d expect with a lot of fun dialogue from all the characters. The movie goes by really quickly too and I still love the concept of using the invisibility serum in a war setting. If you’d use it right it would just be such a broken ability to have. No base would be safe, no secret left unnoticed. You’d always have to watch out for someone being around. Sure with modern technology it would be easier in a lot of ways but even then there is a ton of damage that could be done. The first country to perfect invisible technology would have such a large leg up over the competition.

Now, if Frank was a better character then I would say that I don’t mind his decision to use the serum himself. Due to how dangerous it is you can absolutely see why he wouldn’t want anyone else to know how to use it and even if they win the war, once the formula leaves your hands you can bet that the government is going to hang onto the instructions just in case. That’s just how these things work. It would be needed for the future wars and then the enemies would eventually get it and then you’ve got an ever escalating war as always.

I did enjoy the scenes at the round table with the government discussing how to handle things. It’s the one thing that was missing from the film since we didn’t get a lot of planning and things like that. Really once Frank arrives it’s more about just getting intel and fighting the villains but he’s left to his own devices for the most part. The film’s short so they can’t let too many things be happening at once but I’d gladly extend the film another 20 minutes if it meant we could have more Mission Impossible type scenes of infiltration and planning. I mean with being invisible you would expect that to be a given right?

Overall, Invisible Agent is a pretty good movie. The romance as well as Frank himself are definitely the weak points here but the film has strong enough fundamentals to get past them. It’s got a solid amount of action and suspense throughout after all. The movie started out strong with the opening fight as the villains nearly get the better of Frank twice but ultimately he’s able to fend them off. It was a good fight and the film certainly showed that it could handle a solid fight scene when it wanted to that’s for sure. The action here was on point throughout the film and I would recommend checking it out. They should do more Invisible Man films with this kind of a plot. Maybe do one where he’s a villain on the opposing side.

Overall 7/10

The Leopard Man Review

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I have to say that this movie would have been a bit more suspenseful with a different title. It sort of takes away from the mystery you know? Now in some ways maybe originally they weren’t sure what angle to take with the film but most of the film plays up the experience as a suspenseful mystery so calling it “The Leopard” would have been much more effective if you ask me.

So the movie starts with a leopard being brought in to spice up a rather boring nightclub scene. It certainly draws some attention but not what Jerry had planned as it ends up murdering a lady named Teresa and escapes into town. Now everyone is terrified that they could be next and the thing is…they could be. The bodies start piling up and so the heroes have to find this leopard but it’s proven to be difficult. It’s also odd that the leopard would hang around town for so long and not be seen.

So the mystery here of course is to find the leopard…but then that title is rather interesting now isn’t it? Hmm…really makes you think. Really….well yeah so there is a human villain running around too. It does stretch my disbelief a bit that each victim could be murdered in such a realistic way as to mimic a leopard without anyone noticing. Yes he would always wait until the women were alone but it seems like this would take time and cause a lot of noise so you’d think someone would be around. It’s pretty rough that there’s no night traffic in this city.

It’s definitely a rather grim movie with everyone getting bumped off by the serial killer. The leopard does work well as a solid red herring because he actually does claim a victim as well. If not for the title I don’t think you would assume that this is a human until rather deep in the film when one guy keeps on insisting that it wouldn’t be possible. This is where some characters start to get really annoying though.

First off is the leopard’s owner Charlie who defends his pet but then Dr. Galbraith starts to suggest that maybe Charlie is murdering people after he gets drunk at night. And Charlie actually starts to believe this. Look, if you’re drinking so much that you black out and seriously think you could be murdering people then that means you have drunk way too much. There’s just no way around that, it’s the only logical conclusion here. I would have preferred if Charlie was a little stronger than that.

Meanwhile Clo-Clo is warned by Maria that she is in danger and something dark is approaching. Considering that there have already been murders by this point you’d think this would be serious but instead she runs off in the dead of night to reclaim her $100 and things don’t go over very well. She wasn’t the nicest character so you were expecting her to die the whole time but it’s still really tragic. Cmon the fortune teller did her best!

Not that I would pay Maria much mind myself but I wouldn’t go out of my way to test out the fortunes either. Maria probably could have been more helpful instead of constantly hiding the results and asking for a redo but in the end it doesn’t seem like it would have done a whole lot of good. Jerry is okay I guess but kind of forgettable. I don’t blame him for bringing in the leopard since by all accounts this should have been fairly safe. I do blame him for pretending he doesn’t care much to keep up appearances while worrying later on. Just be frank with everyone that this is a pretty bad situation.

Kiki is the main heroine here and the whole thing is pretty rough on her as well. So much for being the next sensation at the disco club with everything going on. She does decide to take a bold approach in helping to find the murderer so that was brave of her. She seems like a good person all in all. As for the murderer, well he’s rather crazy so there isn’t a whole lot to say about him. He just went looney and used this as an excuse to start taking names. It feels like it’s inevitable that this would have happened at some point with how quickly he cracked though and he just would have had a different gimmick. You’re glad things don’t end up going well for him.

There’s really not a whole lot to this film being the murders. It’s really short so the film has to go fast and just start bumping everyone off. The most tragic murder is easily the first one since the girl’s family were just so over the top mean about the whole thing. You’d think they would open the door when she’s begging for her life and in clear terror. Even from the start sending her out in the dead of night when there is a beast on the loose is crazy. Yeah you don’t want to be in that household, that’s for sure.

I will say that the film has good writing though. I did enjoy the exchanges between all of the characters and the dialogue style is something that’s hard to recreate compared to these older films. They just had a very distinguished air about them that always worked really well. Mix that in with the short length and at least it is a silver lining here. It would be nice if the characters had more time to do some serious investigating as opposed to being spoonfed the information needed to solve the case though.

Overall, The Leopard Man is definitely a skip. It probably wouldn’t have gone much better if the leopard was the main villain either to be honest since the climax would probably get a bit sketchy in that case. This doesn’t make for a very fun film in large part due to how tragic the deaths are. They’re described in decent detail here and while it’s inevitable that a bunch of people will die in a film like this, there aren’t a lot of light moments to really help you enjoy the film despite them. It’s not super violent or anything but the villain gets away with a whole lot before being caught.

Overall 3/10