Tag Archives: Thriller

Count Yorga, Vampire Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 0/10

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 0/10

Body Snatchers Review

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

Time for another Body Snatchers film. This one doesn’t really take the concept as far as it could have gone though. There isn’t a whole lot of focus on the actual alien dopplegangers running around until near the end and by then the film is almost over so it’s more about running and shooting. I would have liked to have seen the humans have to walk among them a bit more, use some strategy and all of that. It felt like we missed out on a pretty hype amount of potential scenes there.

So the film starts with Steve and his family heading over to a military base to run some samples. Steve is part of the EPA and it seemed like their might be some health issues over here. Little did he know that the issues run deeper than he could suspect. The base is slowly being taken over by aliens who are kidnapping the humans in their sleep and replacing them with an alien body double. A guy tries to warn Steve’s daughter Marti inside of the bathroom but considering how crazy he looked and how he had a knife, the guy just seemed insane. Once the heroes start being picked off, they have to wonder if it might already be too late.

One thing that the film does really well is the dialogue from the alien version of Carol. While Steve looks horrible during this whole sequence, she starts talking about how there is no place to hide. The aliens are everywhere already and the instant he falls asleep it will be game over. She makes a solid case for why he should give up. This is usually where the guy would yell about friendship, determination, how he’ll fight to the last breath, etc. Instead he doesn’t do any of that and falls into her arms. It was quite embarrassing really but the speech was given in a good way. The film made the speech actually appear to be rather creepy which isn’t easy.

Lets talk about Steve though and why he’s such a bad character here. The guy just doesn’t take any hints and he’s not very available for Marti. I’d say he was right to chase the military guys off for letting Marti drink and missing curfew. That’s certainly reasonable and it’s not like it was hard to get home at 12. I’d never want them to see Marti again either. Where he falters is in not taking any time to connect with Marti here especially since he went on the rebound so quickly. Then after being told about how people are acting differently he takes no steps with that. Maybe he could have at least connected the dots that Carol was a bit different.

Additionally, he absolutely falters at the end of the film. So by this point he knows about the aliens and all of that so he needs to get back to his family. What does he do? He sits down and begins to cry. This is not the time for that! We don’t see how the scene ends but presumably this is when they grabbed him and took the guy out. There’s a time to get emotional and all but this wasn’t it, not by a longshot. It just made him an easy target and in the end that was game over.

Meanwhile Carol was taken out rather quickly so there’s not as much to say about her. She and Marti didn’t get along but you can blame a lot of that on Marti as well though since she wasn’t trying to keep an open mind for any of this either. It’s really a mixed bag with both parties not doing so well here. Marti never grew on me during the film either. She lets bad influences corrupt her rather quickly. There’s no way she should be drinking yet and staying up past curfew is just asking for trouble. She’s also easily fooled by one of the aliens into looking back and giving away her position and takes a while to make a decision near the end.

Marti is not the kind of main character that you want in your corner. Her younger brother Andy also isn’t quite old enough to help much at this point either. So even though he can see the aliens…what’s he going to do about it? Nobody will believe him anyway and that can be annoying. I also have to question a few scenes with him like how he actually escaped the school of aliens. Surely they could catch one kid right? That whole bit seemed like a poorly written way of trying to alert the rest of the characters.

Jenn may not have been a good influence but at least she had some character. It would have been nice if she could have done more once she found out that her mom was acting strangely though. Her character just sort of vanishes after that. Tim is the standout character here. The guy is jumped by a bunch of the villains but keeps his cool and also does well in hiding his emotions. The guy is a soldier and that training really came in handy here. It was nice to see a character who wasn’t panicking or cracking under pressure like that. He should have been the main character to be honest.

The way the creatures take over the humans is definitely interesting with how the worms slowly get you. Why don’t the aliens just handcuff the guys once they are in the process of turning though? I assume they have a hive-like mind so they know when this is in process but if not it would be easy enough to coordinate. As soon as the character is asleep and the process has started, have a few aliens run in and just pin the character down. That way if they wake up there is still no way to escape. Given how this happens several times you’d think that would be an option.

You certainly feel bad for the humans who notice and are unable to escape though like one army guy who fights off several aliens before being taken down. He did good to last that long. The initial period during the alien attack is always the most hectic so if you can survive that then your odds of survival increase. It’s why this would really be an excellent plot for a whole TV show. It’s the kind of story that can really keep going and be really exciting for 10 seasons. Of course you want to be careful with pacing but there’s just so much you can do and it’s why the plot is golden.

Now because of the length of one movie you know that the movie can’t do everything with it but I still feel like it didn’t do much. I like the intrigue of not knowing who has turned and so more scenes of the characters just existing and living out the day before the grand climax would have been really good. I’d like a strategy session with the heroes where they think about next steps and things like that. The film’s just too short to get into all of that.

I also like to think there should be a more visually interesting way of making the clone than using the little worms everywhere. It’s sci-fi so how it works doesn’t really matter (I assume the worms transmit the energy or something) but make it cooler like a ray or something. The time it takes to make a clone also seems inconsistent with some taking forever like when they grabbed the main girl but other times it’s really quick like when the Dad was taken. There are time jumps in the film so you could say that a lot of time had passed I suppose. It’s probably one where you could do the math and see if it really adds up.

I really liked the scream that the aliens do when they have caught somebody. Now that’s eerie. The movie really nails down a lot of the horror elements of what would make an alien invasion scary. In some ways it’s scarier than a Xenoomorph invasion because at least there you know who to blast while here you have to be careful about friendly fire. Especially the longer the invasion goes on since people will be pretending to be like the aliens in order to survive.

Overall, Body Snatchers has a great plot but finishes before it can be fully executed. We don’t get a lot of scenes for the intrigue of exactly what this means for the Earth. The story is focusing on a small area which is fine enough but then I want to see them reacting. The way the body transfers go is also a little on the gross side so they should switch that method up in the future. The obligatory bath scene will also make you shake your head since it has no relevance to the movie. Nobody is seriously falling asleep in the bath at a time like this. Cmon now. The movie could have used a better main cast too since the family wasn’t likable and you’re just waiting for the army guy the whole time. If you really like the plot then it may be worth checking this one out in order to see it in action but otherwise you’re better off checking out one of the older versions.

Overall 3/10

Christine Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 4/10

Carrie Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 1/10

Deep Rising Review

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

It’s time for a movie about survival with a little mystery thrown in for good measure. The movie’s got a fairly interesting premise although I wouldn’t say it makes the most of this and a fantastic ending but one that likely won’t be followed up on. So the movie’s in a rather interesting space there but it does have its moments. You’ll just walk away feeling like it left a lot of meat on the bone.

The movie starts off with John and his crew carrying a bunch of shady characters on their boat. John runs an operation where he will take you and your people/belongings to wherever you want. He won’t ask questions as long as he gets his money and so a lot of crooks love this. This particular group is really shady but it’s all going good until John’s partner Joey decides to make trouble for all of them. It’s only the first in what would soon be a whole lot of issues from that guy. Now all of the good will is lost and the heroes know too much so they’re taken aboard the cruise that the villains were going on. There’s just one problem…all of the passengers have vanished somehow. John needs to think of a way off this boat and fast or his group will follow suit.

The villains are led by Hanover as their version of John. This guy is after something within the ship and it’s clearly important because even the disappearance of everyone on the ship isn’t enough for him to turn back. Definitely a massive tactical error on his part to be honest. This is already such a strange situation that you shouldn’t want to get anywhere close. Of course with the ship they had been using already busted by this point, he was between a rock and a hard place.

What I appreciated about the film is how petty this guy is in addition to being evil. There is one moment later on in the film where he is given the option to go out painlessly or try to attack one of the heroes again. Naturally he goes with the latter and I haven’t seen a villain that determined in a while. It definitely shows what kind of man he was even to the bitter end. He was the most interesting villain by far though and had a good dynamic with the heroes.

I already mentioned that Joey causes a lot of trouble and he definitely does get real annoying in this movie. Why would he have to check on what the villains brought on the ship? The whole point of the agreement is that everything is kept secret so the drivers don’t have to know what’s going on. Joey put the whole crew in danger and without any payoff. Okay so the heroes know that the villains are carrying nukes. What are they going to do about it? Sometimes it’s best not to know. Of course the best option would be to not drive these guys in the first place but since they’re already doing that anyway, then it becomes an issue when Joey is putting them in a bad spot like this.

Joey also wastes a grenade later on during clutch time and doesn’t come up big at any points. He’s always got something to say and while this can result in some good lines once in a while, on the whole he just wasn’t very good and I wouldn’t say that he was a big success as the comic relief either. He’s a character that you just wanted out of the way as soon as possible that’s for sure.

Now John was a good main character though. He took a lot of big risks when needed in order to help his crew and stood up to the villains. It’s not like he’s a fighter and he was heavily outnumbered but John wasn’t going to let one of his guys get beaten to death. I appreciated his courage there and throughout the film he is good at improvising and turning losses into wins. He’s the kind of guy you could definitely look up to and a large reason why the film works well enough is directly because of him.

There is also Leila but she actually doesn’t get a lot to do from the main 3. She misses out on the full adventure because she has to stay on the other ship to work on repairs while everyone else goes aboard the cruiser. You can imagine that things don’t go great for her. I would go as far as to say that she’s pretty much a wasted character. I didn’t think that her role really made a difference in the story to the point where you could cut her out completely and nothing would really change. That’s never a good thing for a character.

By far the worst character here is Simon though. He’s one of those traitors who just wants a lot of money and is willing to destroy a ton of people in order to get his big pay day. The guy continues to get worse and worse as the film goes on. It’s pretty crazy just how awful this guy is. He lasts a long time too so once he is around you can expect him to betray the heroes over and over again. If there is a way for him to make the adventure harder then that is what he’ll do.

Meanwhile you also have a thief named Trillian running around the ship. She’s an interesting character. I tend to like the classic thief types. She has some skills but ultimately picked off a bit more than she could chew with this cruise. They have an impressive amount of security measures in place and it’s clear that this is the kind of boat you would be on if you want to be safe. You know..not counting the monsters but that’s not exactly the cruise’s fault. Trillian helps out a lot during the battles and knows how to use a gun so I appreciated that. She contributes a ton in getting the heroes out of a bad situation.

In general the movie had some good humor at times and the pacing was good. I liked the mystery and intrigue of how everyone vanished. Of course you know it involves a monster if you’ve seen the trailers or read the synopsis but if you went in blind then that would really be a compelling angle to be wondering about. The monster itself doesn’t appear for a while but once it does, it actually does get a good amount of screen time. This isn’t one of those films trying to hide the monster the whole time, when it shows up its ready for a lot of action and to claim some big wins.

It’s not the most impressive monster design but either way it’s not a creature you would want to fight in the ocean. That would put you in a bad spot because it’s so strong. It would be nice if it was fully bullet proof though. I feel like making the eyes vulnerable takes away from the giant monster experience a bit. I also would have liked the film to play around with the empty cruise a bit more. Have the characters wonder more about what happened here and slowly get picked off. That was some of the best scenes in the film so stretching it out a bit longer before they found survivors would have been fun.

The movie can get a little violent at times. This creature isn’t holding back after all. I wouldn’t say that it ever gets into Alien territory or anything like that but there are definitely big kills in the film and the monster isn’t afraid to really make the humans suffer.

Overall, Deep Rising is a reasonable monster movie. More films should try this mystery dynamic as it has a lot of potential behind it. It’s just a shame that we’re not getting a sequel because the ending was perfect. I think it would have ended up leading up to a sequel that would have been even better than the original. I would have had really high hopes for that one and I think it would have absolutely paid off. Ah well, either way if you like films with a little creature action and survival themes then this is a good one to check out. It’s on the fence on if I would really recommend it to someone but you can tell more or less if this is your style of movie. Picture Alien but a bit lighter with more banter and a comic relief character at the ready and more of an escape option since they aren’t trapped in space.

Overall 5/10

Annabelle: Creation Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 4/10

Blair Witch Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 3/10

The Wolfman Review

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

Oof, this is one of those films where you figure that it’s not going to be good from the start. It’s going for the ultra violent route to the Wolfman mythos and in the meantime you also have a romantic rebound going on which never helps anything. I think there are parts of this story that can be a little interesting but at the end of the day there isn’t much going in its favor. I’m not a big fan of the setting for starters and beyond that there aren’t many good characters. The film is also very mean spirited which doesn’t help anything either so it becomes a bit of a wash.

The movie starts with Lawrence coming into town after his brother was brutally murdered by something. Everyone has their own theories but it was either a wild animal or..something supernatural. Lawrence takes care of business but he ends up getting bitten and now he is doomed to be the next Wolfman. In an old town where everyone is superstitious, that’s not a good thing. Additionally Lawrence has little to no control over this transformation either so he could really end up hurting someone. Can he find a way to either stop his transformations or get out of town?

There is a lot of mystery in the air throughout the film but at the end of the day there isn’t much Lawrence can do for most of it. When he’s not being assaulted by the villagers or manipulated by Sir. John, he’s being strapped to a chair and tortured by the doctor. That had to be the worst scene in the film by far. So this doctor decides that he will use shock therapy to save Lawrence and the way he does this is to continuously electrocute him until Lawrence can feel his mind slipping away the entire time. Lawrence can barely focus or even think rationally by this point so he starts hallucinating.

I should mention that the film loves its fake jump scares and hallucinations. Get ready for his mind to play tricks on him in rather violent ways. I suppose that’s the best way to escape the actual pain in the real world but I still feel like this whole sequence had no purpose being here. Of course he will end up murdering this guy viciously in his Wolfman form but did we need Lawrence to go through all of that? I personally don’t think he deserved it.

Not to say that Lawrence is a great guy or anything but it was all so extreme…much like the rest of this film. You will be hard pressed to find a Werewolf film more violent than this one. They really wanted to show people getting ripped apart and eaten alive. One poor guy is basically hung up with what’s left of him for the world to see and that guy at least had some experience with werewolves. The whole movie felt rather mean spirited and even the dead couldn’t know peace.

So at the start of the film Lawrence’s brother was brutally murdered and his fiancé is the one who was pushing for Lawrence to arrive so that he could help out. She must be in a lot of deep distress over this tragedy right? Well…she falls for Lawrence rather quickly and they have a romance. How could this possibly happen? Rebounds are bad enough as it is but this one had two reasons for why it should not have happened at all. The first is fairly obvious which is that she’s now going out with the guy’s brother. You never rebound with family, that’s just awful. The second is the circumstances of the brother’s death which you think would add some extra time to how long you wait before entering another romance.

So the romance here was particularly bad without a doubt. It really hurt the character of both Lawrence and Gwen. I can’t say that I liked either one of them by the end. Gwen doesn’t do a whole lot beyond the romance either. Then for Lawrence, well he goes through a lot for sure and I can’t say there are many things he could have done differently but he probably should have dashed out when he had the chance.

John is the most interesting character because he’s rich, aloof, and a little odd. He knows how to use a gun and isn’t afraid to threaten the entire town with it. You can tell that nobody’s going to be messing with this guy that’s for sure. As the film goes on he gets shadier and shadier but is ultimately the character who adds the most to the movie. At least he always takes over any scene that he’s in. Then we have Inspector Francis but I feel like he’s fairly generic. The guy basically admits that his skills aren’t great so he waits at the pub until the Wolf makes his next move. The location of the pub is quite convenient for him and all but he’s still not putting in a lot of the work personally. I expected him to have a much more active role in all of this.

I at least enjoyed one exchange between him and Lawrence where they traded insults during the entire conversation. Neither one of them was going to back down in the slightest and it was nice to see. It ended up being a stalemate but I always like it when a character doesn’t meekly just take the insults or anything like that. Lawrence wasn’t going to take it and the Inspector has a lot of experience on his end.

Overall, The Wolfman doesn’t really add anything to the mythos. Instead I would say that it’s one of the weakest installments in the series. It’s ultra violent without much reason behind this and the story is fairly basic. You could tell that the story was not the highest priority for the writers compared to just making this as gory as possible. There really isn’t much reason for the film to exist at all. The torture was also gratuitous and all the shock value moments just serve to weaken the movie. I would absolutely recommend giving this one a skip. You’re better off with just about any other film about a Universal monster and considering that Dracula is around, that’s saying something. There are some worse films out there to be sure like Frankenstein but it’s best that you don’t seek those out either.

Overall 2/10

Narrow Margin Review

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

The original Narrow Margin was a lot of fun and this movie is a blast too. It’s always a good idea to have a film take place in a train because there is so much that you can do with the concept. You better believe that this one makes the most of it. You’ll be hooked from start to finish and that is the sign of a great movie.

So things start off with Carol being set up on a blind date with a rich guy. She figures this is fun enough and even follows him when the guy has to go to his room. He’s quickly bumped off for double crossing a powerful criminal mastermind though and Carol goes into hiding. A guy named Robert then shows up and explains that they need her testimony in order to put the criminal away for good. It won’t be easy of course and she will be in tons of danger but the villains aim to silence her anyway even if she says no. So Carol very reluctantly plays ball but in fairness she doesn’t have much of a choice. Once they get on the train, it should be clear sailing except that the villains have managed to get on as well. This could get dicey now.

Now there is a decent amount of set up before they get on the train so even if that’s where all of the big action is, it’s nice that the film sets things up rather carefully. You already have a good idea about the characters before they get on the train. Robert is set up as a very smart guy right from the jump and one who isn’t easily deterred by his boss. If Robert thinks that the best thing to do is get Carol on the stand then he’s going to do everything necessary to get her on board.

He’s up against a ton of opposition and the odds aren’t in his favor so that’s part of what makes it all very impressive. You can count on Robert to get in there and stay strong at all times. There is one point where two villains show up just to threaten Robert for a while and he’s able to continue the conversation the whole time without backing down or appearing to be afraid. It was a super tense conversation so just holding his own there was really good. A lot of other characters would not have been able to do that under similar circumstances.

The villains are also written pretty well. While the mob boss doesn’t appear much after the initial scene, I thought it was a very good entrance. He certainly kept his lackey afraid all the way until the end and he was in control the whole time. The guys he sent to intimidate Robert also did good and were quite good at their job. Even the two who pretended to be cops and cornered Robert at the stall did good. While most of these villains were ultimately one shots or characters who never stood a chance, they felt like real villains.

Then you have Carol who very wisely doesn’t want to have any part in this. I don’t blame her because it never seems like the witness protections are very good and this isn’t something that she signed up to die for. Robert even admits that he can’t totally protect her here but ultimately once the villains have Carol in their sites, she really has to do this. If they’re going to bump her off anyway then she may as well get them behind bars right?

So the choice was made for her in this case but otherwise I absolutely understood why she didn’t want to take the stand. Throughout the movie you also have traitors, conspiracies, and a lot of twists so you really can’t trust anyone. The movie spreads out the twists quite well and so you even still have another one near the end. Everyone is more than they appear to be and the movie did a really good job of showing that.

At the end of the day I have a lot of praise for the film because the writing was so great. It’s a very engaging movie that is written as if it was one of the older ones. There is even a touch of humor like when the fat guy walks in which is a homage to the old film and also with Robert’s final scene with the villains. It was the ideal ending and really helped to wrap up a film that was already very strong on all sides. I didn’t really have any issues with the movie and it has a considerable amount of replay value.

This is the kind of film that usually wouldn’t get a sequel but I think it would work out very nicely in this case. Robert feels like he could serve the role as the main character in other adventures because he’s quick on his feet and is strategic. Those are two qualities you always need in a main character and given his job, you could have another big story with other crime bosses. Perhaps you could even have this guy try to get revenge. It would be difficult for the sequel to match up to this one but I’d like to see the attempt.

Overall, Narrow Margin is a film that you should absolutely check out. It’s a great thriller with a lot of really solid characters. The action scenes are handles well and there is always a lot of tension with all of the characters running around the train. The train is quite large after all so there is danger around every corner and no easy way out. It’s part of the appeal of the location because then you really have to use strategy. Usually the villains aren’t going to just shoot everyone on the train and so that gives the heroes a chance as they try to blend in and last a bit longer. I’ve never been on a big train like this before but it always looks interesting.

Overall 8/10