Category Archives: Reviews

Horror, Movies, Reviews, Writing

Another Evil: Movie Review

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INTRODUCTION: This looked like a quirky, fun flick. It is billed as a horror comedy, but that is misleading, it is more horror with humor than a horror comedy. In my mind, the difference between horror comedy and horror with humor, is that a heavy part of the movie is humor driven if it is a horror comedy. This is such filled with some, dry, but still funny humor.

CHARACTERS: Pretty interesting. The family could be better developed, but the two main characters are pretty good. I found myself giving a shit, even with the less developed characters.

ACTING: Good, but still kind of weak. It’s not the “oh, I’ll hire my friends type of movie” but its more that “oh, I’ve done a few indie flicks, but need to hone my craft a bit still” type.

FX: VERY GOOD!

MUSIC: Very effective and works.

TENSION: High!

SUBTEXT: Appearances can be deceiving. Mental illness in our country and the plight of our neighbors which can spill into our own lives. Millennial’s inability to connect with people correctly. Take your pick!

CONCLUSION: It’s flawed, but it is quite the gem and really worth giving it a good. I enjoyed the flick the whole way though and don’t think it lagged behind anywhere. It is really worthwhile!

4 out of 5 stars.

Movies, Reviews, Writing

DeadTectives from Shudder, Review

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INTRODUCTION: Deadtective’s is a great horror comedy in the vain of Ghostbusters. It isn’t a very unique premise, but it is still an interesting flick.

SYNOPSIS: Ghost hunters, whose show is usually faked, get sent to Mexico for one last attempt at a rating boosting show or risk being canceled. Unfortunately, this place is actually haunted.

CHARACTERS: No a lot of depth, but unique and different that we can enjoy them for who they are.

ACTING: Fantastic, from all of them. Some off moments, but not many.

DIALOGUE: Very good!

VISUALS: Surprisingly, very good!

MUSIC: Not bad, but nothing spectacular.

TENSION: Strong enough, but not enough to get you there.

SUBTEXT: None

CONCLUSION: This is another win for Shudder with their exclusives. I really like Shudder and what they offer and the movies they’re doing are different, but familiar at the same time and quite a few of them are a win. It’s a lot better than your straight to DVD fare from back in the day. This is funny, scary in some parts and a good way to kill an afternoon. Recommended.

3 1/2 out of 5

Fashionably Late Reviews, Movies, Review, Writing

Fashionably Late Movie Reviews: Overlord.

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INTRODUCTION: Overlord, was a movie I wanted to see back in 2018, but opted to wait. I’m not sad that I waited, but at the same time, this would have been wicked to have seen. It’s one of the better WW2 flicks in a good long while and I think you’ll enjoy this one. It isn’t as good as Dead Snow and it isn’t about zombies, like the trailer made it out to be, but it is still the best WW2 movie I have seen since Saving Private Ryan.

SYNOPSIS: The day before D-Day and a group of soldiers are sent into Normandy with the task of disrupting a transmissions tower in order for ground troops to successfully make it to the beach.

CHARACTERS: Not bad! You don’t really feel bad for them, but each one is likable enough that they’re not overtly shallow. The “villain” is definitely weak as fuck. He is a want be Hans Lambda from Inglorious Bastards, but with none of the charm or anything remotely likable, making him just a cliché. Each one is unique enough that they’re memorable and you can tell them apart, but you aren’t going to see any iconic characters come out of this movie.

ACTING: All the actors did very well. None of them are going to win an award for this, but it was very good.

STYLE: Fantastic! I loved the visuals and the FX would pretty damn good!

MUSIC: Nothing iconic, but works with the flick.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY: Mostly true to the time period and very well done.

TENSION: Is there and you can feel it in spades. It’s a slow burn, but not that slow of a burn. Really well balanced.

SUBTEXT: None, except for the overt, don’t play God, but, whatever.

CONCLUSION: This is one fine movie. I don’t think it is one I would watch over and over again, but it was fun at least once. I could see myself watching it at least one more time, though. The acting is one point, the visuals are good, the tension is there, the characters aren’t bad and the acting is very good. It has a few errors and I wasn’t too fond of the censoring of the Nazi logo in exchange for a different logo entirely. I understand some people don’t want to accidentally up-sell Nazi Germany, but I don’t think censoring history is the way to go. Other than that and a couple of other small gripes, it was Sher Gut!

4 out of 5.

Kagegiving, Reviews

Kagegiving: Channel Zero Review

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INTRODUCTION: What do you get when you cross American Horror Story with elements of The Shining? You get Channel Zero! Now if you like me you probably seen the weird demon thing that’s made entirely out of teeth. I quite frankly and had no clue where that was from but I’ve seen the memes innumerable times. Well I finally got around to watching season 1 of Channel Zero and I have to say it is quite a horrible show. That isn’t to say that it’s not without Merit, but the show is just not for me. I know there’s about Four Seasons total but I don’t know if I can bring myself to watch past season 1. So for Kagegiving, here is my review.

PLOT: Dude goes back home do you see his mom after having been committed for three days to a psych ward with his past haunting him and he’s looking for answers, hoping it will help him put everything behind him, but weird Supernatural stuff starts happening and it all goes to hell.

CHARACTERS: The characters on the show a better developed than most in the beginning, sadly they don’t continue on that trend throughout the season. They’re all kind of bland and boring. I like the fact that they would give the character’s background, through exposition and flashbacks. You know make them seem real with traits from their childhood. It would have been nice if they’d kept this up had the weirdness of the town and candle cove to about mid season. It would of been stronger that way.

STORY: Story is actually relatively original, it’s fresh, or at least it appears that way.

DIALOGUE: The dialogue was mostly good I mean like I’ve always pointed out with you guys it’s hard to do bad dialogue, but this one didn’t have anything really strong or really quotable. there’s very few instances of very cringe writing , but not bad.

VISUALS: The visuals are very dated to the year 2000, I mean it looks very much like shows in that time. Which isn’t bad, it is actually preferable, especially compared to more modern-looking shows, which are just terrible. Dated works here and I would not call it retro.

MUSIC: The music is nothing to write home about in terms of being rememberable.. it’s not like Star Wars where it’s an iconic piece, but the music is high quality and helps to build a tension. There’s not a lot of tension in the show to begin with, it’s light levels of drama, but the music helps add tension that isn’t in the show.

ACTING: Acting was actually very solid by most the cast, there’s nothing that I consider really terrible at least out of my mind, occasionally there one or two times where it’s definitely off, but not overly so, at least not enough to have made me want to take off any points. I personally think that’s just say sometimes s*** happens and you know that was the best take they could muster, so you have to give credit. At least that the majority of the acting is still very excellent, even if it isn’t particularly Academy award-winning acting.

CONCLUSION: The show is not very memorable. There is nothing that standouts, to me other than that one iconic creepy tooth creature. I really feel like that’s the only thing from the show most people remember, I see nothing from latter seasons floating around. Just this one weird creepy things, that happens to be a Shudder advertisement. Ending was anti climatic, story was easy to predict, would of been better with no supernatural overtones. Maybe season two will be better, but I’m not optimistic. Overall it’s alright but nothing to write home about.

This gets a 3 out of 5

Kagegiving, Reviews, Writing

Kagegiving: CreepShow on Shudder.

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INTRODUCTION: Tales from the Crypt is a very old comic, but a classic comic line. Back in the day, these EC rated comics were said to warp the mind of the baby boomer kids’ reading such filth. I’ve read reprints and it was fun. In 1989, HBO brought a show to the television, with John Kassier voicing the aptly name Cryptkeeper. It’s was a hit and spawned two flicks and a Saturday morning cartoon show in the 90’s. Unbeknownst to me back then, in 1982, Stephen King and George Romero created a similar thing, called Creepshow. It was inspired by those old comics. I didn’t know Creepshow existed until I was in my early 20’s. Weird, given I had seen a massive amount of 80’s and 90’s horror. I still haven’t seen the two flicks, but I did enjoy Tales from the Crypt and the idea of an inspired by version intrigued me enough to give this series a go.

EPISODES:

ONE
This is a very weak start, the acting is phoned in, and even Tobin Bell isn’t at his best. He is more reminiscent of his 90’s TV acting, he just doesn’t seem like he wants to be here and these things are beneath him. I can’t blame the guy, feature films pay better and you become more notable. That is a necessity to becoming a serious actor in this world. Don’t forget, after the success of the Saw flicks, it’s not like he needs the work. His legacy is set for life as well. Roles like this could only diminish it. My interjected and unsolicited opinion on Tobin Bell’s acting career aside, it is very weak. None of the characters are very well developed, it is based on a Stephen King short story which only makes this worse, because it could have been so much more. The pacing of the story is all wrong and the ending feels unresolved, which is a running theme in this series.

The second part of this one is stronger than the first outing. The young girl acts circles around the adults and the character is wicked smart. Way smarter than your average 8 year old, figuring things out quite quickly. Sadly, the story is underdeveloped and feels 100% unresolved. The conclusion was weak and lacks what was needed to make us feel like there was something at stake. This isn’t a good start to this series.

TWO
Ok, this one sounds interesting, even though it is a rip off or homage to Rob Zombie’s trailer in Grindhouse. The characters are weakly developed, the plot as well. Interesting, albeit cheap FX and over all, not as good as it could be. Still, it improves over the first episode.

Episode two seems similarly reminiscent to the old monkey paw story, which you see foreshadowed throughout the series in the ads on the comic breaks. This one is meta as all hell and I found myself enjoying it, but still, I wanted more to the story and the obvious and cliché ending was shit. This should have been developed more and given the 44 minutes of the show. It would have been worth it.

THREE
This one is a very cool, but predictable concept. I really liked it, but again, it falls victim to too short of a time frame to develop the story more and give us sympathy for the characters. Obvious ending became obvious by the muffin scene and well, it did satisfy my appetite. For those of you that hate “forced” diversity, you’ll probably trigger over not just a black dude hanging out with white people, but the fact he is Satan. Your screams of “but muh forced diversity” will be worth listening to when you also trigger over the second part.

This is one cool fucking concept, because not a lot of American produced horror is inspired by the 1001 Arabian nights. If you’re unfamiliar with Arabic folklore, then you probably would not appreciate this one as much, but it is nice to see someone actually read these short stories and kept in line with its tone. Very cool! Still though, weak developed of the stories is plaguing this series, along with characters that need more development.

FOUR
The first story is meh and the second story is even worse. See the above for the same exact criticisms. Not worth extrapolating on.

FIVE
This episode should have been longer and Bruce Davidson is the strongest actor in this whole season and worthwhile, it is too bad his young co-star looks so much worse in comparison. The story is too short, but still a very interesting take on the Monkey’s Paw story and well worth watching.
The second “story” if you can call it that is cool concept, but feels like a deleted scene from a movie. Most of the backstory has to be told via exposition and it just isn’t worth it. They really phoned it in here and it is a worthless time to have paid David Arquette the money to even bother, when he could have been in something much better.

SIX
The first story could have been a movie and would have been great social commentary on people and their desire to talk the easy way out. Sadly, it wasn’t, but despite the misgivings of this episode, it was fun.
They end the season with a story based on a Joe Hill short. This was a very cool play on the old lochness monster myths, dipped with a little too much daddy issue subtext. One has to wonder if this wasn’t about Stephen King’s time as a blow junkie, figuratively chasing after monsters during this time period, as opposed to spending time with his children and in many in interview, King as mentioned his own version of various subtext. This probably has the best looking effect, short of The Finger, but still was mediocre, given the lack of development of story, characters and terrible pacing.

CONCLUSION:
This series has a running pattern of flaws, from underdeveloped characters to terrible pacing and lack of story or suspense build. It’s on Shudder, so I am willing to deal with the FX not being the best, especially because some of them are meant to be homages to past films. The episode with the Scarecrow comes to mind as it uses 80s stop motion as an homage to The Evil Dead. There are various other Easter eggs to movies and horror tv shows for Boomers, Gen X and Millennial and those are appreciated, but I need more than Easter eggs to get me to commit to this series for another season. I mean, some of the comic breaks are clearly inspired by the old 90’s Tales from the Crypt. All Hallow’s Eve brings up 70’s Dungeons and Dragons, but uses modern miniatures, which is weird and out of place. If season two can fix the plaguing flaws of season one, this might be a real game changer, but as of right now, my plans are to skip this, it isn’t really worth the time.

2 ½ out of 5.

Kagegiving, Reviews, Writing

Kagegiving: Jurassic Park by Micheal Crichton.

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INTRODUCTION: I loved Jurassic Park when I was a child. I first read the novel in the third grade, a few years after the movie had come out and I recall enjoying it. I later read The Lost World around the same time the movie came out. This wasn’t the only book of Mike’s that I read and enjoyed a lot of his work. So does it hold up? We shall see!

SYNOPSIS:
A group of people come to an island by one of their private investors and find out the world is filled with dinos. Then chaos ensues, because, chaos theory!

CHARACTERS:
There are a lot of differences from the characters in the movie, vs the book. Ian Malcom is more interesting in the novel than the movie. Grant likes kids here, and the ages of Tim and Lex are reversed. Jon Hammond is a douchnozzle and Nerdy is a thin hacker punk. In some ways, this is better than the movie and in other ways, it ruins it.

PROSE: Not good at all! The only bonus is that the accent is quite frenetic until you get into the middle where it bogs down and drags.

DIALOGUE: Very good!

SUBTEXT: Science is not to be trifled with and we shouldn’t be playing God.

CONCLUSION:
This book wasn’t as great as it was as a kid, but what it lacks in prose, it makes up for as one fuckin hell of a story, so it is worthwhile. If you saw the movie first, it is probably a tad bit of a downer and the science is mediocre for a dude who had a biology degree. I can see why he became a writer. Regardless, I think the biggest take away from this novel is the fact that Jon Hammond intentionally sabotaged the park. If you know anything about the MBTI, you know some ENTP’s like to intentionally cause problems so they can solve them and I think this is one of those cases. Hammond was recklessly negligent and risked his team, along with his grandchild. In this movie, he isn’t very family friendly and is a downright Scrooge, just out to make a buck. It is only fitting that Hammond, who lived by the dino also dies by the dino. Fuck this version of Jon Hammond. So is this something to be thankful for? I defer to Grant in the movie that I wouldn’t endorse this book, but it isn’t the worst novel that I ever read.

3 out of 5.