Tag Archives: horror movie reviews

Writing

Five Nights At Silent Hill (Until Dawn movie) review

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INTRODUCTION: So I’ve never played the game series this is based on, which is good, because I can give it a review from a general audience perspective. I’ve done the fanboy review thing enough that n my life.

PLOT: Video game ID blicks 4 young actors into thinking this will be a career catalyst, only to realize they probably aren’t finding more roles.

CHARACTERS: devoid of development and we don’t give a fuck about any of them.

ACTING: Not bad. You ain’t winning over the academy, but it’s more than tolerable.

FX: Not winning any awards either.

KILLS: Meh, except one part.

MUSIC: it exists

VISUALS: Dated to 2009 era, wanna be 70s/80s pallette scheme.

SUBTEXT: Surving Hollywood requires a lot of blow. Not even joking about this subtext. Think about it, unknown non developed actors, have to “survive” this bs five nights at Freddy’s by Silent Hill cross over and they have an hour glass looming over their fate. Yeah! Obviously it’s exactly about blow and being an actor.

CONCLUSION: This movie is plagued by trying to force homages to various horror tropes of yesterday and fails to find an identity all its own. The movie could have had a dank premise that turned things around on its head, had they had a competent crew, writer, director to elevate an interesting concept from c tier to a tier . The non fan of the game series is going to be left scratching their heads as to what the fuck is going on and why it’s happening. Much like the characters, we’re stuck in a loop wondering why we even bothered to watch.

2 out of 5 stars.

Writing

In Honor of Jaws 50: An excerpt of a screenplay from a teenage version of myself

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So I’ve been writing since I was young. I’ve done every major style I could produce and spent unteen million hours honing myself. Writing seems to run in my family. So my first screen, vs back in the 90s when I worked out a couple pages here and there for learning purposes, came about when I was 22. However, I was working out ideas in 2004 as well, long before YouTube even existed. My brother and I decided we would try to co-write a screenplay together, individually working on different scenes by ourselves and then I would type up our stuff into a word 1995 document. Remember, this is right before YouTube and we didn’t have any real reason to do this outside of wanting to challenge ourselves. So the premise? Parody Jaws. The take away? Writing screenplays by yourself is so much easier of a task. I don’t understand why Hollywood has to have 15 bajillion writers for one movie. However, it was a fun experience. So for the 50th anniversary of Jaws, here is a small example of what I was trying 20 years ago.

————————————————-

EXT. Emity docks- DAY

A crowd starts to gather excitedly. Roy walks over to a fisherman.

(Roy)

What’s all the commotion?

(Fisherman)

We caught the sharks

(Roy)

Sharks? As in more than one?

(Fisherman)

Yeah, i caught one, Ben caught one. So on and so forth.

(Roy)

Well congrats.

Roy and the fisherman shake hands as a photographer takes a picture.

(Hooper)

Roy, that’s not the shark.

(Fisherman)

What do you mean that’s not the shark. Look at the thing, it’s vicious.

(Hooper)

Its bite radius is too small for one.

(Fisherman)

Yeah, and?

(Hooper)

And it’s a dolphin.

(Fisherman)

A WHAAAT?

Above: How it could have looked if AI had existed in 2007. – couple years after we wrote it. Fisherman wasn’t supposed to look like Robert Shaw though.

Fun fact. The original shark we had in mind was a giant dildo that we put a WW2 dive bomber face on.

Also a fun fact, the original unwritten ending was going to be the Trex from Jurassic Park randomly eating the shark, making fun of Jurassic Parks deus ex machina ending.

Very glad my late teenage version of myself never got the chance to make this. Not quite cringe, but goddamn!

No doubt Jaws is a Great movie and possibly the only near perfect movie to ever get made. Hope to see it turn 60, too. Here’s to swimin with Bo legged woman. 🍻

🤘

Writing

Popeye:The Revenge Movie Review

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INTRODUCTION: So when Winnie the Pooh became public domain, some Indy producers decided to get cute and turn it into a horror movie. It worked, albeit it was a poor movie. However, it started a trend that didn’t need to happen. Now we have the famous sailor hero killing people. Groan!

PLOT: Jason Vorhees returns again…wait, I mean popeye.

CHARACTERS: Sparse as fuck.

ACTING: Almost 1980s bad, which to be honest is actually the best part of this cringe fest, because Hollywood has been so sterilized with acting that finding a horrible performance is actually a nice change of pace. Look, it’s rare for me to dogg on someone for their looks, normally you got to be a real asshole for me to do that, but these actresses aren’t even ready to be on public access, never mind a movie. The point of casting pretty people is because they make good propaganda. Why? Think of a murder. Grizzly and ugly. Think of something like a hamburger, juicy and beautiful. Beauty is tied to human psychology with aesthetics and seems to always positively associate with good vs bad. So if you cast mid card actors with terrible development, it makes the movie even less effective. Well, at least one of them had nice tits, so there’s that, I guess.

STYLE: Low budget. It looks 2007 and that might as well be the 80s style wise now.

FX: Tom Savani called, he wants his retro fx back.

MUSIC: horribly mid as per the usual. You know the internet has plenty of musicians than can score well and much like Hollywood ignores the music industry in favor of horrible wanna be John Williams, we get garbage.

CONCLUSION: a movie no one needs, no one wants and managed to turn an icon into a knock off jason Vorhees. It’s no easy task to be this big of a fuck up, but boy did these assholes say “hold my beer.” Which I guess is ironically a success, because hey, here they are getting attention for it, which at the end of the day, most people are all about. Too bad this pitiful pos won’t recoup the most important part of doing this, the money.

2 out of 5 stars

Writing

Kageoween: Terrifier 2

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INTRODUCTION: I’m only doing the one review this year for Kageoween, because there isn’t much out there for horror at the moment that really entices me, I saw IT part 2 finally, it’s basically the same movie as part one and sucked. I saw a few other films, none that great. I think next year will have more for me to bother with. So Even though I never seen the first one, I’m going to review Terrifer 2.

PLOT: Stephen Kings IT meets Captain Spaulings mute brother.

CHARACTERS: Kinda weak. They exist as mere fodder for Art the clown.

ACTING: pretty solid

DIALOGUE: soild.

FX: Very good

SUBTEXT: Tutti Fuckin Frutti is still relevant 20 years after the fact, apparently.

CONCLUSION: This movie is more unique than I originally thought. Originally I didn’t bother checking out one or two for years because the overall premise seemed cliched. The kills are a mix between brutal and classic horror, the film is well shot and it has a bunch of classic homages to 80s horror films. However, while interesting the movie is still flawed, not really having a plot at all weakens the movie, even if the horror parts are similar to other iconic slashers of the past 40 years, like Freddy and Jason, at least they had some story. It’s mostly just gruesome imagery for shock value and little more, but still, that’s kinda its charm as well.

3 out the 5 stars

Writing

Evil Dead Rise, a Movie Review

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INTRODUCTION: I was going to review this for Kageoween, but it sucked so bad that I said fuck it and am reviewing it now.

PLOT: The Deadites return but in New York or some shit.

ACTING: It works, not the worst I’ve seen, but still pretty bad.

DIALOGUE: Not cringe, so it has that going for it.

CHARACTERS: Crap. not even stock. Pretty much relies on making you sympathetic by going after children.

SFX: only ok

SUBTEXT: zero

CONCLUSION: This movie wasn’t needed. It was worthless. I never saw the remake from 2013, but pretty sure that was less worthless than this. If you ever thought Bruce Campbell wasn’t a much needed part of this franchise, this movie might change your mind. It’s mindless, midcard horror and dumb as fuck. Really wish I never bothered watching.

1 star out of 5.

Writing

Ghostbusters 4 1/2: Frozen Empire movie review.

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INTRODUCTION: So I waited a bit to see this movie until the BS died down, much like with the 2016 Ghostbusters. I think it’s helpful, especially when approaching a movie you loved for decades.

PLOT: The New Busters move back to NYC and fight a new big bad.

CHARACTERS :Very good and very well developed. Even the introduction of new characters is interesting. Pecks characters change is intriguing and interesting.

ACTING: excellent! Everyone brought their a game here.

DIALOGUE: Very well done.

STYLE: Excellent!

FX: Awesome. The mix of CGI and Practical work so well.

SUBTEXT: None. Regardless of what some people seem to say on the internet about an interpersonal relationship between one of the characters and a ghost be more than friendly ain’t there either.

CONCLUSION: Very slow burn of a movie that sets up a lot of interesting characters and equipment for a third installment. Gil Kenen did an amazing job with this movie and it made it Al the better. I very much look forward to a third installment.

4 out of 5 stars.