Month: October 2021

My Own Personal Hell-oween: Day Two (Wolf)

On By troubledproductionsIn My Own Personal Hell-oweenLeave a comment

Back in the day, I listed this as one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. It’s kind of become shorthand for “terrible film” in these blogs. I had hoped to have never had this darken my brain again, but needs must. But maybe I exaggerated how bad it was, maybe it’s not actually too awful and now I’m watching it with low expectations I will enjoy it, maybe even really love it. After all, I hated Supalonely back when I first heard it and now I love it more than I love myself (admittedly that’s not hard).

  • I am really hoping this film is better than I remember it being. There is a small chance that is the case.
  • “History is the truth they want you to remember. Legends are the truths they pushed too far. Myths are the truth they want you to forget”. Yup, the best way to make sure people forget something is to turn it into a myth so that everybody talks about it all the time.
  • “There is truth in all things” I KNEW my therapist was right and that everything is my fault.
  • I have never seen a person look so uncomfortable playing fetch with a dog.
  • Oh, the dog is called “boy”. Evidently the budget for this film didn’t extend to “dog namer”.
  • Come on Lee, don’t be negative, the film might still be good.
  • Oh fuck off. They cut mid-scene while a kid was about to stand up. Why? That’s an incredibly unnatural place to cut unless you’re REALLY good, and these guys aren’t good. They didn’t even check the colours are the same, it goes from a dark brown to smoked out colour. I’m not even joking, I’ll post two shots here, they happen practically next to each other.
  • That, that is unforgivable. There is no excuse. No editor who gets paid should put those two shots together and think that’s acceptable. A first year student film wouldn’t get away with that.
  • First death of the movie, the child (going by how this film named the dog, he’s probably called Child) gets killed off-screen. That was when the film lost me when I originally saw it. It seemed too obvious that it was done for lack of budget and because they lacked decent CGI.
  • Although considering how badly they fucked up a “person stands up” scene I hate to think what they’d do with CGI.
  • It’s fine though, they used sound to convey the death. Well I say death, it sounds like when my dad eats KFC.
  • Our first introduction to the main characters, one with his face mostly covered, both walking away from camera.
  • Well, they walk away from camera until they need to talk, when they need to talk they stand still because this film couldn’t do tracking shots. I remember that being an issue throughout this film, the static camera during dialogue scenes.
  • Oh, we have slight camera movement. Slight. Still not slight enough to not realise how unsteady it is though.
  • A standard dialogue scene, this should be impossible to be bad. It’s just people talking while standing still, how can that be messed up?
  • Oh, that’s how. These are characters we haven’t met yet, and yet when they start talking, the camera is never on them. It always cuts to them halfway through their line. It’s like they were filming it live and the guy on the board had slow reactions. They also randomly cut to other people for about a second.
  • “it feels strange being this far away from the wall” The one that Mexico will pay for?
  • Why does that guy look like he has spunk on the front of his armour?
  • “keep your eyes open” oh thanks for that, I was just going to walk around carrying this big spear not looking where I’m going.
  • Lens flare keeps appearing and disappearing mid-shot. JJ Abrams would have an anger wank.
  • “We’ll rest here”. Erm, you’ve been standing still, sitting down and eating in that spot for the last 5 minutes. Is that not resting?
  • “we don’t want the gods to curse us with snow” As someone who is currently watching this film, I know all about curses.
  • “it’s not the fighting I fear, it’s the unexpected” how about unexpected fighting?
  • I don’t remember any of these characters names so I’m just going to refer to who they look like poundland versions of: Zack Gibson, Generic bald man, Michael Douglas, Karen Taylor, Nick Helm.
  • They get attacked by the natives. Oh no, the invading army is being attacked by the people they are there to kill, this is such a horrible thing to happen.
  • Phew, the invaders one, massacring the people who call this country home. Yay?
  • Drone shot. That’s almost film-making there.
  • Oh, and now we have bad ADR.
  • “I am Germanic, not Pict” “you seem to know a lot about Picts for someone who’s not one”. Because nothing is a better sign of guilt than “knowing something”.
  • “footprints of animals, wolves, men” Manbearwolf!
  • “you can’t trust a Germanic”. Just say German. You’re speaking in modern English, you don’t care that much about anachronisms.
  • Also, that’s racist.
  • “when you look at me, what do you see?” Well I can’t get past that eye make-up to be honest.
  • “but when we draw swords” You’re supposed to be soldiers, why are you sitting around drawing pretty pictures with crayons? This is why the Roman empire failed.
  • A shaky cam shot of the fucking moon. Could you not get a tripod for that? Seriously.
  • “why would it tear them apart like that?” YOU’RE TEARING ME APART LISA!
  • “looks like the claws of a wolf” “what wolf walks on two legs?” Wolf from Gladiators?
  • “it was so fast and horrible” title of my sex tape.
  • “we take this down for the glory of Rome, for our glory”. Oh honey, you ain’t got no glory if you’re in this film.
  • Battle-trained soldiers there standing in that well-known formation of “all facing in the same direction, with the shields being held to the side, leaving your stomach exposed”.
  • This is such an exciting scene, people standing around, doing nothing.
  • “hunting is our speciality” mine’s risotto. Some may argue it’s less useful, but out of me and every Roman soldier, I’m the one with a high score on Pac-Man.
  • Wooo we get to see The Orb. Or in technical terms “stand in a circle”, via flashback. I mean, there was a battle scene earlier that you could have demonstrated it in. And it would have been much more natural than “remember when we used The Orb before and it saved us?” like some lame clip show episode.
  • They’ve been standing in the dark now for at least 10 minutes. It’s a sub-90 minute film. I’ll leave it up to you to ascertain whether I thought that was a good use of time.
  • The “werewolves” move too fast to be seen, only made clear by camera swooshes that are too quick for any of those trained soldiers to see them. Except for when we actually see them, when they’re just running back and forth like drunk students.
  • There is no way they are fast enough to drag someone away without you being able to slice at them.
  • Phew, they’ve stopped standing around in the dark. They’re now walking in the dark.
  • “A little bit of snow and that thing is still out there”. Wouldn’t snow on the ground make it easier to track something?
  • It’s now daylight, they’re still standing around. Have they been like that all night?
  • Her make-up is doing a stunning job of staying streak-free during all this.
  • “there was more than one, I swear it”. Well, yeah. We saw three of them at the same time. Was there any doubt there was more than one?
  • “That’s not the Roman way, we offer peace first, war second”. By peace they mean “allow yourself to be ruled by us”. So it’s not really peace, just a decision on how to accept invasion. If I went up to someone and said “Give me your money or I’ll shoot you in the face”, the fact they handed over their money and I didn’t shoot them does not make it a peaceful transaction.
  • “I thought I saw something in the trees”, yeah they’re called leaves mate.
  • “if we can train them to fight for us, or unleash them on our enemy” I’d argue those two things are very similar.
  • “that thing took us all on and we barely survived” and you think you could train it? Are you an idiot?
  • “I’d say the gods are angry”. Why, have they been watching this film too?
  • Apparently being sent to Britain was basically a punishment as it was such an awful and desolate place. Thus proving that the Romans made it to Rochester.
  • “who would live here?” SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS
  • “He knows something” *five seconds pause” “I do”. Well that was worth the wait.
  • One of the women strip off and we have one of the few things worth watching this film for. No, not those, you perverts. The make up. She has scratches on her back and they look magnificently brutal and real.
  • “there is an evil in the black forest” That’s just what they tell you to keep you away from the gateau.
  • “More ramblings from the old man, should have killed him”. And how does that tie into the “we offer peace” thing?
  • “then why did you choose to be here?” “I didn’t, the council chose for me”. Bloody council, did they catch you putting the bins out on the wrong day again?
  • “this is insane” he says crying, then immediately is back to normal.
  • “What kind of a man are you?” A twat.
  • “these things move so fast” they don’t though, we’ve seen them.
  • Oh good, more standing around. This time with added spittle on beard.
  • No idea what frame rate they were using but some of these shots are jerkier than Jamaican chicken.
  • I think not-Michael Douglas died. He got separated from the group. Because that’s something a highly trained group does when they are walking slowly, lose people.
  • “he was hurt by the thing when we were in the orb” that was ages ago though wasn’t it?
  • Oh good, bourne-style shaky cam of someone standing still. Exciting!
  • “You don’t want to do this?” what’s that, watch this film? I’m well aware of that thank you.
  • That snow cleared up fucking quickly by the way. Almost fully green scenery now.
  • Wth is that accent? That could be said at almost any point during this film by the way.
  • “you have always been the better soldier” if only we saw some evidence of that. Like start in Rome, with him getting a commendation or something, then land at the English shore after hearing reports of violent attacks on the soldiers stationed there. Despite being the invading army, it nearly always feels like they’re on home turf in this film. Probably because they all have English accents.
  • They’re not werewolves, they’re just naked people. Not even hairy.
  • “they want us to turn” It’s normally bears that do that (or otters, or cubs), and usually only with consent.
  • Oh no, thingy died. He was stabbed by what’s his name.
  • Thankfully it’s near the end so I should mention the other things that have been prevalent throughout: bad performances, different background audio between two shots set in the same scene, heavy breathing.
  • The surviving Romans are all banging. Not in a sexy way.
  • We finally get our first clear shot of a werewolf. It’s a normal person, only with dirt, and bad fake teeth. And they’ve gone from “we’ve stabbed them but we can’t harm them” to three of them being killed in quick succession really easily.
  • And the bald guy is now dead. That’s all the men dead now.
  • Ohhhhh I remember how this film ends now. It turns out women can’t become werewolves so if they survive the bites they’re fine. Neat idea, never explained.
  • “we do not fight with wolves”, smart, using swords is a much smarter idea.
  • Yup I was right, the women don’t turn. This is explained off camera, because the camera is far more focused on seeing people have this explained to them than have us see the person speaking it.
  • And this ends with a knife in the head. Sadly not in mine, so I will still remember it exists.
  • The cast for this film included the director and the editor, explains a lot. Helps contribute to the “student film” feel of it, only this was not student, this was a professional film. And it fucking sucked.

I stand by my original review

My Own Personal Hell-oween: Day One (Truth Or Dare)

On By troubledproductionsIn Liveblogs, My Own Personal Hell-oweenLeave a comment

So it’s a Halloween tradition for me to live-blog a horror franchise every year. In the past, I’ve done Nightmare On Elm Street, Scream, Child’s Play, Saw, and Final Destination. Now I’ve wanted to do Halloween for a long time, but because the final one of the new trilogy isn’t out until next year that means I will have to delay it. There are similar issues with other horror franchises, and with some there’s the trouble of actually getting hold of them, I’m not paying full price for some films which I know will be terrible so unless I can get them on discount or they become available online I won’t bother (hello Leprachaun). So for this year I’ve decided to do something a bit strange. In 2018 I switch focus for this site and instead of “a post a week” I went with the much more insane “review EVERYTHING” which I’ve done since then. If I keep that up until January it will be four years of doing that, which is weird when you think about it. So I’ve decided to commemorate this by doing this project; where I will live-blog a horror film from each year that I’ve been reviewing. Now I could do it with good films, and fall in love with them all over again. But that’s not as fun (Side note: “too good to live-blog” is what stopped me going with Fear Street trilogy for this year, which was one of my original ideas). Nope, I’m going with terrible ones. In some cases these will be the worst film I saw that year. It might not (I genuinely have no idea what films I’m doing for this, and won’t until I start them).

So I’m going to start with 2018, the options were:

Winchester

Secret Of Marrowbone

For some reason my brain bundles those two films together. Instead of those I’m going with something truly awful, a film which I’m not entirely sure why it exists, but it does, and we have to suffer. So here goes: Truth Or Dare

  • First off, this is a PG-13 film, which is always a good sign for a horror movie.
  • A woman buys cigarettes scary voice in Mexico.
  • The guy behind the counter answers the phone and is compelled to ask her “Truth Or Dare”. He then hangs the phone up on the counter, which is weird because he answered it from the wall. In the next shot she’s setting fire to the building, so she’s obviously chosen dare. I mean, Truth would have been better surely as he’s a stranger so no harm telling him many things. I haven’t seen this film since I watched it at the cinema, so I don’t know how they work around the “everybody would just chose truth”. I think there was a “no x Truths in a row” rule implemented. Which is clearly just the film-makers trying to close a loophole that is clearly far too open for the film to work without closing it.
  • Oh she’s not burning the building, she’s burning someone. Logic dictates it will be the store clerk, as he’s the only person we’ve seen before. But nope, it’s a woman we don’t know. Why didn’t we start the film focused on her, have her walk into the building, THEN have Giselle (who’s the firestarter, the twisted firestarter) appear and set fire to her? Have it come out of nowhere. That way it turns the death not just into a “aaaa spooky death” but into a “oh no, I really didn’t want that character to die, I was JUST getting to know them”.
  • We’re introduced to Olivia, played by Lucy Hale, talking about the joys of building houses for people and how good it will make you feel. Something about that seems so insincere.
  • We’re then introduced to Markie, who in her first scene tells Olivia that she cancelled her “Habitat For Humanity” project so that they could all get drunk together on Spring Break (woo).
  • I hope Markie dies early on because she reminds me too much of someone from certain “movies”, and I won’t be able to shake that.
  • They managed to convince her to go by saying that the four of them (oh yeah, two other people turned up) will build homes this summer if she comes with them. So if they’re ALL going to be free for two weeks that summer, why not go then? Is it because it’s not SPRING BREAK WOOOO? If so, that’s kind of a pathetic thing. It’s one of those things that I see referenced in US TV shows all the time but I just don’t get. Along with: Sweeps, Arbor Day (or considering how they pronounce Herb could it be harbour day?), not wearing white after a certain day, and how going bankrupt so you can afford insulin is actually a good thing really and anybody who tells you otherwise is a dirty communist antifa gay muslim atheist.
  • And now a few more people have joined up. I can’t be bothered to learn their names though.
  • We then get a montage of them drinking in Mexico and “having fun”. But it’s PG-13 fun, so while they’re drinking they’re not really being “drunk”, they’re not peeing anywhere, not really stumbling, or vomiting. They’re just going “wooo I’m drunk”. Stupid rating. There is an “uncut” version which adds like 30 seconds, most of that added stuff is just the cast drinking alcohol. Because obviously in a film about death and curses, you can’t show people drinking alcohol.
  • “youtube are for volunteer stuff, snapchats are for fun” Not my snapchat.
  • Olivia pulls Markie away from a guy she was dancing with, who keeps dancing almost like he didn’t notice she wasn’t there anymore. It wasn’t even full on grinding.
  • A douche called Ronnie comes up, I think he’s supposed to be drunken dickhead normally played by a jock in films, but in this he’s played by a guy who looks like he would normally be the nerd in an 80s film.
  • A Daniel Radcliffe motherfucker turns up (Carter) who then buys Olivia a drink. And I notice that it’s really difficult to film bar scenes well as since Olivia is standing up the bar almost comes to her neck and it makes her look tiny compared to everybody else in the scene who is sitting down and leaning on the bar.
  • Carter suggests a place they can all go to continue the party. “it’s a bit of trek”. If they were really all that drunk, I imagine trekking across a rocky terrain would result in more injuries than it does. None of them seem drunk at all.
  • They start drinking from a cooler of beers that was in the church. Because obviously you can trust drinks you find lying around, it’s fine guys, they were put there by Carter, you know, the guy you all just met five minutes ago.
  • Ronnie’s turned up, he followed them. They all just accept it. There must have been a more natural way to get him there. Just have him tag along from the bar. Having him follow them, in the dark, with NONE of them noticing just seems stupid.
  • “you can’t keep Ron-Ron from a party”. It’s true, that’s a scientific fact. Newton’s Douche Law.
  • “Truth or dare, it’s a game where you can expose your friends deepest secrets” I imagine if they’re keeping deep secrets from you, it’s probably for a reason.
  • “make them do things they don’t want to” Seems a little rapey.
  • “that actually does sound kind of interesting” nope, still sounds super fucking rapey.
  • The first Truth is “aliens either kill everybody in this room, or the whole of Mexico”. A bit dark. That would not be the first question you ask in a drunken truth or dare as it would kill the mood. You’d ask something fun or flirty. This is only there because Olivia chooses Mexico because “I’d risk my friends lives to save millions” comes back at the ending in the stupidest fucking way ever.
  • “are you aware that Olivia is in love with your boyfriend?” These people fucking suck at this game. Every truth is just passive aggressive questions to divide everyone.
  • “I dare you to stop selling prescriptions to freshmen”. Aren’t those dares normally “do something now”. Not “improve your life”. What’s next? “I dare you to stop drinking and start applying yourself in school”
  • “Maybe I’m bi-curious” after that weak-ass kiss? Nah.
  • Carter is asked “what are your intentions with Olivia?” and he admits he targeted her because she was obviously a pushover and he needed someone to bring friends with them to play Truth Or Dare with because he doesn’t mind strangers dying if he gets to live. He then runs off but not before telling Olivia that if you break the rules (or lie) you die. I’ve watched enough Taskmaster lately to realise that he could have answered that and kept to the rules if he just said “To play Truth Or Dare with”. That way the game could have continued longer.
  • “remind me again why I didn’t go to school thousands of miles away from my overbearing and homophobic father?” Probably so you have an excuse to get that clunky dialogue out there. Although I have to say this is probably the best character work in the movie.
  • Markie is watching a video of her dad, which can only mean he’s dead. She bursts into Olivia’s room causing a jump scare. A weird jump scare actually as we get the bang, and then the door slowly opens.
  • “ever since my dad killed himself” oh good, the exposition fairy has arrived.
  • “You know what, you’re crazy, but I happen to like crazy so do you want to go for a drink?” I can’t imagine that working.
  • Oh man I forgot the Truth Or Dare filter. Okay so basically a lot of people in this film get this weird thing on their face which just looks stupid. It looks like a bad snapchat filter.
  • “Markie is constantly cheating on Lucas” damn Olivia, you’re in a library, use your indoor voice.
  • “I just want to show you my pool cue, by which I mean my penis”. So subtle.
  • We get the filter, and Ronnie doesn’t notice the weirdness of the face so just jumps up on the table when she dares him to take out his penis.
  • The filter appears on Ronnie’s face, indicating he’s “possessed”, whilst possessed he purposely walks on a pool ball which causes him to fall breaking his neck. First off: NOBODY noticed the weird face, or the distortion on his voice. Secondly: why was that needed? Either have it appear naturally Final Destination style, or (and what I would have done) have someone else be possessed and roll a ball on the table which he trips on.
  • “so they made you tell everyone that Markie is a cheating whore?” Are these people actually friends? Because it doesn’t seem like they are.
  • The group (except Markie the whore) are all sent the video of Ronnie dying. Who sent that to them? I know these characters are awful, and I know some people would film it. But why would they send that around? At most you’d post it online. Also, who sent it to them all? One of them seemed to have been sent it by Beth, but did she just group text a death video? Bit weird. Also the video is way too high a quality to be believable, and weirdly the only audio we get is Ronnie talking, we get zero background noise, in a busy bar.
  • Oh, Lucas wasn’t there either. I know that because he’s arrived there now. Which says everything about how well-developed the characters are.
  • Lucas slowly and painfully gets the words “Truth Or Dare” carved onto his arm, which then disappears almost immediately. No blood. Just slight grazing by the looks of it.
  • Lucas gets asked “How do you feel about Olivia” and goes on a long poetic spiel about how he likes her, on the phone to her. He could have just said it after muting the microphone. Still would have counted.
  • “I tried to ignore the question and it ended up burnt into my arm” oh it was burnt, not cut. That’s actually lamer. Also, what the hell demon ghost thingy? He ignored it once and ended up in physical pain whilst Olivia ignores it for over a day and nothing?
  • “you ruined my relationship!” There’s actually a very simple way to make sure that nobody tells your boyfriend not to cheat on him. A very very simple way. Place a curse on the truth so that anybody who tells it commits suicide. Or don’t cheat. I suppose that works too.
  • “You can’t be alone, your turn is next”. The very next second she gets a text asking her truth or dare. This demon ghost has got great timing.
  • She gets dared to break Olivia’s hand, and goes from “I don’t believe this is real” to hitting her with a hammer very quickly. All it took was one sentence “You’re a coward just like your dad”. Again, are these people actually friends? And how come she didn’t get killed for saying no and delaying?
  • Brad is next, and gets dared to tell his (homophobic) dad that he’s gay. This could be an incredibly tense scene where we get to see the fear that he feels about telling him, we’d see his fathers reaction in real time, and how Brad would react to his fathers reaction. But nope, it all happens off screen so we get none of that. Incredibly poor decision not to show that.
  • “that’s another $1,000 in credit card debt” That sentence being said as a response to a broken hand is the scariest thing in this movie.
  • His friends reactions to him coming out to his dad are basically “meh”. Like they don’t get how big a deal that is. They don’t comfort him at all, they just say “he didn’t know?”
  • Tyson next. You know, the forgettable white guy. He’s the not-yet doctor who has been selling medication to teens.
  • He gets Truth Or Dared by a woman interviewing him. He lies, jams a pen is his eye, then headbutts a wall killing him. It’s a strange mix of blood-filled and tame, probably because the blood we see we only see under the door.
  • “Did you try using google?” oh, what a brilliant idea, I never would have thought to have searched for someone using google. What a brilliant mind you have.
  • We see the opening scene with the fire, this time from security footage. So we’re reeseeing what we saw earlier, her interaction with the clerk. See, if the opening scene was from the perspective of the woman set on fire, this would be a reveal. Especially if we didn’t see who set the fire, it would have meant that when we first met Carter we would have guessed it was him who set the fire, then this would have revealed that the game has more people in than we thought. As it is she was just forgotten about for over 40 minutes.
  • “I know the game dared you to set that woman on fire” okay, and what was next dare? It’s gone through this entire group in a loop since then, so she must have had to do something.
  • “screw you!” Couldn’t even say fuck. What the frick?
  • Someone (I genuinely can’t remember her name) is dared to walk around the roof of the house while drunk. Now, if she failed the dare, would that count as not doing it?
  • Okay her name is Pen.
  • The group walk around the exterior of the house with a mattress to catch her if she falls, but they then get trapped by a fence blocking their way. It’s their house, did they forget they have a fence? It’s their house.
  • She finishes the bottle of vodka she has to drink and then falls off the roof. Yay she beat the dare.
  • I would remove all the bad things I have said about this movie if she just straight up fucking died from alcohol poisoning right now.
  • She doesn’t. In fact she seems to have sobered up by the time they go to meet Giselle.
  • Oh so now Pen dies, she jumps in front of a bullet fired by Giselle and meant for Olivia. Well I say “jump”, she kind of walked into it, kind of looked like Olivia pulled her in front of her to be honest.
  • Since that happened, she failed the dare, and Giselle is forced to kill herself. Thus ending her screen time incredibly quickly and making me wonder what the point of her was.
  • Markie and Lucas share an awkward glance. Side note, this film has not really brought up how they are reacting to each other now. She cheated on him, he knows, so what is their deal now? We don’t know. Such a waste, there’s almost no tension between them now, almost like the relationship didn’t matter at all.
  • “he didn’t know where the was” wait, the possessed homeless guy was confused? Shocking!
  • Olivia and Lucas are dared to have sex. Lucas is then dared mid-coitus to admit who he really loves. Which is Markie. This is bound to create tension between Lucas and Olivia, this changes EVERYTH-oh wait, nope they’re not interacting like normal.
  • Markie is asked by her dead dad why she keeps the gun he used to kill himself. What exactly was painful about her admitting that? There was nobody there. Was it just so we could find out that she has thought of using it on herself? Almost definitely. Oh, and probably so we can reference the gun.
  • What happened to that Habitat for Humanity thing? I feel that could have come back in a good way. Have a truth based on that somewhere.
  • “But the priest who ran the convent liked to play his own game. He let us hide but then he took the one he found”. Ah, that old game Hide and Child Rape. Good thing the church doesn’t have any sexual assault issues anymore.
  • “we suffered in silence, then one of the girls summoned a demon named Calux” Typical teen, can’t sort their own problem out, always summoning a demon to do their stuff for them.
  • “Wait, how did you and the others escape?” you have to write the answer? You didn’t expect that to be their first question? Did it take you an hour to write that whole thing? It was like 3 pages.
  • “we sealed the demon in a pot” and then just left the pot there? Didn’t think it was worth keeping an eye on it so nobody could damage it? If you have a demon in a jar, you keep hold of the jar so nobody could break it, surely?
  • “the demon was released and possessed their game of truth or dare” why didn’t it just possess the person who broke it? Also, why wasn’t this woman involved in the game once it restarted?
  • “We have no idea who Sam is”. How have you not figured out that Sam is Carter? Damn you’re stupid.
  • Brad is dared to steal his dads gun and make him beg for his life. Obviously this results in him getting shot. I’m not sure what the demon wants, does it want people to die, or does it want them to play the game? The motives aren’t clear at all. Also, there’s no indication that their relationship was changed by Brad coming out to his dad. So what was the point of that?
  • Markie’s dad attempted to rape Olivia, and that’s why he killed himself. A smart film would let this moment linger, this film moves straight on and has Markie leave.
  • “I told him you’d be better off if he was dead”, damn, that’s how you kill a friendship. And a friends dad too I guess.
  • Why exactly is Olivia being questioned by police? This is Final Destination all over again, the deaths are all treated as accidents in universe. From the police POV: Brad stole his fathers gun and threatened to shoot him, then got killed by another officer. Olivia wasn’t there when it happened, joining the moment halfway through. So what exactly do they think happened that makes her guilty?
  • The police have a weird amount of detail on who was playing the game. Evidently Sam and Giselle registered their game of Truth Or Dare with the international Truth Or Dare league.
  • “Am I being charged?” “not yet” “okay then I’m going”. Yup, that’s totally how it works. The police just let you walk away from them all the time.
  • “Carter is Sam” oh no, what a complete surprise that was in no way predictable.
  • “Three of my best friends are dead because of you”. Hang on: 1) Tyson with the pen in the eye. 2) Giselle being shot. 3) Brad shot by police. 4) Ronnie. I get he’s probably not counting Ronnie as a friend, but bit harsh to leave him out. Of course if he said “Four of my best friends are dead” then I would have pointed out how they weren’t friends with Ronnie. So really this film can’t win.
  • Side note: I had to actually read the synopsis to count the dead bodies, which is good as I completely forgot Tyson.
  • “Try me, I dare you!” Eugh, I audibly sighed there
  • “Say it seven times” Good thing I’m not in this film as I’d say “it, it, it, it, it, it, it”. I’m such a dick.
  • You would have thought the ritual for trapping a demon would be much simpler so that demons can’t win so easily. It’s like the good guys don’t want demons to be captured.
  • Actually who came up with the ritual? Who decided that was the only way to capture that demon?
  • “why did you choose dare?” “so you guys would be able to pick truth” But you’re JUST about to end it. Choose truth and just take your time answering and this film is over (that’s good) and you all get to live (that’s bad).
  • “you’re such an idiot” you all are.
  • “I will murder everyone you’ve ever known” Is that a promise? Hah, sucks to be you Mr. Fluffkin my fifth year maths teacher.
  • Olivia uploads a video onto youtube of her asking the audience Truth Or Dare. So the happy ending is that the entire world is doomed but Olivia and Markie have a delayed death. Yaaaaaaay mass deaths. Also, that’s not how that game works surely? Surely you need to consent to play it? You can’t just say “truth or dare” and then they’re automatically part of the game, right? Otherwise Carter/Sam’s dare to find new people to play would have been a lot fucking easier. Also, how does that work in terms of timing? Like what order does it go in?
  • To summarise: Olivia’s character arc is that she learns it’s okay to kill the entire world if your friend gets to live a little longer. Yay?
  • FINALLY it’s over.
  • Long time readers of this site will know that I will forgive a bad film if it’s obviously made with passion. I like when a film obviously has that “The writer/director” NEEDED to make this film” feel to it. This film was based on the title. The writer was told “Make a film based on Truth Or Dare” and came up with this. That feeling of “will this do?” permeates the entire film and makes it feel weak as hell.
  • Personally I wouldn’t have made it supernatural. Have a guy kidnap people and force them to play it in a locked location. Alternatively, have it in a haunted house. But importantly, keep it to one location. You need that tenseness to it. If the whole thing took place in a single location, possibly in real time, you’d have something unique and terrifying.

Prisoners Of The Ghostland (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: A captured bank robber (Nicholas Cage) is tasked with retrieving a Governer’s adopted granddaughter/sex slave in this Japanese-inspired western horror. At one point his testicles get exploded.

Is Nicholas Cage picking films based almost entirely on how fucking strange they are lately? I mean, I’m all for it if it produces stuff like Willy’s Wonderland. That was fun and strange and a one of a kind movie. This was, I dunno. I should like this film, it’s an interesting mesh of genres (western and horror/sci-fi), both of which lend themselves to going weird and out-there. But I just didn’t mesh with this for some reason. I think it’s because when I was watching it all I could think was “I would much rather be playing this and experiencing it that way”. When you do a mash-up of genres like this does you need to do it in a way that highlights certain things from both genres which best suit the story you’re telling. The story should be driving the genres, but this feels like it was done the opposite way. It feels like they got the genres, made them into cars, drove them into each other and then made a script based on the result. The film itself is too surface level, there’s nothing underneath the obvious what you see. No meaning, no deep beauty to it. It feels so in debt to its stylistic forefathers that it doesn’t seem to have an identity of its own. Outside of “modern Japanese western” it’s incredibly flat and one dimensional. Visually it’s not that exciting either. I mean, it’s got a lot of colours, but they just don’t POP. If you look at a film like Blade Runner and how they use colour it’s a visual delight. In comparison this just looks like a Lite Brite a few minutes before the batteries die.

I really don’t have a lot to say about this, because there is nothing to say. I won’t remember this film for too long after I saw it. Maybe this is partly because I watched it at the “wrong” time. I feel this is supposed to be watched with friends while drunk, cheering and hollering at the screen. I watched it on my own in the middle of the day. But I watched Come True in a similar situation and that pulled me in.

The issue is that there’s nothing particularly wrong with this film (although Bill Mosely’s performance seems kind of wrong, he never feels like a character who is in control of the situation, he always looks too nervous and jumpy), there’s just not much I could find to particularly be too invested in. It just exists. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a big mac, fine in the moment, but I would never really go out and hunt it down except if I was drunk. A film like this should not be quite as boring as this one is.

The Boss Baby 2 (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: No, I’m not summing up this up. It’s too stupid, watch the trailer.

I’ll start off with the obvious. This is not a good movie, for most of it it’s not even watchable. Fundamentally it suffers the same flaw as the first one where the general concept isn’t buyable. It’s not like Toy Story where you can imagine toys coming to life. There is no anchor of reality to ground yourself in. We know the reality of babies, everybody alive was at some point a baby, so there is no truth to the lies this film tells. This specific plot doesn’t work either. So they have to become babies again to infiltrate a school, right?

1) they need to be babies.

2) Why does it have to be them?

I’ll answer both of those questions: because we, the audience know the main characters as babies and we need to see them like it again. It only happens because this is a film, more specifically a sequel. This film establishes that Tims daughter Tina is a boss baby too. So why didn’t she do it? She wouldn’t need a special potion that turns her into a baby briefly, she already is one. She has all the connections, and she already knows what to do and what to look for etc. The film says her real mission was to bring the two brothers back together. What do they care? The brothers are initially brought together by a faked voicemail, but it’s so obviously fake that it wouldn’t actually fool anybody.

Now onto the biggest issue I had with this film: it takes place a MUCH longer time after the first one than most sequels (I’d estimate about 20 or 30 years after). Instead of focusing on Tim as a kid again. We are introduced to his kids. This means that the returning characters have completely different characterisation, because they’ve aged 30 years since the last time we saw them. So really we don’t know these characters. This goes for the relationships between characters too. It’s based on his relationship with his brother. But it’s completely different from the last time. Because the last time we saw these characters they first met and had a frayed relationship, then started to get on with and love each other. This takes place when they are estranged. But we never got to see them in a decent relationship really (except for like 10-20 minutes at the end of the first one). So the entire thing is based on relationships and a past which we haven’t been privy to. It’s like we’ve missed the back story we need.

There is some consistency for the characters, but it just makes the film worse. Tim is still talking to his toys and imagining them coming to life. That made sense in the first one because he was a child, and that’s what children do. But now he’s an adult, so it just comes off as kind of weird. He has kids and yet still has the mentality of one. This is what happens when you have a sequel featuring characters who are the same, but are at fundamentally different stages of their life.

It signposts the jokes way too much. There’s one in particular which you can guess about 3-4 seconds before it happens. It doesn’t try to subvert it in any way, it plays the joke completely straight. The original film was released 4 years ago, so the audience who enjoyed the first one would have matured, but this film hasn’t. It’s like it’s aimed at people who only discovered it in the last year. 4 years is a very long time in childhood. The difference between a 5 year old and a 9 year old is immense in terms of taste and likes.

Now onto the good. Jeff Goldblum is perfect in his role. Kind of. His voice is perfect for the character, and it looks perfect for him in still images, but he moves in such a jerky way (think standard annoying youtuber) that it is distracting and weird. It also does that thing almost every film does with holograms where it makes them glitchy and broken. No matter how much of a genius a character is in a film, they can never create holograms which actually work. The movement doesn’t match his voice either, he has the voice of someone who either stands still, or paces back and forth, not jump around all over the place. Also, his character is not a boss baby, just a baby who is intelligent, so why does he have an adult voice?

Other things on the plus side: the line “they’re going to send in the Baby Seals” made me laugh a lot. And there’s a musical interlude which is sweet, creative, and incredibly heartfelt. It’s everything the rest of the film should be but isn’t. It’s almost Pixar-esque. Such a shame the rest of the film doesn’t come anywhere near.

Petra’s-spective

On By troubledproductionsIn WritingLeave a comment

Usually I write scripts for one of two reasons:

  1. Doing the idea genuinely excites me (Superlee, Dark Night)
  2. Spite/to prove a point (Nightmare On Elm Street, Headlines)

This, this is different. This is one made from love, but it also doesn’t excite me. It terrifies me. Not in a “This idea is creepy and horrific” way, but in a “This is going to be incredibly complicated” way. So what is it?

Petra’s-spective

A girls coming of age story framed with how she views a film from her childhood at different points in her life, with the sections of her life and her different takes on the film, being shown and told non-linearly.

Each times she watches the film; it features the same story, actors, and dialogue, but each comes across wildly different in execution, tone, theme and genre, depending on where she is in her life.

The film, Last Christmas (title will change) , she watches is a Christmas based family drama, which she first sees on TV (with adverts), then DVD, then streamed. When she’s young she sees the film as a comedy about a kid pranking his (no films from that time featured a female lead, so she has to identify with a male character) neglecting parents till they realise the errors of their way and give him attention, which her story at the time parallels. When she’s a teen it’s a romantic drama, about their teen daughter and her boyfriend and having to put up with her embarrassing family through the holidays. And when she’s an adult she realises the film is about the parents splitting up while trying to keep a good Christmas going for their bratty kids. The film ends on what appears to be a happy dinner, but with the undertone that this is the end of the parents’ marriage.

Petra 7: Is left to watch the film by her parents as they argue, and draws parallel between the child feeling neglected in the film to how she feels, and tries to gain her parents attention.

Petra 17: After receiving a DVD of Last Christmas for a present, she is forced to watch it with her family, as she waits for her Boyfriend to arrive who she is in the middle of fighting with due to a pregnancy scare. She makes parallels to the teen daughter in the film, seeing it as a drama about the daughter dealing with her nightmare family with her Boyfriend over for Christmas.

Petra 37: Is watching the film with her own daughter on Christmas, as they wait for her husband to come home for Christmas as he has had to work. She sees parallels with the mother and father characters in the film, finally understanding that the film is about the parents getting divorced while trying to have a last good Christmas as a family.

So yeah, that’s a lot of narratives running through one film, where the style and tone will be used as a major narrative device. Best scene to demonstrate the concept is this:

There’s a scene of the younger child pranking their sister’s boyfriend and it being played for laughs from the childs POV. Then when we see it from the Teens POV we see the heartbreak she is going through: she’s lost her first love and her life feels like it’s over. Then from the adult POV we see it as slightly petulant whining, all we can think is “you were together for a week, you’ll get over it”. This will be demonstrated almost entirely by different lighting and scores, and slight modifications to the performance. But it will be the same scene played once through, with the time changing during camera cuts.

The difficult thing for this is how to demonstrate it in the script. This will have to be read by people I can’t converse and explain, the script will have to explain itself. Best way I can think of doing it is this:

Script notes: each section within the fiction film (labelled as “film” in the scene headings) take place in the same location. The colour of the text corresponds with the style of filming and which version of Petra we see in the fictional film:
Age 7. Lots of bright colours and cheerful music (think Home Alone)
Age 17. Darker, overly depressing and angsty music
Age 37. More subtle colours, orchestral music

This will allow me to change the timelines mid-scene and have it easily understandable to the reader.

The Last Duel (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Ridley Scott directed film about the events leading up a duel between Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) after Jacques is accused of raping Sir Jean’s wife (Jodie Comer).

I had heard mixed things about this. Some people had said it’s incredibly boring and muddled, some have said it’s an incredibly powerful piece of cinema. In my opinion it’s a mixture of both. It’s an incredibly powerful piece of cinema, that’s quite boring in parts. There are moments where it goes on too long, the ending in particular probably could have been trimmed. As it is the final shots are Jean and Marguerite riding out slowly on horseback through a crowd as Jacques’ body is stripped naked and strung up. It then skips forward and we see Marguerite sitting in a garden happy with her child. We’re then told she lived happily (well as happily as a woman could in those days) for another 30 years. So did we really need to see her in the garden? It’s not even mentioned on the wikipedia page for the film, that’s how unessential it is.

There are also a few moments I feel could have been longer (which in a film that’s 2 and a half hours long, is not something I thought I’d say). There’s a moment where a character essentially punches someone to death. The film cuts away just after he stops punching. Personally I’d have left it for a little bit longer so the full weight of the moment lingers with the audience, you would get a chance to sit and be truly f*cking horrified in what you’ve just seen.

That’s most of my criticisms of this film. They’re not “this film did this badly and it should feel bad”. It’s almost all personal preferences. All the flaws are “yeah that’s not right TO ME”. There’s one moment which I think exemplifies this. The rape itself. We first are aware of it from Jean’s POV, where he comes home and is told by his wife what happened. We see nothing. We then see it from Jacques’ POV, and it’s pretty clear that he did rape her. She’s a little bit more flirty than she is when we see the reality, but not enough that a normal person could justify it. That’s because we do see it. If the film stayed at looks which could be seen as flirtatious, made it so her looks back as she ran away had a more seductive air to them, then cut away as soon as the bedroom door closed, we would have a moment of ambiguity. We would wonder if it did happen as she said it, especially if they played up the pregnancy angle and made it seem like people would know the child isn’t her husbands. It would also mean that when we did see the truth, it would horrify us more. As it is we’re sitting there mentally comparing it to when we saw it play out earlier. We’re not lost in the moment, we’re thinking “okay, last time we saw this scene she stayed still, but this time she moved quicker”. Again, personal preference, and not a direct criticism of the film.

The way they this film is shown is unique, it’s really interesting to see how different people view certain events. There are a few moments where I would have liked to have seen from different angles but are restricted to just one. Not needed, but it would have been nice to get the truth about certain events we see.

It may be set in 1386, but there are some moments which are depressingly relevant in modern times. There’s a moment where people say that it’s impossible to get pregnant from rape, that a woman has to orgasm for pregnancy to occur. An idea that is, yes, woefully outdated, but also one that American lawmakers still believed in 2012, actually let me rephrase that: one that American dickheads still believed in two-thousand and fucking twelve because they’re cunts (for those asking why I didn’t censor that, but I did censor f*cking earlier I should clarify what the house style is for swear words: whatever I feel like at that particular moment is the rule).

So in summary, I feel you probably should watch this, but there’s a high chance you’ll be bored shitless. But you should admire parts of it.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Venom/Eddie Brock have to deal with Cletus Cassidy, a serial killer who develops his own symbiote after biting Eddie and drinking his blood in this not-MCU film directed by Andy Serkis.

There are a lot of things that give me bad feelings about films. Sometimes it’s the trailer making me feel they’ve got the tone all wrong (How To Deter A Robber), sometimes it’s the casting notice making it clear they had no idea what the character was (Artemis Fowl, describing him as warm-hearted), but this is the first time that the length of a film made me feel uneasy. 97 Minutes. Now I don’t know if any of you have read the series this is based on (Maximum Carnage), but it’s LOOOOOOOOOONG. It’s longer than Civil War and Infinity War. Condensing all of that into 97 minutes is not easy. Their was a game based on the series released on the SNES back in the day, that’s longer than this film. Considering that Carnage wasn’t really introduced in the first film, we saw a brief glimpse of him but no details.

The short run-time means we don’t really get a glimpse into the character, but also weirdly we’re given too much. They’ve tried to give him a sympathetic edge, showing that he’s doing it for love or some shit. Just…….just let evil people be evil. Not everybody needs good intentions. They need believable intentions yes, and they need to make sense, but stop trying to insinuate that under every mass murderer is just a frustrated person who needs a hug.

Also, a weird thing to say considering how I talk about how the film is too short, but there’s a lot of wasted time here, especially at the start. The subplot of Venom and Eddie Brock splitting feels like it could be a film on it’s own (I mean, Separation Anxiety was a thing in the comics, right?). Here it resolves itself incredibly quickly. Do we at least get a good glimpse into Carnage the serial killer? Nope. It’s really strange actually. The film pretends there’s some deep personal relationship between Cletus and Eddie. Cletus specifically asks for Eddie to interview him. Doesn’t really explain why he’s so obsessed with him when he doesn’t know he’s Venom. It would have been SUCH a simple fix too. Just have a moment where he witnesses Eddie/Venom so knows the truth. Instead, no he’s shocked, and he bites Eddie just for the taste of it (diet coke). Honestly I don’t think this should have had Carnage it. This should have been about Venom and Eddie trying to co-exist whilst trying to catch someone else, and have him and Cletus have a Hannibal/Clarice style relationship for this film. Talk about how Cletus is a sociopath, but connected (maybe the home for troubled youths is the same one that another villain went to) so useful. Use this to build up the relationship between the two, then when the next film comes out you have Cletus become Carnage. That way when it happens you think “oh no, this sociopathic killer is now even MORE dangerous”. We have no idea what he was like as a killer because we don’t see him as that, we don’t know how dangerous he is really.

Although for that to happen, the rating would have to change. Venom is a brutal character, that’s never put across in these films due to the rating. I’ve heard people say “the one f-word the rating allows it is the greatest I’ve seen in years”, which is bullshit. I’m not saying a film like this needs every other word to be a swear word, but it should have a rating that would allow it to. The violence should make it an 18-rated film. Every time this film goes close to being violent, it cuts away. Characters die bloodlessly or off camera and it’s just not satisfying to watch at all.

On the plus side, the performances are all great and it’s directed beautifully (although it does seem a bit like Serkis is aiming for shots which will look good on a poster). And the post-credits scene could be a genuine game changer. So maybe see it, but you don’t need to rush out.

No One Gets Out Alive (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: An undocumented woman from Mexico moves into a dilapidated building run by a guy who is obviously hiding something sinister

This film is an acquired taste, I’ll say that upfront now. There’s a chance you won’t like this. Maybe you won’t like the pacing, maybe you won’t like the horror style, maybe you’re an asshole and won’t like that the main character is an undocumented citizen. Either way, there is a lot that could possibly rub you the wrong way. I dug it though. There’s something so weirdly timeless about this movie. I think I’ve mentioned in the past that some horror films seem more like ghost stories read by candlelight. This is definitely one of those. Also, despite it being set in America, it feels weirdly British. Maybe it’s because of the “ghost story” like feeling to it. Maybe it’s the architecture. Maybe it’s something as simple as the fact some of the other people are Romanian etc, which seems more like something you’ll find in England than the US (or maybe it’s because it’s based on a book by a British author. Who knows?)

I’ll admit, I’m not that familiar with the work of the director, Santiago Menghini, but now I want to be. He makes some great choices in this which really enhance it. There are some decisions where nothing was needed, but he did something anyway, and it makes it better. The best example is when someone is being killed on the other side of a door, and a tooth flies under the door. Most people wouldn’t think to do that, but it really adds to it and shows a great attention to those little details that make a film great.

It’s not just him though, the performers are all great too. It’s a cast of people I’m unfamiliar with and that helped it. It felt less like a movie, and more like we were witnessing these events. Cristina Rodlo, in particular, is a revelation, giving her character the broken strength needed to make it work (and make the flashback make sense with her characterisation).

This is an incredibly powerful story. The basic set up and characters would work in a drama series. It’s only the specific situation that is definite horror. That helps it as it makes it feel like the story is happening in reality, as opposed to some horror films which seem to take place in a horror movie universe.

I think this is a film you need at watch at some point, but not one you need to rush out and see immediately. It’s not as good as, say, The Power, but it’s not as frustrating a watch as Lucky. It’s a netflix original, so hopefully will stay on the platform for a very long time. So if you want something to watch with your friends who don’t enjoy gorey or incredibly disturbing horror films this halloween, it would be hard to go wrong with this. The non horror parts are engaging enough to keep everybody watching involved.

Minari (2020)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: A Korean family move to an Arkansas farm. I’m really underselling it.

Confession time: I nearly deleted this off the list of films I need to watch this year. Actually there’s no “nearly” about it, I did delete it. I just felt might not be for me. Might be too “arty” and slow. Only added it last month when I thought I’d give it a shot. I was a minute in and thought “I immediately regret my decision”, the decision to delete it, I mean. The fact I denied myself something so beautiful as this for so long is not great. I can’t even explain why the opening is good. It’s literally just the family driving to a new home, no dialogue, just soft music playing. But there’s something about it that’s just so damn cosy and warm that you immediately love it.

I can’t really go into the plot, mainly because it’s not important. There was one character point that made me panic about how the film was going to end, that it was going to get really depressing and bleak as it went on. It didn’t do that. There are moments of emotional frustration, where you just want to grab the characters by the shoulders and start shaking them until they realise what they should do/say. But the character moments aren’t “well I need to do this for the story to develop”, they are believable mistakes for humans to make. This is probably because it’s a semi-autobiographical film, based on the upbringing of writer/director Lee Isaac Chung. It’s a deeply personal story and one that’s told beautifully.

It says a lot about people too. There’s a moment where the family go to church. The other adults are really friendly, and the other kids are kind of dicks (the phrases “why is your face so flat?” and “I speak koraen: jing jang ying low” are both spoken). But then it twists it almost immediately and the kids start getting on once they’re corrected, something as simple as “my face isn’t flat”. Whereas the facade the adults are putting on starts to slip and they start to feel really disingenuous and condescending. It’s incredibly smart and so well done.

It’s not perfect though. The sister character could have been fleshed out better. It feels like if you took her out then it wouldn’t effect the film at all. She’s the only character who doesn’t seem to have their own arc and agency within the film and I had to check she was actually in the film and I didn’t get this film mixed up with another one. But nope, she’s in it, just really ineffective.

It’s weirdly difficult to talk about this film because it didn’t feel like a film. You weren’t sitting there focusing on the story or the acting. You don’t so much watch this, as experience it. It reminded me very much of Nomadland. Which is good, as I loved that film. I should probably do them as a double bill at some point. They’re both really good films with similar colour schemes.

All of this was a long way of saying, watch this film.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren help a man suspected of murder who claims he was possessed by demons.

It would be unfair of me not to preface this with the knowledge that I am not happy with the very existence of this film. Fine, you can do schlocky horror films about demon possessions, but this is based on a real event. And not just “these people claimed their house was haunted, here’s what happened”. It’s a murder. Someone died, there are people in that town who remember that event. The victim probably still has living relatives so to trivialise the murder seems super sketchy. It’s presenting as fact the notion that the murderer was possessed by demons. I’ve had similar issues with these films in the past. They uncritically present the “yup, what this family said was definitely true” side without exploring whether they were in fact bullshitting or not. Fun fact, when someone called the Warrens out on their BS, they responded the problem with the skeptics is “they don’t base anything on God”. That’s their default position, so it’s already coming from a place of bias.

So, what about the film itself? This is technically only the third, but there has been numerous spin-offs too so it’s more like the 8th. I have seen all except the last Annabelle film, and I can barely remember anything from them except for bits and pieces from the second one (probably because I reviewed it). I remember enough to say that these films have no idea about escalation, every single case is presented as “the most deadly they have ever seen”. This has happened a lot now and I’m starting to get bored of it. There doesn’t seem to be an endgame, it’s all the same thing again and again.

This film itself? It’s not great. As I’ve said, I can’t remember too much of the previous ones, but this has been the worst of the main series by a long way. Part of it is the directing, this is the first of the main three not directed by James Wan (who was probably busy with Malignant), so it’s lacking the one thing you can normally depend on for this franchise: a slick style that glosses over a lot of the cracks the series has.

Without Wan’s directing to distract you, the flaws are more apparent. It’s just not an engaging story. It’s muddled with no clear idea of what the focus is. It’s also weirdly frustrating at parts. Shying away from things you actually want to see. The murderers lawyer points out that claiming demonic possession as a defence is a stupid idea, the Warrens tell her “come to our house for dinner and we’ll show you the evidence, we’ll prove it to you that demonic possession is real and dangerous”. It then cuts to the courtroom. So we don’t see what convinced her. What a fucking cop out.

There’s another moment which was a little odd. The film has a doctor utter the words “Yes it was a heart attack, and not a mild one I’m afraid”. Something about that line seems weird and I can’t put my finger on it. It just feels like it’s downplaying it somewhat, a really weird sentence that sounds wrong somehow.

There’s a moment where they go straight from “we need to find him, he’s in danger” to Blondie. I was going to criticise the use of Blondie as the segue as it was an incredibly bad use of it and ruined a tense line. But the director makes up for it by using it for a REALLY good jump scare, bringing the music WAY down until the character is approached and bringing it up again. Masterful and shows what the director can do. But then they use it in another scare and just slow it down, and it’s not as effective. There are some good directing ideas here, but not enough to sustain it to the end.

And lets talk about the ending. They convince the court of the possession so the guy only gets manslaughter. Everybody cheers. We then get text telling us what happened and it’s like “Yaaay this person who definitely killed someone got released after serving only 5 years, and didn’t receive any medical help.” This is supposed to be a happy ending. Knowing that a killer is now living a happy life is not a happy ending to me. Especially since the “he was possessed by demons” robs him of taking any responsibility for it.