Author: troubledproductions

Mean Girls (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: A cinematic adaptation of the musical you haven’t seen, which is itself an adaptation of the film you’ve definitely seen, which is an adaptation of a book you probably haven’t read.

I get what they were going for, I really do. The original film is iconic, and the musical was very well regarded. With all that considered, there still didn’t seem to be that many people excited about this. It certainly didn’t feel like it warranted a cinema release, it felt more like something a streaming service would use in their early days to persuade people to subscribe. The trailer didn’t seem to do much to get people excited either. On the bright side; it didn’t hide the fact that it was a musical. I’ve seen people claim it did, but the trailer I saw featured the characters performing a professionally choreographed dance number in the middle of a canteen, so if you saw that and DIDN’T know it was a musical, that’s on you. My issue with the trailer was the song choice. Musicals have songs in them (shocking revelation, I know), so you’d think when it came to “songs we should have in the trailer” then you’d, you know, pick one of the ones you already have the rights to and which people who know the source material would recognise but which those who don’t can use to ascertain the type of musical stylings the film will contain. They picked an Olivia Rodrigo song. Now I love her music, but none of her songs are in the film, so why (again, for a musical) would you choose her?

So how are the songs? They’re okay. The best way you can describe them is “serviceable”. Very few of them can be described as memorable though. There are apparently 17 musical numbers in the film, without the list in front of me I can recall three. Even with the list in front of me, I can only recall small details about 8 of them (as in, where they were in the film, or who sang them, or any lines). That’s an INCREDIBLY low hit rate. It doesn’t feel like a musical, instead feels more like a film that’s occasionally interrupted by music videos. The opening two songs feel a bit too small and individual. Imagine if La La Land started with City Of Lights instead of Another Day Of Sun. The second song feels like a Sara Bareilles song, which is nice as she’s cool. The others feel interchangeable in terms of style. With the exception of some of Janice Imi’ike’s songs, none of them feel unique to the characters.

None of the issues are due to performance, everybody does a great job of portraying their characters, Some of them are vastly different from the original film but this actually helps as it means that the characters don’t feel like imitations of what we’ve seen before, they all feel like their own person unique to this adaptation. Some of them are overly sexualised, which is weird due to the ages of the characters. The performers aren’t helped though by how the teachers are played by Ashley Park, Jon Hamm, and Tina Fey. Having them (mainly Hamm and Park) as extended cameos does slightly overshadow the core cast. Oddly enough, I feel if they were in it more then it would be less of an issue as it would normalise them.

It being a musical means we don’t get that much time with the characters. If one character spends a three-minute song singing about themselves then it means there’s less cinematic space for other characters to be explored. The reason Mean Girls (the first film) is so revered is partly because of the side characters that people enjoy. That’s not present here. The main characters are the ONLY ones you’ll get to know stuff about, the only ones who are allowed quirks and personalities. I can’t help but feel that “only pay attention to the cool popular kids as none of the others matter” is the message this film wants to teach. That sums up my issues; the original film was aimed at the Janice Ians, at the Damiens, and at the Cady’s of the world. The 2024 iteration? It’s aimed at the Regina Georges.

Tarot (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It’s essentially Final Destination if the set-up was tarot cards. If the writers aren’t going to put the effort in, I’m not either.

I do love a good horror movie. I need to say that because (spoilers) this review is going to be mostly negative. With some horror films, my issues have been difficult to explain, I just haven’t vibed with it. So I suppose I should at least thank Tarot for making my issues with it easy to explain: it’s shit.

On the plus side; the performances aren’t completely terrible, and I will commend the scriptwriter for showing a believable scene of grief and how it affects you. You know that these characters are haunted by the first death, and it hangs over everything that happens. There’s also a scene at a magic show that’s pretty damn interesting and chilling to watch unfold. Plus the flashbacks are pretty well made and provide an interesting story. That is all the nice things I can say about Tarot. The rest of this review will basically be me chopping this film down with my axe of criticism.

None of the characters show much of a personality, usually with this it’s because the characters are archetypes so the writers don’t have to put too much effort into writing the characters because the audience already knows who the characters are; this person wears their football jersey away from the field? They’re a jerkass jock with a heart of gold. The guy with glasses? He’s a nerd. The woman in the cheerleader outfit? She’s a cheerleader. Tarot avoided making the characters cliches but didn’t bother to give them anything else. Watch something like the first Scream movie, you can tell by the way those characters interact that they have been friends for a long time and are comfortable in each other’s presence. You don’t get that in this. There’s no sense that these characters have much of a history with each other. There’s no closeness, they might as well be strangers.

I should say, they are sometimes on the same page, but in a weird way. They play a game where they have to say who they think a certain subject applies to (first to get pregnant etc), over three rounds the group agree fully on every choice. There’s no “two people say this, three of them say this”, they’re all in total agreement. That’s weird, and feels very fake. The lack of believable friendships isn’t helped by how inconsistent the characters are. That’s partly why it’s so hard to figure out who they are, just when you think you’ve got their personality down they say something to contradict that because that’s what the plot requires and the scriptwriter has realised that character hasn’t said anything that page yet.

Nobody seems to have any convictions or realism. The main character points out that she shouldn’t use tarot cards which don’t belong to her, she’s later shown to take tarot and horoscopes very seriously. So how do her friends convince her to break that rule? Basically just by saying “come on” and she does it. There’s no inner turmoil or conflict, she just decides to do it.

Their actions when they realise the tarot cards are killing them aren’t much better. Mainly because they come to that realisation twice. So the second time it feels a bit like “Yeah, you already know that, why are you shocked?”.

It looks bad. Traditional film language regarding horror movies boils down to shadows and lighting, here it’s just dark with no sense of “why” other than “other horror movies do it”. It’s rare for the phrase “too bleak, stopped caring” to apply to visuals, but it does so here. The audio isn’t much better, with random volume jumps replacing actual tense audio. The music choices are baffling. No teen horror movie set in 2024 should have Things Can Only Get Better by Howard Jones on the soundtrack.

Just, nothing about this movie works. It’s uncertain as to whether to be serious or funny and isn’t good enough at either to be an effective horror comedy. All I can say this; Tarot should be VERY thankful that Madame Web and Nightswim were released this year.

Malum (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A rookie police officer takes the last shift at the decommissioned police station where her father worked and killed himself/others. Turns out the hauntings from her past are very literal.

Going to start this review off with something that may be important; Malum is a remake of the 2014 film Last Shift, also directed by Anthony DiBlasi. No I have not watched Last Shift, so I can’t talk about the differences and improvements between the two. I don’t know what DiBlasi changed, what he added, or if it was just a “I have better technology now” situation. I do occasionally put some research into my reviews (I think I put more research into my review for Antlers than the writers of the movie did), but watching an entire film is a bit much. I will say the title is better though. Last Shift is kind of bland and could be any genre, Malum (latin for evil), is definitely a horror movie title.

Now onto Malum itself. I feel I’d like this more if I watched it years ago. Horror movies are a lot like comedy movies, the first time you see something happen in a movie it can be shocking and brilliant, but if every film you watch starts doing that same thing, it can quickly become tiresome, so by the time you see the tenth movie pulling the same tricks, you feel a lot more negatively towards it than you did the first one. This doesn’t mean the tenth film is worse than the first one, but I will give it a negative review because I’m just tired of seeing certain things. Now this isn’t a fault of the movie, I watch a lot of films, so I am exposed to more repetition, reiterations and retellings than most people. With that in mind, Malum does a lot of shit I’m quite frankly just tired of seeing the same old shit in a lot of horror films. I am bored of hallucination horror. Mainly because it always feels like such a fucking cop-out. “oooo spooky stuff, but is it real? we don’t know, and neither will you”. Far too many films are pulling the same tricks, which would be okay if that wasn’t the only way they had scares. I have a limit on how many times I can see the “character witnesses something horrific, but then its not there, did they dream it?” trick pulled in a movie. Pull it off towards the end or at the start, but far too many films have that as the only trick in its arsenal. Specifically, I could do with a 5 year ban on any “Person kills what they think is an evil thing but turns out they were hallucinating and it was actually a relative/friend” scenes in horror movies.

As I said, if I watched this earlier I’d feel much more warmly towards it. There is a fair bit to like about it; the cult aspects are fascinatingly creepy, and the use of practical effects is to be welcomed. I kind of wanted more from the cult. There are two movies; one is about a demonic cult that sacrifices people and who are planning a night of carnage focused on the daughter of an officer who went after them. It’s a very human story, and the idea of her being trapped in a locked building as they try to hunt her is terrifying, especially since her colleagues refuse to help her because of what her dad did (great opening by the way, the scene where her dad shoots Not Jodie Foster is genuinely shocking). It’s simple, but it’s effective. But the other movie is paranormal, where the cult’s tricks work, and they have demonic powers which cause her to hallucinate/control her. And that’s not as effective, as once you see it happen once, you assume that’s the case with every scare. So even at the end where she’s gravely injured after having killed someone, there’s a part of you that assumes it’s just going to cut back and she’s going to be sitting at her desk absolutely fine. The first movie? That’s one I want to see, it’s creative, and incredibly creepy. The second? Seen it. If you cut out the demonic stuff it wouldn’t be as technically impressive, but I think it could end up being an improvement from a narrative standpoint.

It also might have worked better if we went straight from the snuff movies to the police station. If the audience never sees the outside world it would make her world seem smaller and claustrophobic. It’s similar to the Colin Firth “I’m on a boat motherfucker don’t you ever forget” movie from a few years ago. The acting is mostly okay, Jessica Sula has a lot to carry and does it as best as you can hope. Some of the snuff movie sections are great visually, but the vocal performances feel fake.

Overall, I couldn’t help but feel I was watching cutscenes for a horror video game rather than a feature-length, erm, feature. It’s definitely ambitious, but I can’t help but feel it may have worked more if it aimed for something a bit simpler. Although considering how fake some of the dialogue sounds, I can see why they’d feel the need to wow with effects and visuals. The music is pretty damn good though. Like I said, there is a lot to like about Malum. But it’s standing in the shadows of stuff I’ve seen before, mostly Hereditary. Yes, I know the original of this was released 4 years before Hereditary, but this remake was made afterwards, so it might have been advisable to try and avoid comparisons and, I dunno, not make this movie? Or change the hallucination stuff and just focus on the cult-killing people.

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he’s been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.

I consider the 2010 Planet Of The Apes trilogy as close to a perfect trilogy as one could get. It’s right up there with the three Creed movies as not having a weak entry. So it’s easy to see why I was concerned that a new entry 7 years later and without Andy Serkis wouldn’t be able to live up to the legacy, especially since it’s being directed by someone (Wes Ball) whose only previous cinematic experience as a director is the Maze Runner franchise. There was the potential for this to come off as cheap and a cash-in. Thankfully, that’s not the case. This easily matches the rest of the franchise and helps bridge a gap between the original and modern franchises.

Before this, I assumed that the two iterations of the Apes franchise had different continuities, but Kingdom makes it clear that they both may exist in the same universe. That opens up future possibilities which I’m very excited about.

Besides that, is this worth watching? I have to say yes. Visually it’s stunning. Water is notoriously difficult to animate due to how unpredictable it is. It is a brave choice to have SOOO much of this film’s climax in running water, as it has the potential to look shit. But Ball (lol, buttball) managed to pull it off with aplomb. There are zero moments where you don’t believe what you’re seeing is real, which isn’t easy considering the subject matter.

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes (or KOTPOTA, pronounced cot-pot-ah) feels more ape-focused than the previous entries, which makes sense considering that they are the dominant species on the planet. This also means that when we do see humans, it is a genuine shock. The humans we see are kind of feral, which again sets up the timeline established in the first film. They’re also not good. It would be so easy to make them sympathetic heroes, but the ones we spend time with are either cowards or duplicitous backstabbers. We don’t spend that much time with them though, this is definitely an Ape movie (as in, about them, not aimed towards them, are apes capable of understanding fiction?).

KOTPOTA doesn’t miss Serkis as much as you think it would. To be honest, it would have been weird if he was in this considering the character he portrayed has been dead for 300 years. The actors playing the apes don’t let you down in this, either in motion or voice. Peter Macon, in particular, is incredible as Raka, and I really hope that his character actually did survive the seemingly certain death, as I want to see more. Really though, this belongs to Owen Teague, who I wasn’t that familiar with despite having seen him in things. Teague plays Noa as someone who is emotionally conflicted about having to work with humans, wanting to be proven wrong about them but is not given very many reasons to trust them. I hope KOTPOTA gets a sequel as I’m interested in where his character goes. Unlike Caesar, there is the definite possibility that Noa could die in the second film of a new trilogy, he lacks the plot armour of previous leads. There’s also the possibility of him deciding to get more vicious and become a villain. There are countless possibilities, all being logical options.

In summary; if you liked the previous trilogy (and you really should) then you’ll like this. It lives up to the legacy and slots beautifully alongside it.

Unfrosted (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A completely untrue story about the origin of Pop Tarts

The biggest thing Unfrosted (shortened to U, pronounced “chabatwangkluman for linguistic reasons I can’t get into) has going for it is that it is very very silly, and demonstrates how silly it is by playing it completely straight. The fact everybody takes all these things so seriously despite the fact it’s ridiculous just demonstrates how absurd a lot of this is.

But that’s also kind of its biggest weakness. Stoic reactions in a comedic world can work, Airplane is an example of that. But that requires ACTORS, everybody in this is a comedian, and they’re all playing the straight role. This feels like a waste of their talents. Jerry Seinfeld is the most affected by this. He’s known for his wit and comedic timing, so it’s weird he wrote himself a role in which he doesn’t get to display any of that. Especially since his acting skills could be improved. Don’t get me wrong, he is a tremendously talented comedian and writer, but he’s a bad actor, and always has been, even back in the days of Seinfeld.

The trouble with EVERY character buying into the silliness is there’s no real way to ground it, nobody is pointing out how stupid it is. As a result, everything feels disconnected, making it very hard to buy in. Without a reason to buy in, it occasionally comes off as a marathon of references and “Future popular thing? That will never catch on.” The story isn’t that compelling either. You don’t actually care about what happens. As such, there’s no reason to be invested. It doesn’t feel like a feature film, it has the air of an SNL sketch stretched out far far too long to the point where it seems a bit obnoxious and like it only exists so the cast can show off how funny they are, in other words, an SNL sketch.

This review may give the impression that I didn’t care about Unfrosted. Truth is; it’s one of the funniest films I’ve seen this year. The jokes are like a chronic masturbater who has just recovered from surgery which meant he couldn’t use his hand; they come frequently and with great satisfaction. You may not be invested in the story, but you’re never bored. If you don’t understand or like a certain joke, there will be another one in a few seconds that you will like. It’s not going to change the world, make you reassess your feelings about something, or make you forget that Seinfeld is now one of those comedians who complains about how “woke ruins everything”, but it will make you laugh, and sometimes that’s all you need. Plus, in a world where a biopic for a shoe genuinely exists (and is pretty good), is one about pop tarts really so far-fetched?

Night Swim (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A haunted swimming pool exists.

I started talking to someone online recently and she mentioned that she doesn’t watch movies. I remember thinking how weird that is, to spend your evenings or days NOT watching something. After watching this, I’m slightly jealous of her for being lucky enough to avoid this. After a series of reviews which basically amounted to “this film was weird, I loved it”. It’s nice to have a film where the review will boil down to “this film was weird. I hated it”. To paraphrase the Benoit who solves murders instead of causing them, this isn’t so dumb it’s brilliant, it’s just dumb. Seriously, just look at that synopsis. They somehow stretched this out to 90 minutes.

I think the issue is that Night Swim takes its concept seriously, and with a concept like “a haunted swimming pool” I think it’s best to lean into the absurdity. I like it when films have emotion and realism, characters you can believe exist and all have backstories. But there’s a time and a place for that, and there’s a time for stupidity and ridiculousness. Guess which one this is? Here’s a hint, look at the synopsis again.

It’s competently made and performed, but just not effective. Probably because, again, it’s a haunted swimming pool. Some of the scares aren’t so much “evil pool trying to kill someone” as “person forgets basic safety rules”. The most obvious one is where the male lead leans over the pool and lands on the pool cover, almost being trapped underneath. That’s an actual danger with falling onto plastic pool covers, it’s as much a “ghost scare” as someone jumping down stairs and breaking their leg is a scare to do with a haunted stair.

It’s difficult to make an immovable object scary (except for Andre The Giant obviously, if you don’t think he’s scary, just ask Bad News Brown about the incident in Mexico). The simple answer to it is “just don’t go near the object”. To make up for that, there’s a possession thing going on which compels one of the characters to act a certain way. But that also opens up new issues. Spoilers, btw. The pool operates on a “we will give you health in return for a sacrifice”, and lines up the dad for a sacrifice. But then tries to make him kill a random child, and at one point has him chase his daughter around. The writers said they wanted to make people scared of swimming pools, but they failed. Because of the amount of time spent on the possession angle, it makes you more scared of violent men. And I’m sure countless women already have true stories they can tell which will do a better job of that.

It tries to set up the pool as evil early on by having a scene where a cat is scared of it. But that isn’t really an indication that the pool is evil as much as it is cats hate water, as anybody who has tried to bathe them can attest. By the logic of Night Swim, tiny plastic vials of flea treatment are all haunted because every time I approach one of my cats whilst wielding one, they get scared and either run away or pee on me. The cat disappears, gets referenced in a single sentence in the next scene, and then is never brought up again. It wasn’t brought up that much before then either. Also, if the cat is dead, does that not count as a sacrifice? The pool is shown as killing people in return for something, so why did it kill the cat? Just to be a dick? Things like “cat is scared of water” are set up as big deals. Meanwhile, when a character has a demonic force trying to pull them under they treat it as a “everything is okay, everything is cool when you’re part of a team” situation. Sure, they are a little wary, but that only extends to “watching out for the kids when they go swimming”, which THEY SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY!

As you can guess, I was not a fan of this. It took itself far too seriously, and yet not seriously enough to actually think about what it was doing. For example; the dad sacrifices himself at the end, after which the family fill in the pool. A few things: Why was that not done earlier by ANY of the previous families? Also, the husband dies, and then they perform a large landscaping job. Would that not raise questions with the police?

The Fall Guy (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: Retired stuntman Colt Seavers is hired by a studio to attempt to find a missing actor. Yup, it’s just as intelligent as that makes it sound.

I’m a big fan of the work of David Leitch. Every film I’ve seen from him has been reviewed well on this site (Deadpool 2, Bullet Train etc), in fact, they’ve often been the highlights. They’re the kind of films I enjoy watching; fun action movies with creative set pieces. The Fall Guy (or TFG, pronounced Tafug, as in “What ta fug is going on in this movie? I don’t know but I love it”) is no exception. It’s a film about stunt work, so the action scenes have to be top-notch, which they are. From the looks of it, a lot of the work on this was done practically, so everything has a weight to it. When someone ducks, you feel like they’re actually getting out of the way of something the director has thrown at them, rather than just ducking then something being added in post production. Every hit has an impact, so when someone is punched in the face you actually feel the pain. The vehicular stunts are impressive too, with it achieving a Guinness World Record for most cannon rolls in a car. That alone shows the dedication that Leitch and his crew have to making everything feel real.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very silly at times. Ryan Babygoose has seemingly stopped attempting to be taken seriously, instead just doing stuff that is fun and a bit weird; which I love. I never would have guessed he had the comedic chops that he does. He’s not quite as brilliant as he was in Barbie, but that’s probably because he’s got less to do. The whole cast is tremendously funny; Blunt is brilliant, Waddington is wonderful, and Taylor-Johnson has too long a name for me to work into an alliterative compliment, but he’s good too, and incredibly punchable in an entertaining way. Annoyingly, this berth of talent does mean that some do feel wasted. Stephanie Hsu in particular feels incredibly underutilized. Even Blunt feels like she could have more to do, which is weird as she’s one of the leads; but there are times when she feels more like a plot device than an actual character. The relationship between the two is very cute, but the tension between them feels overexplained; there are times when the characters defend their motivations for past actions, then say practically the same thing again in case the audience doesn’t get it. My other big criticism of TFG is it uses a Kiss song far too much, I get wanting to associate a certain song with your movie, but Kiss fucking suck and are as manufactured as Boyzone or the Sex Pistols. On that note; fuck the sex pistols.

In summary; TFG is well worth a watch. I’m not sure how it relates to the original television show as I’ve never seen it, but on its own merits it’s an incredibly fun watch which doesn’t feel anywhere near as long as it actually is. It’s a love letter to cinema, to action, and to stunt performers. We need more films like this; ones made with genuine love and care. Where you just know that EVERYBODY is giving their all.

Boy Kills World (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: An unnamed deaf-mute ventures on a revenge plan against those who killed his family.

As is a sadly familiar story with smaller films lately, even ones I’ve seen at the cinema, I knew nothing about this as it received no trailers or promotional material in my local. You could easily not know it existed. That’s a shame as Boy Kills World (or BKW, pronounced Buck-ow) is one of the highlights of the year.

Saying this film is “weird” would be an understatement. “Batshit insane” is more appropriate. It’s essentially a live-action anime mixed with Naked Gun. It takes longer than you’d expect for that tone to come through though. Don’t get me wrong, you’re not waiting a long time for it to establish tone, but it does take longer than it probably should. Up until the opening credits it just feels like a standard movie. When it gets weird, it does get WEIRD, but it could place its flag earlier on.

It is weird, but in a way that makes sense within the universe created. The world it takes place in is weird, so when odd shit happens, it doesn’t feel out of place. There’s a general sense of “what the fuck?” over the whole thing. Thankfully it’s not offputting, mainly because it’s incredibly funny. Bill Skarsgard has great physical comedy skills; bringing to mind Buster Keaton, only with violence and bloodshed. He has a hell of a difficult job, not being able to vocally communicate with the other characters puts him at a huge disadvantage. He does have a slight advantage over similar roles by having a voiceover performed by H. Jon Benjamin. On the downside; it’s hard to not hear him as Archer or the main character from Bob’s Burgers whose name escapes me right now (Gene Parmasen?), so he never really feels like he is the character as much as he is just narrating as a separate person. He does provide some fantastic laughs though. A lot of the cast nail the comedy side; Brett Gelman and Andrew Koji are particular highlights, Koji surprisingly so.

The weirdness and comedic nature don’t mean it doesn’t excel from a technical viewpoint. The action scenes are intense and expertly crafted. The story is much better than it needs to be. It really feels like a genuinely dystopian city. It’s creepily believable. It’s not loudspeakers and constant “all hail us”. It’s statues, police presence, and state-sanctioned violence on dissenters. The scene where Boys family are executed is chilling, as is the fact that the regime has a lot of supporters. It also notable that there’s not really a “nice” side. It’s not a battle between good and evil, it’s a battle between two sides desperate to kill each other. Although one of the sides:

  • Started the conflict.
  • Has more advanced weaponry.
  • Has an army/police force that brutally crushes any form of resistance to them.
  • Indulges in mass surveillance of its people.
  • Has a media supporting them who are ready to go after anybody who opposes them.
  • Stifles free speech.
  • Massacres children indiscriminately

Yet that side is still portrayed as the “good” side. I wonder if there are any real-life parallels to that happening right now. I’m sure not.

Unsubtle political posturing from me aside, Boy Kills World isn’t the best film of the year (that honour still belongs to either Civil War or American Fiction), but I think it is the one I most want to watch again. It’s not perfect, the music choices could be more fun. There’s not really an iconic needle drop, which feels like a wasted opportunity. There’s also a late twist which isn’t as surprising as the film thinks it is.

Abigail (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A group of would-be criminals kidnaps a 12-year-old, and don’t even do that right. Losers.

I’ve spoken before about going into some films completely blind, having not even seen a trailer. I wish I had done that for this. The more you know about Abigail, the worse it is. A lot of the film is spent with the killer in shadow, making you think the killings are being done by a hitman working for Abigails’ mob boss father. But if you’ve seen the trailer, you know that Abigail is a vampire, so you know what’s happening. To be fair, the title and the poster do that too. It’s a film called Abigail, and the poster features that character in a bloodstained dress, so even if you don’t know she’s a vampire, you do know that she is responsible for the deaths. So the whole “what is happening? It’s a secret” aspect of the opening half is wasted. I know we didn’t see a lot of Jaws in the film of the same title, but we were aware it was a shark. We didn’t spend half the time watching that film and being told it was hippo.

Once the truth is revealed, it’s a much better film. It’s still good before that, but it definitely feels like it’s holding back on you a little bit. It’s shot like a horror movie before the characters know it’s a horror movie. So the vampiric reveal doesn’t come as a shock, it comes off as “Well that’s what happens next in a horror film”. Compare this to say, From Dusk Till Dawn, which comes off as a heist movie for the first half, which means the vampiric shift comes off as a genuine shock. Here, you KNOW it’s a horror movie, so you’re expecting something similar to what happens. They could have played it off like a heist movie and it would have improved it. I’ll admit, that would have drawn comparisons to the aforementioned FDTD. But heist movies are cinematically different now than they were in the 90’s, they’re now more focused on straight lines, split-screen shots etc. So whilst it would have been similar in terms of genre shift, the styles themselves would be different, which would have lessened comparisons.

I’m overexaggerating slightly, I’ll admit. The sections before them are still pretty entertaining. That’s mainly due to the cast though. I’m a huge fan of both Kathryn Newton and Melissa Barrera, and they’re both given a lot to work with even before shit gets bloody. The characters feel real, which helps sell the believability of this universe. The core group all mesh together well, to the point where their interactions don’t feel like the script is just fleshing out doomed characters. Kevin Durand does look distractingly like an even dumber Elon Musk though.

The real highlight is Alisha Weir as the titular vampire. She is believably an ancient being, there’s no “yeah but that’s clearly just a child speaking, not a 200-year-old person who looks like one”. Her physicality helps too. Her movements (or her stunt doubles movements, I dunno) have a brutal elegance to them, so even when she’s killing someone there’s still an air of beauty and art to it. The ballerina aspect to her character allows some very unique action scenes, of her walking down a bannister with her feet in the ballerina tippy toe pose (I do know the name, it’s called En Pointe, but I’m using that in a pun later). There’s a scene where she dances with someone’s corpse that is very weird and artful, but it did make me sad as it reminded me of Bray Wyatt. The music selection is pretty en pointe (ballet pun! I told you that would come back), mostly consisting of classical music which you’d normally find in ballet performances, operas, and an advert for a Ferrari Pene Piccolo complete with steering wheel, tyres, and can go from 0-80 in 5 seconds which you’ll never manage because you’re only using it to take your kids to school 5 minutes down the road.

In summary; it is just a mindless horror film. But it’s one of the better ones. With humour, some great kills, one truly disturbing moment, and just enough heart to elevate it.

I.S.S. (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn Review2 Comments

Quick Synopsis: Tensions flare in the near future aboard the International Space Station when a worldwide conflict breaks out on Earth

Not really relevant to my opinion of this film; but that title is terrible. It’s an awkward mix of being too short to google effectively, but also too clunky to say out loud. It’s also incredibly bland. I suppose that sums up the film itself though; bland, unoriginal, and not something you particularly want to find.

It’s hard to say exactly WHY this doesn’t work (which doesn’t bode well for this review). It looks fantastic, zero gravity is hard to pull off on-screen without it looking too fake and like they’re just being pulled along by wires. There’s never a second here where you don’t believe they’re floating around like a lost balloon (only with less chance of having a duck choke on them). The scenes of nuclear explosions on Earth could look better though. I’m not sure what they could look like, but the way they’re done here makes them look more like a video game, specifically Civilization.

The plot itself is pretty good actually. A look at paranoia, claustrophobia, and how citizens can suddenly become pawns in a game they have no desire to play. On paper, this should be a tension-filled masterpiece. Yet it’s not. The performances are all there, the directing is good, but they just don’t seem to mesh together. Separately they’re all fantastic, but it feels like they’re all trying to make different movies, so there’s no sense of a cohesive style. It’s a political thriller directed like a science fiction action movie, starring actors who think they’re in a horror movie. Gabriella Cowperthwaite is obviously talented, but she needed to tell people “That’s a good idea, but it’s wrong for this”.

I think part of the problem is the sound. If you had your eyes shut, you wouldn’t feel the tension. There’s not really a score to help match the scenes, and it also doesn’t utilise silence effectively. You’re also not really given a chance to see how big the ISS actually is. We see it from the outside and see bits of it inside, but there’s not really much indication of how far things are from each other. It looks like the whole thing takes place in a section no bigger than an ordinary-sized flat. So it’s presented as a small area, but it never feels like they’re hemmed in too close to each other in a way that ups the tension. It also doesn’t feel big enough that you can imagine someone feeling isolated from their colleagues.

It would also be useful if we were provided more background into the world. Why are Russia and the US at war? Are other countries involved? Importantly; what is left of the world after the nuclear weapons have been launched? We know that some elements of the space agencies/military are still available, but that’s it. What makes it even more frustrating is that the characters themselves don’t seem interested in answering these questions. The reason that it’s important for each country to gain control of the space station also feels a bit weak. Spoilers; they’re fighting so one of the sides can get control of the cure for radiation sickness. I feel if it got out that one side did have that, the other side would just focus on destroying infrastructure instead, meaning you wouldn’t die of radiation sickness but would starve instead. Also, they don’t need the whole space station for that. Look at it from the Russians’ POV: You assume the Americans have received a message saying “Take over the space station”. But if you are aware of what that’s for, and also that you have the cure for radiation sickness with you, would you not just say “We’re leaving, the space station is yours”, and secretly take the research with you as you jettison back home. You don’t need the ship, you need the contents of a locker. It’s like shooting up a school so you can get your homework back.

This is a fairly decent watch, which is the worst thing. It had potential for greatness, everything about it screams out “modern classic”, but it only reaches “pretty good” at best. Seeing that wasted potential is such a disappointment, and makes me think of it as worse than it actually is.