Tag: Horror Review

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.

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?

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.

Imaginary (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A horror story about an imaginary friend/bear. I’m not putting more detail into this than the scriptwriter did.

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I am not perfect and I do sometimes make mistakes. My mistake here was assuming Imaginary was good and that I should see it. That’s not to say it’s terrible, it’s just incredibly mundane. A huge issue is a lack of identity. Imaginary is as confused about its identity as I am when I enter a new relationship with someone who has interests I don’t know about but I suddenly find myself being a big fan of.

It’s not a film, it’s a mix tape of other creative releases: The black-eyed fake family from Coraline is one. The Never Ever (the dream world) reminds me of Among The Sleep in terms of visuals. Then there’s the fact the villain is an interdimensional reality-bending being who’s capable of driving people mad, usually focuses on children, and whose real form looks like a giant spider, which is basically It. You don’t come out of this wanting to see it again, you come out of it wanting to see the better films it reminded you of, and It; Chapter Two.

There’s only one time where this horror tribute act works; when it hints that it happens in the same universe as Nightmare on Elm Street. That would explain a lot of things which occur, as well as help close up some holes. That, and only that, is a reference to another horror movie that actually enhances the lore that it’s trying to create.

So whilst it is basically a mix tape, it is a very well-curated one. Jeff Wadlow is a competent director, he’s less good at picking good scripts though, being responsible for three of the harshest reviewed films on this site: Truth Or Dare, Bloodshot, and Fantasy Island. Two of those were so notably bad, I liveblogged them, if you want to read my brain break, look here and here. Imaginary isn’t as bad as those, but it is nowhere near good enough to redeem it in my eyes.

Visually it’s nowhere near where it needs to be. There’s also a TERRIBLE edit. A character expresses joy that they were correct. You know, the “arms spread out, shouting out loudly” kind of joy. So she’s shouting in elation, arms spread out in euphoria, us watching it all from above. The camera then IMMEDIATELY cuts to her eye level and she’s standing normally. That’s just lazy.

He’s not helped by how dull the script is. A lot of the moments don’t land. It wastes the potential of an evil imaginary friend, to the point where there are times when that feels more like the background than the main plot. It’s not just the plot not mattering, there are specific scenes which waste so much potential. For example; there’s a section where the characters are attempting to enter the Never Ever. To open the door the characters need to feel pain. Physical pain isn’t enough so one of the characters delivers a “brutal” speech to her stepdaughter, harming her daughter for having to hear it, and herself for having to say it. That’s a genuinely good idea, but Colombo (by which I mean: there’s just one problem): It’s not brutal enough. It’s not a sentence you can imagine breaking anybody. It’s incredibly tame.

The tameness is a constant issue. The predictable heel turn from a side character leads to a motive rant about how they want to do something (I stopped paying attention, I was that bored). It seems hollow and a bit stupid. She’s then killed off-screen. So you don’t even get the catharsis of seeing a horrible character suffer.

The performers are all fine though. Pyper Braun is hella talented for someone so young, reminding me of Milly Shapiro. Taegen Burns is also pretty good, coming off as an alternate version of Sarah Hyland. DeWanda Rise is talented enough to lead a much better film than this. The other characters are severely underwritten, completely wasting some potential horror fodder, some of them are basically crying out to be killed, yet instead they just walk off and never appear again, probably having a wank, or a salad, or wanking into a salad.

Yup, that’s how I’m ending it.

Late Night With The Devil (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Jack Delroy is a television host who courts controversy in the face of falling ratings. On Halloween, 1977, he invites a possessed girl onto the show in this found footage slice of horror gold.

LNWTD is utterly fascinating, from the opening credits all the way through to the closing you are on the edge of your seat, taking in every subtle nuance it throws at you. That’s the opening credits of the fictional television show Night Owls With Jack Delroy. The opening of the film itself? I found it kind of weak. It’s framed as a documentary investigating the original show, but this never comes up again outside of the opening. It’s alluded to that the documentary crew are the ones who uncovered the footage played from the commercial breaks. But that doesn’t really work because the black-and-white footage feels too modern and clean in the way it’s filmed, if anything that footage should be in WORSE condition than the stuff shown on television, it should feel hand-held and rough, like it was secretly filmed and kept in a loft. The documentary isn’t even needed for that to make sense, just have it as unseen stuff that happened. The other issue with the documentary-style opening is it doesn’t say much that’s not told in the film itself. And the stuff that’s not noted in the movie is alluded to or could have easily been said. If you’re a writer and you can’t figure out how to get characters to say information during a talk show, you’ve failed.

Like a portable timepiece that shouts out your sexual fantasies at random intervals; this is a deeply unsettling watch. A lot of effort has been put in to make it feel authentic to the time, from the way it is shot, to the audio cues, all the way through to the word choices. You completely buy into the fact that this is from the time. It’s helped that it’s a found footage movie that has a reason to exist. It doesn’t feel like it’s been edited together afterwards, it feels like someone just happened to record it onto a VHS when it was being shown.

The performances are all fantastic. David Dastmalchian is great as the nervous but genial host with a dark secret. I’ve only ever seen him as a supporting character, never really buying him as a lead, that’s changed. He’s perfect for this, his vocal performance, the way he carries himself, and his facial acting, wouldn’t work with a lesser actor. Personally, I thought the best performer was Ingrid Torelli. Her performance isn’t as good, but she shows more sides to her and is given more to do, I have to mention her now because in a few years, she could break out into something fantastic, and I just want it in writing I was there early.

In summary, if you’re a horror fan, you will love this. It’s a fresh gimmick based on something a lot of people will be familiar with. It’s clever, it’s well-made, and it’s very violent when it needs to be. Importantly, it actually closes. There’s no sequel hook, it’s all very self-contained, but with the possibility of literature to find out more. Definitely not enough to stretch out to a whole new film though. It won’t quite reach horror infamy, but it will be one fans of the genre will talk about.

Immaculate (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A naive nun joins a remote convent in Italy, discovering they’re harbouring a dark secret.

I have three horror reviews to write this week: this, Late Night With The Devil, and The First Omen. I was going to review Late Night With The Devil (LNWTD, pronounced La-new-ted) first, it’s the most critically acclaimed of the three, and I have the strongest opinions regarding it. But after seeing seeing Immaculate I have to do this first. Not because my feelings towards it are particularly strong, or because I have anything important to say. I’m just not sure how I can put this and The First Omen reviews next to each other, I haven’t seen TFO (Tee-foe) yet, but there is a definite worry that they will be treading similar grounds, and I don’t want to repeat myself. Plus, if I think of any jokes after posting this, I can just use them in the TFO review. The upside of repetition in cinema.

Now onto Immaculate itself. It’s received a lot of praise, particularly for Sydney Sweeney’s performance. I’m not entirely sure I agree. The final third, she is superb, a cinematic slice of delicious cheesecake. But for most of it? She appears kind of bored. Like I said, the final third where she has the hardest stuff to do, she’s great at. But the standard conversations with others? Doesn’t feel real, with one exception. Her interactions with Sister Gwen (played by Benetta Porcaroli) are incredibly sweet and I wish I could see more of them. Sadly, Gwen is killed relatively early on. Her body is discovered in the closing section and this is filmed like it’s supposed to be a surprise. Not entirely sure it is though. The last time we saw her she was being tortured, and then she didn’t appear again for (in film time) about 6 months, obviously she’s dead. It would be a bigger shock if she wasn’t.

There is a distinct lack of surprise in Immaculate. You can pretty much plot what’s going to happen based on the synopsis, all the twists and turns are more like slight veers to the left to the left. Sorry, went a bit Beyonce there. The final third is batshit insane and I am all for it, but the lead there just isn’t that exciting. The people you expect to be shits turnout to be shits, turns out there is a massive conspiracy where the church is impregnating young nuns without their knowledge. Which is a bit stupid when you think about it, there must be millions of women who would willingly consent to that, so going after unwilling ones just seems like you’re setting yourself up to be the villain. I kind of wish that the blood they used for the procedure turned out to not be from Christ at all. There’s not a single moment where there’s any doubt that that is his blood. That’s a lot of faith. Biblical relics are not that well preserved and catalogued. There are 21 churches which claim to have the foreskin of Jesus, and that means at least 20 of them are wrong or lying unless he had 21 penises (which I think they would have mentioned in the book, but it would have meant they’d have to change the title from The Bible to The 21 Dicked Man, which won’t sell as well). So the odds that they would have the correct artifact are quite low. I do like that the film discusses how their methods are more likely to create the antichrist (and it’s implied that is what happens). But the scene where they discuss that does have someone say “If this is not the will of God, why does he not stop us?” and this is treated (even by TVTropes) as a “gotcha”. So if God allows something, this means he supports it? I think the residents of Germany in the late 1930s would have a few fucking things to say about that. As would the residents of cities hit by tsunamis and earthquakes, and people who had to watch Madame Web.

As I said, the final third is superb, and it has one of the strongest closing scenes I’ve seen since Knives Out. It’s a slow slog to get there, but it is overall worth it. This won’t end up being my favourite film of the year, not even close, but it is one I will tell people to watch if they are fans of the genre. It’s very low on jump scares, relying more on tension and atmosphere. It’s directly brilliantly (with some pretty good music choices), and I’m glad to see the horror is mostly from humanity rather than demons (which usually results in scares which are just “thing jumps at the screen but it turns out to not be real”). I do want to see a sweet friendship-based road trip dramedy starring Sydney Sweeney and Benetta Procaroli though, they bounce off each other very well and it would be a shame to waste that chemistry.

Totally Killer (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Thirty-five years after the shocking murders of three teens, an infamous killer returns on Halloween night to claim a fourth victim. When 17-year-old Jamie comes face-to-face with the masked maniac, she accidentally time-travels back to 1987 where she tries to stop the original murders, and come to terms with the idea that her mother was a complete bitch.

I went into this knowing only the title. I’m assuming I did read the concept at one point and thought it sounded interesting, but by the time I got around to watching it I had forgotten it. So I’m glad it set the tone early on, describing a murder in the 80’s. We see the murders through crime scene reconstructions (so figures and small models laid out in a model house) intercut with still shots of the actual bodies. This is a really simple way of doing a scene like that on a low budget and without coming off as cheap, so I was instantly sold that this would be creative and clever.

I then realised that this was essentially Back To The Future but as a slasher film, and I went all in. I love stuff like that. It’s been attempted before with Happy Death Day 2 U, which I absolutely loved. But I think I might prefer Totally Killer, HDD2U was good, but it didn’t play into the time travel aspect as much. This doesn’t just do a time travel slasher, it dissects the genre and approaches it from as many angles as possible. It would be really hard to do a sequel to this because it’s difficult to see what else they could do.

There’s a comment on the trailer for this that says something along the lines of “I miss the 80s, people were better back then”. Which makes me think they didn’t watch the movie. A lot of the people in this are dicks, but they’re entertaining dicks (like a penis telling jokes). Unlike something like Ferrari (spoilers for that review btw) where it’s hard to get emotionally involved since every character is a prick. In TK, the characters aren’t people you want to know in real life, but they’re funny and interesting. Plus, they’re teenagers in the 80s, so a small amount of assholeness is understandable because you know they’re not at their final form.

This is really damn funny. I went through many options for my “favourite line” in my end-of-the-year round-up. Funny dialogue comes thicker and faster than a Grimace Milkshake Ejaculation.
“When I think of serial killers I think at least 3 people”. “let’s give it up for Angie who wishes there were more people killed”
“if she did do blow jobs, maybe she’d still be alive” “Yeah, let’s not make that the lesson”
“the machines don’t kill us all. They just rip apart the fabric of our society via dance videos on TikTok”

These lines are all perfectly delivered too. I didn’t watch The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina; nothing against it, but I worked in a shopping centre when it came out so I had to see the poster for it hundreds of times a day. As such, I’m not that familiar with the work of Kiernan Shipka, but she nails it here. It helps that she’s given a good script.

It’s a script which is depressingly realistic in terms of how it approaches murder. The commercialisation of murder is too true to not sting a little bit. On the downside, the reveal of the killer doesn’t really work. It’s probably because it’s a character we haven’t seen that much of, so when they’re unmasked it feels more like “who?”. If the opening third had another 10 minutes it might have helped flesh him out.
In summary, this is on Amazon Prime, and that’s apt, as this is a prime cut of fresh horror.
Fuck that’s a terrible line, isn’t it? Ah well, go see this movie.

Thanksgiving (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: A year on from a black friday tragedy (that the town doesn’t really feel haunted by), an axe-wielding killer is killing people, sometimes with an axe.

It may not seem like it sometimes, but I do genuinely love horror movies, they’re often on my list of favourite films. But they’re also my least favourite. Horror is all about personal taste. To some people, a certain film may be the best film they’ve ever seen, to some, they just won’t like it no matter how many positive reviews they see; it’s just not their type. It’s a lot like comedy in that sense (or porn, actually, now I think about it).

I know that some people love this film, and I can see why. It’s gory, has some very creative kills, and is unique. But it’s all just so miserable and pretty much every single character is a prick. You don’t really want to see anybody survive. All you want is for someone to appear and beat everybody on-screen to death with a shit-covered hammer. This is a common problem in horror movies; characters are so unlikeable that you cheer when horrible things happen to them. But they’re also characters who we have to spend all our time with, and that 90% of time spent being annoyed isn’t worth the small catharsis.

I try not to go into spoilers too much in my reviews but I feel I have to do so here to demonstrate a logical issue I have with it. It’s mentioned early on that nobody involved in the riot at the start was prosecuted and the police couldn’t do anything. The killer turns out to be the local cop. Now call me crazy but I don’t think it would be that difficult for a small-town cop to invent a reason to arrest or kill someone. Literally, all he’d need to do is say “They were speeding, they got aggressive so I had to shoot them”. Yeah, it wouldn’t make the deaths echo as much as they did, and it wouldn’t be as cinematic, but it would be a lot more effective, and he wouldn’t need to wait a year to do it. He could even pull people over and say he needs to check their car for drugs etc, then subtly cut their brakes. I know I’m expecting too much from something dumb, but if something is dumb it can at least have the decency to not be so utterly miserable throughout.

From a technical standpoint, it’s all fine. The performances are standard for a horror film, with Patrick Dempsey being the only obvious standout. It’s not helped by how generic a lot of the characters are, to the point where a climactic final scene involving finding dead bodies left me trying to figure out who those people were.

In summary, I get why people would be into this. But for me, it was a case of “too bleak, stopped caring”. The closing credits were pretty fun though.

Slotherhouse (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: Emily (Lisa Ambalavanar) adopts a sloth as a mascot to win a school election against alpha mega bitch Brianna (Sydney Craven). So far, so Mean Girls. The sloth then starts killing everybody.

As I settled down to watch this, I had one thought in my mind “When will that dickhead outside stop revving his car?” he eventually stopped and not because his car mysteriously exploded, and I had another thought “I hope this isn’t too serious”. The concept for this, a killer sloth, is ridiculous, and there was a slight concern that it would take itself too seriously. If they don’t lean into the inherent silliness of the concept, then it’s doomed. Thankfully, the film seems aware that it’s kind of dumb, even lampooning its own title by having a character say it out loud and being met with an awkward silence.

Sometimes the stupidity works against it. Yes, it is a stupid premise, but there are moments where the characters are treating it as such. Airplane worked because the characters took it seriously, it doesn’t seem like they are in this. The death of Mayflower (a character, not the ship populated by colonists whose ancestors would then complain about immigration) in particular goes on way too long due to the characters not taking it seriously. They make jokes, insult the soon-to-be dying, and just generally seem like they’re having fun.

Another downside is that some of the side characters are seriously one-dimensional. This really hurts the death scenes that take place in the montage because you’re not entirely sure who these people are. There is also an issue of “how exactly is the sloth hiding all these bodies?” I’m more forgiving of certain things in films like this. I’ll allow certain cheap looks or plot mistakes purely because it’s not meant to be taken seriously, that being said, the montage massacre doesn’t really acknowledge the sheer amount of deaths. You get a few “where the fuck is [character]?” messages but there’s no fear or consequences. Nobody is panicking about the missing characters. This is particularly strange as one of the main plot points is a leadership vote going on, so you’d think if a character is obsessed with making sure they get all the votes possible, they’d notice if their friends suddenly went missing.

Now onto the upside; it’s very fun. You may be dumbfounded, but you won’t be bored. I mentioned how underwhelming some of the side characters are, but the ones we do get a decent look at are amazing. I do have to commend how characters are introduced: by their social media splash pages, so you INSTANTLY know everybody’s personalities. It’s unsubtle as hell, but it suits the film style so it doesn’t look out of place. It would help if we were given their real names instead of user names, so we know how to actually refer to these people. But I do appreciate how smart the splash page stuff is. It’s fun, it’s inventive, and it suits the social media age that we’re now living in.

I also appreciate how real the sloth looks. I can’t say for certain but it looks like it was mostly in camera effects, so puppetry/animatronics instead of post-production CGI. It looks kind of goofy, but it does work. The sloth attacks have some actual weight to them and feel real. There are moments where it’s kind of unsloth-like in its movements, but it mostly just looks right. I also appreciate how it is a new idea rather than just another f*cking sequel or reboot. It also closes the film in a way that is definitive so it doesn’t NEED a sequel, but keeps it open-ended enough that there COULD be one, maybe sloths in space? Doing things that astronauts do (but doing it real slowly because they’re sloths).

Another highlight; is the performances. It is a weirdly British cast for a concept that is SO American, but at no point do their accents fail. To the point where I was going to point out how Tiff Stevenson is far too English to be in such an American film, then looked into the cast and turns out pretty much all of the leads are English. The best performer is without a doubt Bianca Beckles-Rose, who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page at the time of writing. I can tell her performance is good because the character is essentially a stoner, and they can sometimes be the most annoying characters in horror movies because how they’re only used for stupidity. Beckles-Rose injects Zenny with enough realism that she feels like a fully fleshed-out character. This is the only thing I’ve seen her in but I would love to see her lead a rom-com or YA action franchise. I loved every single second she was on screen and I’m looking forward to see what she does next.

So in summary; watch this if you’ve got Paramount+, it’s worth a stream, and I think originality should always be rewarded. You might not think of it as the best film of the year, but if you get some friends around, get some drinks and some pizzas in, and watch it whilst being fully aware of how ridiculous it is, you’ll have a good time.

Five Nights At Freddy’s (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Mike (Josh Hutcherson) gets a job as a night security guard at an abandoned family entertainment centre with animals are that animatronic, sociopathic, hydromatic, why they’re greased lightning! Wait, not greased lightning, murderers, I’m always getting those two mixed up.

Should start this review of Five Nights At Freddy’s (FNAF, pronounced Fon-arf) pointing out that I really don’t give a shit about youtube culture. I watch Dead Meat and History Buffs etc, but the whole “hey guys, it’s your boy here” bullshit accompanied by atrocious camera cuts, overacting reactions to everything like “So I was playing Mario and OMG you guys, OMG you guys, I found a coin”. As such, I’m not really a part of what seemed to be a huge selling point for this movie; that it featured popular YouTubers. It is based on a famous franchise, but when I had conversations with the intended target audience the things they mentioned were the potential cameos. I’m glad that they didn’t cast them as main characters, but the fact that cameos are the main features of a film is a bad sign.

I’ll admit, I’m not that familiar with the franchise, but that shouldn’t matter. I’ve seen some comments about the negative review FNAF has got, basically saying “A lot of the negative reviews are from people who haven’t played the games”. Well, yeah. It has to be good enough to stand up on its own merits, it’s not a sequel, it’s a separate iteration, and the games should be irrelevant. You shouldn’t need to be a fan of the games to enjoy this film.

Thankfully, it’s a pretty easy film to follow, there are no moments where you feel you had to be a fan of the franchise to understand what was going on. There’s no doubt that it would improve things, though. Because there’s still a level of excitement for seeing characters and references on the big screen. I’m assuming that’s why fans of the game like the film anyway, as there’s not really anything else going on. It’s a horror movie without gore, without suspense, and without scares. The performances are good though, mostly. There’s one moment where Josh Hutcherson is a little too OTT and it feels like he’s “acting” rather than being, but when he’s a scared and withdrawn adult haunted by his demons, he nails it. Matthew Lillard is great as always, but his being seemingly cast as a throw-away character almost feels like a spoiler as to who he really is. Piper Rubio outshines all of them though. She’s only 8 years old but never misses a beat, even when she has to express some relatively complex concepts. I haven’t seen a child perform this well since McKenna Grace in Gifted. Her relationship with her brother, and her need for social acceptance, is a core part of the narrative of FNAF. The moments where it dwells on that are the strongest parts of the film (that and the animatronic work which is sublime).

A big issue is that you’re constantly reminded of better films. Willy’s Wonderland explored similar concepts a few years ago, so whilst watching FNAF my brain was like a politician who just voted to criminalise homosexuality, I just couldn’t stop thinking about Willy. I’m not sure if that joke works outside of the UK as I’m not certain “willy” is slang for penis in the US etc, but I’m sure now that I’ve explained the joke, that’s only made it funnier.

Like I said, when it’s not a horror movie, when it’s a family drama dealing with loss, that’s when it’s at its best. The horror aspects just don’t work. Probably because of the rating, it’s incredibly bloodless, with obvious camera cutaways obscuring what you want to see. This would be fine if there was an air of menace, but there’s not. The lack of menace isn’t helped by how it feels too written, there’s no grounding it in reality. I don’t mean in terms of “well this would never happen, robots wouldn’t be that sophisticated”, I mean it in a “these characters only exist in this film”, you don’t get the feeling anything has happened before the film starts. Put it this way; if you lived in a small town and there was a family restaurant that has been abandoned for years, you’d notice wouldn’t you? And if a bunch of kids went missing and the owner of the restaurant was accused, you’d notice, wouldn’t you? And if the owner of that restaurant then got a government job helping unemployed people back to work, that would be a story, wouldn’t it? But the main character has never heard of the restaurant before he starts working there, isn’t aware of children being kidnapped, and didn’t link it to his brothers’ disappearance. He also doesn’t seem to have done anything about the dead bodies that pile up, one of which is in his house and is a woman he’s had an intense legal battle with. But nope, nothing indicating he’s been accused of killing her, no indication about what he did with the body, we didn’t see the aftermath, so there is no aftermath. It’s lazy, and it’s an issue that could be easily dealt with if the screenwriters were paying attention. But who needs rewrites, right?