Tag: Horror

2025 In Film: Day Seven (The Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Captain America: Brave New World
Ups: Answers questions about the previous films.
Feels like part of the universe.
Fun.
Interesting characters.
Develops the wider story.
Downs: Feels more like a Hulk movie.
Suicidally self-destructive marketing campaign.
The continuity lock-out is strong
Best Performer: Carl Lumbly
Best Moment: The original assassination attempt.
Worst Moment: The reveal of Sterns. Have they forgotten how long its been since we’ve seen that character?
Opening: “Heroes break into a building”. Kind of standard at this point. Reminded me of Age Of Ultron.
Closing: Liv Tyler comes back. And the crowd goes mild
Best Line: Steve gave them something to believe in, you give them something to aspire to
Original review here

Good Boy
Ups: Tense
Good central performance.
Downs: Difficult to see it reaching mass appeal
Lack of a traditional exposition device may put some off.
Best Performer: Indy
Best Moment: Todd telling Indy goodbye. Very sweet.
Worst Moment: When the film flat-out says the house is actually haunted. May have worked better if it were ambiguous.
Opening: Todd moves into a cabin. Sets up that he’s ill very quickly.
Closing: Todd dies, and Vera comes to find Indy sitting on his own.
Best Line: You’re a good dog. No. Boy, you can’t save me. You gotta stay here.
Original review here

Good Fortune
Ups: Keanu Reeves is great.
Depressingly relevant.
Very funny.
Downs: Has all the bite of a gummy worm.
Perpetuates the idea that poverty is a moral failing.
Best Performer: Keanu Reeves
Best Moment: Arj inspiring the walkout.
Worst Moment: The way Arj gets fired. Makes him unsympathetic.
Opening: A day in the life of Arj. You can see why he’s exhausted.
Closing: An invisible taco gets eaten. Jeff supports workers rights. All very sweet.
Best Line: I wanted to show him that money wouldn’t solve his problems, but it pretty much solved all his problems.
Original review here

Karate Kid: Legends
Ups: Charming.
Fantastic chemistry between the characters.
Use of music really makes you feel like you’re in New York.
Doesn’t require previous knowledge of the franchise.
Downs: The two leads are paired together too quickly.
Repeats the first movie (at least) too often.
Best Performer: Ben Wang.
Best Moment: Mr. Han and Daniel showing off, repeatedly throwing Li onto the floor.
Worst Moment: The group fight. It should be better.
Opening: Flashback to a previous movie, explaining how the two timelines connect.
Closing: Daniel and Johnny Lawrence discuss opening a pizza place. The only part of the movie which requires previous knowledge.
Best Line: In life, you only have one question. Is it worth fighting for?
Original review here

Mickey17
Ups: Intelligent.
Great performances.
Sorely needed right now.
Kind of sweet.
Very funny.
Downs: Until it suddenly isn’t.
Repeats itself.
Slow. So very slow.
Best Performer: Pattinson
Best Moment: The dinner. Marvellous misdirection.
Worst Moment: The dream sequence near the end.
Opening: We see Mickey die. Then a quick explanation of how he got where he is.
Closing: The cloning machine is destroyed. Before that there’s a dream sequence that grinds momentum to a halt.
Best Line: I’m still good meat! I’m perfectly good meat! I taste fine!
Original review here

Nuremberg
Ups: Tense.
Very educational.
“People who are evil are still people” is an important lesson. That doesn’t diminish how scary they are, if anything it increases it.
Demonstrates exactly why the case was so important.
Downs: The lead performance.
Misses its mark on teaching you more about the other people involved.
Best Performer: Leo Woodall
Best Moment: When Triest reveals his personal history. Sums up the main thesis of the film.
Worst Moment: How the trial ends; feels kind of underwhelming.
Opening: Hermann the German is stopped by US forces. Sets up his sense of entitlement.
Closing: Text saying what happened to everybody. It’s not a happy ending.
Best Line: I am a prisoner because you won and we lost, not because you are morally superior
Original review here

One Of Them Days
Ups: Funny.
Pacey.
Characters (mostly) feel real
Downs: Occasionally, it feels like it’s moving from one skit to the next, rather than a cohesive narrative.
King Lolo doesn’t loom over everything like he should. Compare him to Deebo from the first Friday movie.
A few too many instances of Karma Houdinis.
Best Performer: Keke Palmer
Best Moment: Hmmm, possibly the section at the pay-day loan company. The blood bank scene is up there, but the reality and satirical nature of the loan company just edges it.
Worst Moment: The “break up”. Only because it feels forced.
Opening: Dreux finishes up at work. Shows us exactly how damn good she is at her job, plus demonstrates the relationship between her and Alyssa
Closing: Their rent gets paid and everything goes back to how it was, just without the threat. Yup, pretty much Friday.
Original review here

Relay
Ups: Tense
Nice use of the telecommunications device.
Low on action, in a good way. Characters like this should not be action heroes, their goal is mainly to incapacitate people until they can leave.
Downs: The villain’s plan depends on so many coincidences.
Lily James’ character repeats her motivations in two scenes very close to each other.
Best Performer: Riz Ahmed
Best Moment: Ash’s drinking reveal. Makes so much sense.
Worst Moment: The twist. Too stupid. Adds zero.
Opening: Hoffman hands back some incriminating documents he has. Plays into the ending, which is nice.
Closing: The massive company is legally reprimanded. Bit unrealistic.
Original review here

Spinal Tap 2
Ups: Very funny.
Characters feel like they exist outside of the film.
Downs: Doesn’t establish how well-known they are.
Some jokes don’t feel followed up on.
Best Performer: Christopher Guest
Best Moment: Simon’s reaction to Elton John “do we need the piano?”.
Worst Moment: The tour in the kitchen. Mainly because it doesn’t lead anywhere
Opening: Director talks to camera. Nice way of setting up what’s happened, and makes sense in-universe.
Closing: Stonehenge related disaster. And there’s some great stuff in the credits.
Best Line: We need to secure your legacy. If, during the gig one, but no more than two of you, could die.
Original review here

The Accountant 2
Ups: Great buddy movie.
Very sweet.
Always fun to see people be very competent.
Downs: Bland McGuffin.
Best Performer: I know I should say Affleck, but really I liked Allison Robertson more. I found her so warm.
Best Moment: The army of autistic teens finding out someones identity from a strangers selfie.
Worst Moment: The opening. Mainly because it’s not needed, and doesn’t fit the tone.
Opening: Death of Raymond King. Bland. Could be in any movie, not needed for this one.
Closing: The brothers go on a trip. Very sweet.
Best Line: The fall didn’t kill him. It was the abrupt stop.
Original review here

The Monkey
Ups: Bloody
Fun
Goes deeper with family dynamics than you’d think it would.
Good performances.
Downs: Some weird moments.
There doesn’t seem to be much reaction to the carnage. The characters seem very aware that they’re in a movie, so treat death with not much reverence.
Best Performer: Theo James.
Best Moment: Uncle Chips death.
Worst Moment: Probably Aunt Ida’s death, only because there’s a moment in it that it only happens because the character is an idiot.
Opening: The twins father attempts to return The Monkey. The Monkey has other ideas and decides to harpoon the shopkeeper instead. Fun, bloody, sells the concept well. Could have been called back to later though.
Closing: A bus of cheerleaders die. Funny, but needless and a bit TOO stupid.
Best Line: Everybody dies. Some of us peacefully and in our sleep, and some of us… horribly. And that’s life
Original review here

The Thursday Murder Club
Ups: Charming.
Good mystery.
Downs: Feels dated
A little bit boomer
Side characters aren’t developed enough.
The “ah-ha” moment doesn’t really work.
Best Performer: Pierce Brosnan
Best Moment: How they get Jason out of prison.
Worst Moment: The moment in the florists feels like a diversion.
Opening: Black and white flashback of a murder. Very noire. The Murder Club are discussing it.
Closing: They solve an earlier murder, but by doing so, are responsible for the death of another resident.
Original review here.

The Ugly Stepsister
Ups: Nice perspective on overlooked character.
Disgustingly brutal.
Lead actress is a great screamer.
Downs: Difficult to care about at times.
The other sister could have been fleshed out more.
Best Performer: Lea Myren. But Thea Sofie Loch Ness is close, and definitely wins the “best name” award.
Best Moment: The toes being chopped off. Dark, but kind of funny.
Worst Moment: Tapeworm, looks too silly to be serious.
Opening: An imagine spot of her meeting her prince, feels very much like a standard fairy tale/period drama. I like that, it lures you into false sense of security.
Closing: Happy ending for everyone involved; the cinderella expy gets her prince, the two stepsisters get their freedom, and the mother gets a mouthful of spunk from a party-goer.
Best Line: “You’ve cut the wrong foot”
Original review here

Thunderbolts
Ups: Actual emotion.
I will always love seeing Geraldine Viswananathan and Julia Louis-Dreyfus on screen.
Downs: Much like Netflix, it needs more Taskmaster.
The continuity lockout is getting insane.
Doesn’t juggle the characters that well. Ghost, in particular, is so underutilised that she’s only mentioned 4 times in the entire plot section on Wikipedia, and three of those are just “she’s part of this group”.
Best Performer: Wyatt Russell
Best Moment: The fight in the void.
Worst Moment: When the kid “dies”. Mainly because it reveals that the people shadowed away to oblivion weren’t actually dead, there’s no way Disney/Marvel would kill a young child in that manner.
Opening: Yelena destroys a facility. There is also a moment before that where she has the cliche “I always thought….” style narration
Closing: The group are officially titled the New Avengers. Feels slightly forced.
Best Line: The most shameful thing of all was thinking that you could be anything more than nothing.
Original review here

Weapons
Ups: Interesting story
Good performances.
Downs: The way the narrative told does mean that it occasionally feels like it’s stuttering instead of flowing.
The town doesn’t feel real.
Best Performer: Amy Madigan
Best Moment: Marcus killing his partner. The first time we truly see the power the witch has.
Worst Moment: Donna attacking Justine. Felt like it was purely there for a Lewton bus.
Opening: Narration over a blank screen. Not off to a good start.
Closing: More narration.
Best Line:  I can make your parents hurt themselves. I can make them hurt each other. I can make them eat each other if I want to. Do I want to, Alex?
Original review here

2025 In Film: Day Three (The Too Flawed)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

A Minecraft Movie
Ups: Fans of the franchise will love it.
The cast are fully into it.
Some good music.
Downs: No appeal to those who aren’t fans of the video game.
Jack Black and Jason Momoa probably should have swapped roles.
Even for a kids movie; far too dumb.
Best Performer: Jason Momoa.
Best Moment: The minecart escape.
Worst Moment: The title drop, it’s far too dumb.
Opening: Steve wants to mine but can’t as is a child, he comes back as an adult. Overly long, plus I feel it would have made more sense if he first arrived in the other dimension as a child, would have explained how he became so good at building.
Closing: Everybody wins and is happy. The song they play isn’t as good as they think it is.
Best Line: Tell my story in song. Keep it metal, keep it heavy, with real instruments.
Original review here

Black Phone 2
Ups: Great music.
Unique visual style.
Downs: Doesn’t really feel like a natural progression.
Completely unnecessary.
Best Performer: Ethan Hawke
Best Moment: Gwen calls out Finn and her dad. Is the only time it feels more than a horror movie.
Worst Moment: The opening
Opening: A young girl makes a phone call. Doesn’t really look like the rest of the film. Does come back later and tie into the narrative, which is a plus. But isn’t something that will hook people in. Plus, the central performance isn’t great.
Closing: The kids bodies are found and are used to help defeat the grabber. Very similar to the first movie.
Best Line: Oh, Finney. You of all people know that “dead” is just a word.
Original review here

Bring Her Back
Ups: Intense.
Terrifying at times.
Downs: Characters act very dumb at times.
Veers from holding the audiences hand to pushing them into a dark room.
Logically muddled.
Best Performer: Sally Hawkins
Best Moment: Oliver eating a knife. Disturbing as hell.
Worst Moment: The death of Andy. Doesn’t feel earned, doesn’t add to the narrative, feels a bit cheap.
Opening: Incredibly creepy cult footage. Sets the tone well. But leaves questions that the movie refuses to answer.
Closing: Laura carries Cathy’s corpse into the pool and cradles it as the police arrive. The best way it could have ended. I did fear it was going to end with her winning.
Best Line: I’m going to drown you, love.
Original review here

Die My Love
Ups: The two central performances are pretty damn good at times.
More films need to be made about postnatal depression.
Downs: Difficult to figure out what is real at times.
Bad background characters.
Seems like it doesn’t want you to like the characters
Best Performer: Jennifer Lawrence
Best Moment: The build up to the initial sex scene. You genuinely believe they love each other.
Worst Moment: The wedding, none of them come out of it looking good.
Opening: They move into a house, then have sex. Slow-paced.
Closing: They start a fire in the forest, which was alluded to earlier in the film.
Best Line: A thing you love is suffering.
Original review here

Five Nights At Freddy’s 2
Ups: Expands the universe.
The marionette.
The animatronics are great.
The central relationship is still incredibly sweet.
Downs: Feels too neutered.
In debt to much better films.
Best Performer: Piper Rubio
Best Moment: Mike monitoring the animatronics’ movements. Very much in keeping with the original game.
Worst Moment: Vanessa’s hallucinations/nightmare. Not very effectively done.
Opening: The death of Charlotte. Really well done.
Closing: Vanessa has been possessed.
Best Line: It’s so easy to become blinded by ambition even with the best of intentions, you don’t see the devil sitting right beside you.
Original review here

Happy Gilmore 2
Ups: Some nice callbacks.
Believable universe.
Weirdly breaks with tradition by talking about how important tradition is.
Pays lovely tributes to those who have passed
Downs: Repetitive.
Feels very low stakes.
Happy Gilmore is kind of an asshole.
Nepotism. So much.
Too many flashbacks to the first movie, almost as if it doesn’t trust you to remember them.
Best Performer: Bad Bunny
Best Moment: The traditional golfers training. Funny and chaotic.
Worst Moment: Happy’s drunken golf with strangers. It’s an incredibly funny scene, and I loved the other characters. But the fact it kept cutting before the cursewords was weird and felt badly done.
Opening: VERY quick “how we got here”. I’m amazed how effective it was. On the downside, Adam Sandlers narration feels like it was delivered during his lunch break. He then kills his wife, but that’s probably for the best considering how he writes love interests.
Closing: The good guys win, the bad guys not only lose but are humiliated. There’s no other way it could have ended.
Best Line: You look like Freddy Krueger worked at a Starbucks.
Original review here

Him
Ups: Violent.
Intense.
Disturbing
Downs: A tonal mess.
Wastes potential.
Best Performer: Tyriq Wathers
Best Moment: Cam (probably) paralyzing someone. Lets you know the commitment needed.
Worst Moment: The party, too visually messy.
Opening: Young Cam watches Isaiah win a game but severely injure himself. Isaiah then comes back from injury and keeps winning at the same level. Wouldn’t it have been more satisfying narratively if that injury effected his career?
Closing: Mass cult murder. Brutal, and fun, but kind of silly.
Best Line: Transitions of power are never peaceful.
Original review here

I Know What You Did Last Summer
Ups: Some nice callbacks to the original.
Quite funny at times.
Downs: Feels dated
Some people won’t appreciate what it does with legacy characters.
Unlikeable characters.
Some embarrassing callbacks.
Best Performer: Sarah Pidgeon
Best Moment: The death of Wyatt.
Worst Moment: The death of Tyler. Doesn’t play into the killers motivations, either of them. One killer wants revenge on her friends, of which Tyler wasn’t one. The other one is annoyed at the town for having forgotten the murders, Tyler was one of the few people talking about the murders.
Opening: An engagement party. The dialogue meant I automatically hated two of the characters, they were insufferable.
Closing: One of the killers is still alive. This is revealed in casual dialogue. Far too casual. “wearing jeans to your wedding” casual. Tone-deaf.
Best Line: Nostalgia is overrated
Original review here

Roofman
Ups: Sweet at times.
Believable romance.
Leighs characterisation is consistent.
Downs: Should have been a Christmas movie.
Feels too desperate to paint him as a nice guy.
Best Performer: Kirsten Dunst.
Best Moment: When we reveal that Leigh set him up. It would have been too unrealistic to not have her do that.
Worst Moment: The pawn shop break-in. Not followed up on
Opening: Jeffrey needs money to provide for his kid (who he soon forgets about) because otherwise she won’t love him. He decides to steal shit.
Closing: Text saying what happened next. He attempted to escape prison.
Best Line: We both know doing things the right way is not your superpower.
Original review here

The Twits
Ups: Does have some genuinely funny lines and moments.
Margo Martindale and Johnny Vegas are good leads.
Important message.
Accurate representation of modern politics.
Downs: Who’s it for?
Unfocused, going from one plot point to the next without them feeling connected. Feels very episodic.
Not the greatest animation.
Best Performer: Character actress Margo Martindale.
Best Moment: A family coming to an orphanage to refuse taking in an orphan out of fear they’re contagious. Truly crosses the line in a way few films dare to.
Worst Moment: The mayor farting. Even for a kids movie, it’s dumb.
Opening: The framing device; the story is being told by two flies in Mr. Twits beard. We see The Twits have built a theme park. Despite being seen as miserable, they sing a happy song.
Closing: The twits don’t die. Shame.
Best Line: “One of the worst liquid hot dog meat floods in the nations history”
Original review here

The Woman In The Yard
Ups: Makes daylight scary.
Sets up its different narrative pieces well.
Good performances.
Unique.
Feels very grounded
Downs: COMPLETELY falls apart in the final third. Like, drops off a cliff.
Best Performer: Peyton Jackson
Best Moment: The first time we see the woman, it feels MADE for posters.
Worst Moment: The attic moments.
Opening: Ramona watches a video of her deceased husband. It’s weird she filmed that moment, but it’s very sweet, and sets up SOOO much very quickly. Sets up what their relationship was like, sets up that they’re having problems fixing problems in the home, even the way she’s watching it sets up that he’s dead. Genius.
Closing: She decides not to commit suicide, the camera shows a painting signed by Ramona, but backwards. Possibly hinting that she DID in fact, commit suicide. Yay, “your children will be better off if you died” is a totally fine message.
Best Line: Today’s the day.
Original review here

Until Dawn
Ups: Some decent kills.
Bloody.
Decent effects
Downs: Switches between overexplanations and being annoyingly vague.
Survival feels more luck-based than as a reward for smart choices.
No reason to exist.
Best Performer: Ella Rubin
Best Moment: The death of one of the monsters.
Worst Moment: The bathroom scene. Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable, it was bloody, and it was entertaining. But it also demonstrated how luck-based the whole premise was. For a game based around “your decisions have consequences”, it’s annoying how the choices have no impact. “Don’t drink water or you’ll explode” is not a lesson.
Opening: One of the characters gets murdered, they’re clearly annoyed at this.
Closing: A car pulls up to a snowy cabin. A clear reference to the game, I assume. It’s shot in such a way that it’s obvious it’s SOMETHING, so I can only assume it’s that. Incredibly unsubtle.
Best Line: Is anyone else growing new teeth?
Original review here

2025 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Clown In A Cornfield
Ups: Some nice subversive character choices.
Some pretty decent shots; always looks clear.
Downs: Kevin Durand looks like a poundland Elon Musk
Predictable.
Doesn’t build up the villain.
Best Performer: Katie Douglas
Best Moment: The reveal that Cole and Rust are former lovers.
Worst Moment: The parade. Feels weak.
Opening: Party in a cornfield. Well, in a barn next to a cornfield. Close enough. Like all cool parties, there’s a teen playin with a windup doll. Her and a random dude strip off to fuck in a cornfield (feels like that’s how you’d get diseases). They die, obviously.
Closing: A damn sequel hook.
Best Line: You do realize that the ’80s are as far away from me as ’40s were to you, right?
Original review here

Ella McCay
Ups: Charming.
Some interesting moments.
Downs: Too unfocused.
Doing a political comedy this toothless feels cowardly.
Feels dated.
Inconsistent characterisation.
Best Performer: Jamie Lee Curtis
Best Moment: Ella’s freakout/monologue.
Worst Moment: The security working their way into overtime. Mainly because it has the air of something important and monumental, but really it doesn’t matter.
Opening: Narration by Julie Kavner giving us the history of Ella; basically, her dad was a dick.
Closing: Ella has started a non-profit that offers legal aid. Nice, but feels tacked. on.
Best Line:
Original review here

Nosferatu
Ups: Tense
Technically good.
Downs: Dull.
Feels too in debt to the original to really leave its own mark.
Uninteresting characters.
Best Performer: Nicholas Hoult
Best Moment: Orlock on the ship.
Worst Moment: The death of Friedrich feels a bit weird.
Opening: Ellen doesn’t want to be lonely anymore. She awakes an ancient creature and vows to pledge herself to him.
Closing: Nosferatu gets distracted and feeds until sunlight.
Best Line: God is beyond our morals! In vain! In vain! You run in vain! You cannot outrun her destiny! Her dark bond with the beast shall redeem us all, for when the sun’s pure light shall break upon the dawn, redemption! The plague shall be lifted! Redemption!
Original review here

Renner
Ups: Good performances.
Pretty visuals
Downs: Terrible script. I mean, there are moments where the visuals aren’t great, but the major problems (consistency, bad characters, genre confusion) are ALL down to the script, which is poor.
Best Performer: Violett Beane
Best Moment: Just after the monopoly scene there’s a wonderfully lit sequence.
Worst Moment: When he attacks the thieves. Purely because the way its shot (quick flashes whilst he’s asking what to do) makes it come off as a fantasy sequence rather than reality. The visually unclear storytelling happens a few times, but its most clear then.
Opening: I know it’s a common joke to make that the vanity cards that open up films are so long they seem like an actual movie, but the opening credits for this legit seem like a vanity card.
Closing: He gets shot. Reminds me of the original ending of Clerks where Kevin Smith was told “you killed off your character because you have no idea how to end your story”.
Best Line: Do you have a desire that remains unfulfilled because of your non-existent confidence?
Original review here

Silent Night, Deadly Night
Ups: Some decent kills.
Potential
Downs: Too bleak, stopped caring.
Falls apart if you think about it for more than a minute.
Best Performer: Ruby Modine
Best Moment: The many deaths of Nazi’s.
Worst Moment: When they encounter the snatcher. I’m still not sure whether we were supposed to recognise who they were.
Opening: The death of Billy’s grandparent, and parents. Sets up his character well, and pays homage to the original.
Closing: Billy dies, Pam is now the new Billy. So you have a non-white woman taking over a white male role. I’m sure the internet loved that.
Best Line: Punish
Original review here

The Alto Knights
Ups: Fans of the genre will enjoy it.
Well crafted atmosphere.
Good performances.
Suits the period.
Downs: Doesn’t bring anything new.
Maybe should have been made decades ago.
Best Performer: De Niro
Best Moment: Barber shop assassination.
Worst Moment: People testifying in front of congress. It’s edited terribly.
Opening: Frank Costello is shot in an elevator, then explains the history between him and Vito Genovese.
Closing: The Apalachin meeting. Much rather see a film about that.
Original review here

The Electric State
Ups: The robots look spectacular.
Downs: Bland story
They don’t seem like brother/sister. To be honest, the way they react is more like lovers. Hard to explain why.
Chris Pratt REALLY wants to be Harrison Ford doesn’t he?
Best Performer: Millie Bobby Brown
Best Moment: The Christopher reveal. Horrifying.
Worst Moment: The death of Clark Amherst. Has no emotional weight.
Opening: It’s 1990, “before the war”. Well it says “before the war”, but war is on the horizon and humanity already hates robots. Sweet interactions between the sibilings. We then get a background on the world, how robots were invented and came to take part in an uprising. I kind of think the “robot uprising” part of should have come first, the siblings part didn’t accomplish anything that couldn’t have been accomplished better elsewhere.
Closing: The robot character we thought was dead stands up so is still alive. oh no, what a shock.
Best Line: I have a condition where I can only live in reality. Sucks, but you go right ahead!
Original review here

The Toxic Avenger
Ups: Bloody
Fun
Actually helped people.
Downs: Too self-aware at times.
Oddly restrained in parts.
Needs a better soundtrack.
Best Performer: Dinklage
Best Moment: The diner robbery. Political, violent, and fun.
Worst Moment: The random guy in the woods. Mainly because it feels like a diversion.
Opening: Dramatic voiceover, met with quick highlights of what we’re about to see. Perfect for this.
Closing: The bad guys die, good guys win.
Best Line: My God you people are tedious!
Original review here

Y2K
Ups: Full of nostalgia.
Some good music choices.
Downs: A little too dumb.
Some unrealistic deaths.
The main character comes off a bit too “nice guy” at times.
Who is it aimed at?
Best Performer: Rachel Zegler
Best Moment: The sing-along to Tubthumbing. Kind of cute.
Worst Moment: The skating death. After seeing people being impaled and set on fire, a 1 foot drop while skating will always seem shitty.,
Opening: The “internet connection” noise. Then AOL. What ever happened to them? They WERE the internet.
Closing: Five years later, the glitch face appears on an iPod. Because God forbid a horror film be self-contained and not aim for a sequel.
Best Line: You think this’ll work because you saw it in a movie? I think movies have warped your mind. God damn, now I’m sounding like Tipper Gore.
Original review here

Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Billy is traumatised by the death of his parents, so every December he kills 24 people in the build-up to Christmas, as you do.

There are a lot of iconic horror franchises; I haven’t watched them all. Silent Night, Deadly Night (or SN, DN, pronounced Seen Deen) is one of those I have no history with. I’ve seen the Kill Count videos on them, so I’m aware of them, their memes, characters, and kills. Basically, I have no personal stake in this movie. I’m not going to be personally offended at the changes, but equally, I’m not going to geek out over references beyond just going “I recognise that reference”. The last movie I was in that situation with was Black Christmas, back in 2019. That was the second remake of a Christmas-themed horror franchise that featured a killer named Billy that originated in a realistic 70’s movie, but for the second remake, it decided to make it supernatural and weird. Silent Night, Deadly Night is completely different; it’s based on an 80’s movie.

I am aware of the changes made to the lore, and it would be weird to not comment on them. Basically, the main character in this only kills people because if he doesn’t, a random person will die. So he decides to only kill bad people. Essentially, it’s Dexter Claus. I can see why they did it, and it does lead to a roomfull of nazi’s being brutally murdered in a scene I’m sure we can all hope to see recreated. But it does mean that this becomes the kind of horror film I don’t particularly like: bad things happening to bad people, where we’re supposed to cheer the murderer and think of how cool he is. At no point in this are you scared for any character’s well-being. At no point are you disgusted by the brutal killings. How can you be? If you witness someone go into a room of Nazi’s carrying a weapon, then you’re not going to sit there like “noooooo. Get out of their nazi’s! He’s going to kill you”. It also leads to my other problems; how many fucking killers are in this small town? It’s the kind of horror film which falls apart if you think about it too long. How does nobody notice people being killed? Compare it to Heart Eyes, where we saw news anchors talk about the horror of the killer striking every Valentine’s Day. There’s nothing like that in here. There’s no “every year, a random town in America is struck by a killer in a Santa costume”. It’s almost as if it doesn’t happen. This is most evident in the Nazi scene. A LOT of people die in that; the building is set on fire. It’s NEVER referenced again. There are no “wow, a lot of people didn’t turn up to work today” comments. No news reports about the Nazi paraphernalia that turns out to belong to beloved town figures. It has no impact. Also, if he has the power to see people who are evil, why was it he had no idea there were A LOT of nazi’s in that town? Does the person possessing him not see “being a racist POS who calls for the death of all non-whites” as evil? That’s fucked up.

I am fully aware I’m missing the point of this. This is not meant to be taken seriously. But everyone is allowed personal opinion, and this is not the kind of horror film I’m into. For the kind of people who like that kind of thing, that’s the kind of thing that those people like. But it’s not for me. It’s too dark to be fun, and too ridiculous to be scary. Also, I didn’t buy the romantic part; I saw no reason for her to be into him. Very minor complaint: he gets a job at her shop. It’s a Christmas-themed shop, selling ornaments and baubles etc. He starts there on 20th December. Forget the “he’s haunted by a ghost that tells him who’s naughty, and warns him of danger (unless it’s plot convenient)”, forget the “almost 100 people died in one night, and nobody notices”, him starting a Christmas job that late in December is the most unrealistic part of the whole darn thing.

The performances are okay. Rohan Campbell is fine, but not spectacular. I liked Ruby Modine; she has a weird likability, even when she’s displaying ultraviolence. On the subject of violence, the kills are good. If you like brutal deaths, then you’ll love this. Many of the deaths contain references to the original movie. Fans might not be so pleased with the supernatural elements, and I have a feeling some of them REALLY won’t be pleased with the ending. I can almost hear the “it’s gone woke!” complaints from here. On the plus side, it means that if there is a sequel, it will be guaranteed to be very different.

I kind of hope there is a sequel, as there’s potential. And once the writers stop trying so hard to make it different from the original and instead focus on just telling a coherent story, they could be onto a winner. Because the lore and characters have been established, the next step should be a lot cleaner to execute. So in summary, I really was not a fan of this. It was an overstuffed mess that lacked any sense of identity and was too focused on unlikeable characters. But I’ll still watch a sequel if it comes up. I probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I saw it in an almost empty room, so there wasn’t much audience reaction, which it feels like this film was made for.

Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: One year has passed since the supernatural nightmare at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Former security guard Mike has kept the truth from his 11-year-old sister, Abby, concerning the fate of her animatronic friends. When Abby sneaks out to reconnect with Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy, she sets into motion a terrifying series of events that reveal dark secrets about the true origin of Freddy’s.

I won’t lie, I could just repost my review of the first movie, SOOOO many of my issues with it are repeated here.

It’s a horror movie without gore, without suspense, and without scares. 

Yup, same here. It’s incredibly neutered. I’m not asking for full hardcore violence, but a little bit of blood and more disturbing sound design would have helped sell the violence.

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 are 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).

The only part of this that is changed is that Piper Rubio is no longer 8. She’s still the strongest performer by a wide margin. Elizabeth Lail seems to be having an off-day; I know she can give a better performance than this. Also, that mention of McKenna Grace seemed to be weirdly prophetic, as she’s also in this. Not for long enough, though, I hope she has more screamtime (pun intentional) in Scream 7.

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.

Oh, that’s definitely the case here. The relationship between Mike and Abby is core to why this works. The two are so sweet together; so even when the film itself isn’t that entertaining, it’s just so damn nice to watch the interplay between the two.

The continuity lockout is much bigger for this than it was for the first one. If you’re not familiar with the original games, you’ll struggle to work out why certain things are met with dramatic music, or why some of the sentence structures feel clunky and designed to get certain phrases in. I have a slight knowledge of the games, so I recognised some of the references; but there were a few moments which I recognised as references, but didn’t get the references themselves (like when an American sitcom starts talking about NY politicians).

My biggest issue is the ending; it doesn’t really have one, not in the traditional sense anyway. Not in a “the story is complete and we’ve reached a dramatic conclusion” way. It ends with a character being possessed and about to hunt down everyone. That’s not an ending; that’s the third-act setback that leads to the ending. It feels like they cut an entire section out. I also wasn’t happy that seemingly essential plot points were in the middle of the credits. Not a fan of that, if something is important, it should be in the actual film, credits scenes are for fun stuff, not essential.

In summary, incredibly similar to the first one, but with newer mistakes.

Clown In A Cornfield (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Some kind of circus worker (can’t remember the specifics) kills teens in a rural setting of some sort.

Fun fact: this was the 100th new movie I’ve seen this year, beating my previous record by roughly 11. It kind of sucks that such a momentous occasion is being marked with a film so bland that even a local cheap chicken shop wouldn’t sell it. It says a lot that the most memorable thing from this film is that you can sing the title to the same tune as Goldfinger’s cover of Man In A Suitcase. Also, I kept spelling it Cornfrield for some reason. If this movie were a colour, it would be mud-brown.

For Clown In A Cornfield (CIAC, pronounced Sigh-ack) to work, it needs to do one of two things: either be ridiculous and weird, or be brutal beyond belief. This does neither. It’s rated 15 in the UK, and it feels like it’s towards the lower end of that rating. The kills, even the most violent ones, feel remarkably pain-free. None of them really sticks in my mind. The opening two in particular feel neutered. One is offscreen, and the other one breaks physics. The clown approaches the future victim while they’re lying on the floor, then does a sideways sweep (like a hockey player making a quick pass), it then cuts to the person being lifted up on the weapon high up above the clown’s head.

The actual script isn’t too impressive either. Seinfeld famously described itself as “a show about nothing”, CIAC takes it to the next step by having nothing happen. The background characters are so underwritten that they might as well be cameos, so when the film shows us that there are multiple killers (I don’t count as a spoiler as it occurs before the halfway point,) it’s not difficult to see how the unmasking is going to go. The iconography of Frendo is so underbaked that I’m pretty sure it gave me salmonella. It doesn’t feel like “this has haunted the town for years”, or even a recent urban legend. The main characters use the idea that Frendo is a killer as a joke in a YouTube video. Also, for most of the deaths, the clown is only seen by the person they kill; so why dress as a clown in the first place? It’s unfair to single out CIAC for that, as SOOOO many slashers make the same mistake, to the point where I was actually impressed when Heart Eyes provided a good reason for the characters’ “fame”.

I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it’s basically Hot Fuzz, only we’re expected to take it seriously. I think we are, anyway. By all logic, this should be comedic, and there are times where it feels like it’s trying to be one, but it’s like being headbutted by a teletubby; incredibly po-faced. It’s weird as Eli Craig also directed Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, which got the comedy/horror balance spot on. Here, it feels like it didn’t do enough to satisfy either genre.

On the upside, there are some musical choices. And there are some surprisingly subversive choices made with the main characters. It’s nowhere near as bad as I’ve made it sound. I doubt it will be in the bottom half of my movie rankings this year. There’s not much offensively awful about it, but there’s absolutely nothing worth highlighting. It’s mediocre, and in some ways, I find that more offensive than being bad.

Keeper (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Terrifying visions plague a free-spirited artist when she travels to a secluded cabin with the doctor she’s been dating for one year.

I went into this surprisingly blind for someone who has seen the trailer at least 11 times at the local cinema. It gave nothing away. So I expected it to be mysterious and creepy. Turns out it didn’t give anything away because there’s not that much to give away, at least not until the ending. It’s not a sequential escalation of events; it’s just stuff happens, then similar stuff happens, with no explanation.

Imagine you go to a restaurant expecting chocolate cake. It’s a 60-minute time limit, but for 50 minutes, all you have access to is bread. You’re confused, trying to figure out what is going on, wondering if you’re even going to get any cake. Then, just when you’ve given up hope, the cake arrives, and it is good; it somehow explains the bread. In that scenario, are you going to tell people “the cake was really good”, or are you going to talk about how you spent most of the time eating bread? That’s my experience with this movie (the bread is nonsensical weirdness, the cake is logic and storytelling, obviously). Most of the 99-minute runtime is spent with incomprehensible weirdness instead of scares. I have similar issues with it that I had with Osgood’s 2024 movie Longlegs; it looks pretty, the performances are good, but nothing happens, and then it continues to happen. It’s demonstrably dull. Part of that is the weirdness; it overplays the “something spooky, but it was possibly a dream” moments, so nothing lands. Every time you see something, you’re never sure if it’s real, so you assume it’s not, which means nothing has meaning.

The performances are great, that has to be said. By which I mean, of the three characters we spend the most time with, one is spectacular, and is luckily the one who is onscreen most of the time. On the downside, I have recently watched Broad City, so it did take a while to move past Tatiana Maslany’s resemblance to Ilana Glazer. If it wasn’t for Maslany, I’d have HATED this movie. Her performance is incredible, which is handy as most of the time she doesn’t really have anyone to bounce off.

Perkins has injected the film with an atmosphere that’s very low-key, incredibly naturalistic. Which makes it all the more disappointing when he keeps going back to hackneyed horror tropes when we see the creatures/visions. Those visions don’t seem to increase in levels; they stay consistent throughout, so they seem more repetitive than my complaints about them.

To be honest, this is a difficult review to write as it’s difficult to resist the urge not to just repeat a lot of the sentences from the Die My Love review, maybe mixed in with my Longlegs review too. There’s a filmmaking rule: Show, Don’t Tell. Essentially, if you want to tell the audience that a character is in pain, it’s best to do that by having them wince when they move, etc, rather than have them come in and say “I am in pain”. Films like Keeper take that advice too literally, showing us random things with no explanation. Short flashbacks and spooky shit do not count as foreshadowing; it’s just annoying.

In summary, I think it’s a style issue. I just don’t like Perkins’ style as a filmmaker. Except for The Monkey, I loved that. If this were a short, I’d have loved it. But because it spent sooooo long getting to the f*cking point, I was too bored to care by the time it got interesting.

Shelby Oaks (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Mia is haunted by the disappearance of her sister Riley 12 years ago. She’s given up all hope, then a stranger hands her a videotape of Riley’s final moments.

I’ve seen this movie described as a mix of Blair Witch and Hereditary, which is remarkably accurate. It has the lore and world-building of Hereditary, and the reality-based found footage of Blair Witch. It’s been overused since then, so people forget just how exciting The Blair Witch Project was when it came out. What made that movie work was how real the footage itself felt; the people in it didn’t like actors, so it genuinely felt like we were watching something hidden. It also wasn’t overly edited and full of jump scares, which is a trap its weaker imitators have fallen into. In that regard, Shelby Oaks continues that tradition, with the found-footage sections being incredible to watch.

It’s when it steps away from the found-footage premise that it becomes less interesting. The moment it happens is brilliant, and feels like a genuinely “holy shit” moment, the likes of which I haven’t seen since the Ghostface deaths in the opening of Scream 6. It can’t keep that momentum up, though. Once that moment has gone, the film doesn’t come close to matching it. You’re still invested in the story and the mystery, but a little bit of that “wow” factor has gone; there’s not as much to separate it from every other horror movie. I think part of the annoyance with it is that the mystery is intriguing, but you never really feel like you’re getting close to solving it until the film tells you what’s happening; there are no clues for the audience to figure out. If you’re watching this with friends, there will be no discussion about your theories or guesses. It gives you a puzzle, then makes you watch someone else solve it, so after a while, your brain can’t help but wander. Without that “I want to solve the mystery”, you’re just left with a spooky story, albeit a very competent one.

It’s clear that Chris Stuckmann has a lot of talent as a director; he’s an expert at crafting scares out of seemingly nothing. He’s helped by a brilliant performance from Camille Sullivan. I was also fond of Sarah Durn’s performance as Riley, especially towards the end when we see her perform not as a video host, but as a traumatised victim. She looks haunted. Nobody else really lasts long enough to have an impact, but it is always nice to see Keith David. There’s also some great audiowork, which is an underrated part of crafting tension.

When it is tense, it’s on “edge-of-your-seat” levels. Shelby Oaks is the kind of film that nail-biting was invented for. I watched it in the cinema, which is a great way to watch a film like this; sitting in a dark room with lots of space around you, letting everything overwhelm you. The only way the experience could be better is if you had to listen to it on those massive over-ear headphones.

What surprised me about Shelby Oaks is just how nostalgic it made me feel. The videos genuinely feel like they’re from the early days of YouTube, where it was weird people making art as opposed to corporations making “content”. There’s a sort of innocence to the videos the Paranormal Paranoids make, which makes what happens to them all the more frightening.

I wish I could play this as a video game, or watch it as a series of YouTube shorts played off as real. As a feature film, it runs out of ideas in the final third (but the ending is pretty shocking), which really does a disservice to the art created beforehand. In summary, quite frustrating, but the work of people who clearly know what they’re doing. One day, Stuckmann could make the greatest horror movie of modern times, but he’s not quite there yet.

Time Travel Is Dangerous! (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Ruth and Megan run a vintage shop in Muswell Hill, using a time machine to source new old stock.

It’s nice reviewing films people know and are excited for, to add my voice to the conversation that millions of people around the world are having. But there’s also something to be said about reviewing something not quite as well-known. Films like Time Travel Is Dangerous (TTID, pronounced Tit-tied), which at the time of writing has only 25 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, that’s critic and audience total. It deserves more than that.

I’m not really surprised, though. This film is incredibly British and quite low-budget. It’s not low budget in a way that makes you wonder how they managed to miraculously produce something on that budget; it wears its budget on its sleeve, and that’s not meant as an insult. If anything, it adds to the charm. And TTID is very charming. The characters using a time machine to bring back stuff to sell in a vintage shop? Brilliant idea. And anybody who has worked retail will recognise someone trying to buy the shop vacuum, and then being annoyed that they can’t do it. It helps that the two charity shop workers (Ruth and Megan, played by two women called *checks notes* Ruth and Megan, well, how am I supposed to remember that?) are incredibly likeable. Apparently, they are the real-life owners of a vintage shop in Muswell Hill. That genuinely surprises me. Usually, you can spot non-actors in films like this, especially as the leads. I had no idea; I just assumed they were involved in production somehow.

There are some great jokes here. An inventor’s group having a motto that’s “insert motto here” in Latin? Love it. Yeah, the jokes aren’t the smartest, but they’re funny. It’s also surprisingly poignant at times, especially the sub-plot with Botty and Ralph. I didn’t expect to find a touching treatise on fame and friendship inside a film as silly as this, but I’m glad it’s there. The entire inventor’s group is full of fun characters and jokes, so for two-thirds of the film, it’s delightful.

But then we get the final third. This section takes place in the other universe (there is a proper name for it, but I’ve forgotten it). It feels WAY too disconnected from the rest. There’s an almost entirely new cast of characters, a different visual style, and different comedy. The rest of the film is like a documentary; this part isn’t. So it feels like it takes place in a different film, where the characters of this one have just invaded it. It seems like that’s where most of the budget went (I’m guessing). It’s a shame, as that’s clearly the most ambitious part, so it feels somewhat mean to knock them for it. But it is definitely the weakest part, and knocks it down quite a bit.

There are some people who will enjoy that part, and there are also likely to be people who hate my favourite part: when Ruth is turned into a teenager because of issues caused by the time machine. I like it, I found it funny, and I liked how it drove a division between the two leads. But it’s easy to see how some may see it as a stupid diversion. Like I’ve said before, film reviews are all opinion, and opinions are never objective.

This won’t be a film liked by most people. But those who like low-budget silliness will enjoy it.

Black Phone 2 (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Gwen and her brother Finn are haunted by bad dreams and PTSD, leading them to a Christian youth camp where they’re forced to face their fears, and their pasts.

As a stand-alone film, I have some issues with Black Phone 2, but it’s pretty good. As a sequel to The Black Phone, however? It’s a mess. I haven’t seen a sequel shift like this since Brahms: The Boy II, which was seemingly written by someone who only saw the trailer for the first movie, and was writing based on what they thought that movie was.

The original Black Phone was semi-realistic. The Grabber wasn’t a demon or person with special powers; he was just a serial killer who focused on children (possibly in a creepy way). Yes, the eponymous phone was mystical and supernatural, but the narrative itself was fairly grounded. The fears that the characters dealt with were realistic; a child has been taken and is desperate to survive. It’s no more supernatural than the tales World War 2 pilots would tell of a deceased officer seemingly leading them to safety when all hope seemed lost. Black Phone 2 would be like if those same pilots said that the clouds gained sentience and started breathing fire on the enemy, then winking at the survivors as if to say, “I got this”. I’m not sure where I expected a sequel to The Black Phone to go, but I didn’t expect it to basically turn into A Nightmare On Elm Street, but more ridiculous.

Two things are very clear from this movie: 1) Ethan Hawke is damn good at what he does. 2) Scott Derrickson LOVES creepy VHS-style vignettes. He uses that style to indicate what scenes take place in dreams; so it’s actually a really handy visual cue, I kind of love it. Yes, it makes no diegetic sense unless we believe these kids are dreaming in Super 8, but as a shorthand for “this is a dream”? I dig it.

I mentioned Ethan Hawke’s performance just now; his performance is less camp and theatrical than it was in the original, but much more menacing. Part of that is because he’s not actually in it that much; the biggest mistake a third movie can (or, I predict, will) make is having more of him. It is kind of helped by the other performances being only okay. It’s weird, I’ve seen every performer in this do well, so it’s not a talent issue, but there are moments where performances seem so hammy that the film should come with a label saying it’s non-kosher (alternative joke; so wooden I’m going to use them to mend my fence). None more so than Anna Lore in the opening scene. She redeems herself in later scenes, but her making the initial phone call feels off, performance-wise.

Loved the music; it’s suitably creepy and weird; reminds me of the work of Trent Reznor, and it perfectly suits the visuals Derrickson is going for. Although on the subject of music, everytime a character loudly exclaimed “Gwen!” my brain started singing this. I’m not holding that against the film, that would be stupid. I just wanted to make sure everyone who reads this is equally cursed, like when I tell people that the opening to Breakfast In America by Supertramp is very similar to Don’t Speak by No Doubt.

It is a weird sequel, but I do appreciate how realistic it is that the characters are haunted by the events of the first film. They’re both clearly suffering from PTSD. My first thought was, “a bit unrealistic, someone would have clearly given Finn therapy and counselling”, then I remembered this is set in 1982, and therapy was seen as unmanly (and to some stupid people, still is), so depressingly, his having to self-medicate his trauma with drugs is accurate.

Overall, a pretty solid experience, but one of the few sequels that is actually made worse by having watched the original. There are some stupid character moments (when trying to stop Gwen from being slowly dragged into an oven, nobody thinks to close the oven door), but also some smart ones. I appreciated how they tried to wake her up by throwing cold water in her face. Despite the moments of stupidity, it’s still a fun watch, albeit not one you’ll be dying (horror pun!) to do twice.