Tag: Until Dawn

2025 Film Awards: Day Four

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Best Opening

Dangerous Animals

Two tourists go on a boat so they can swim with sharks. They’re then killed, with a knife. Wonderful way to subvert expectations. Up until the murder, it feels like a romantic comedy. It’s so sudden, blink and you’ll miss it.

Opus

Sets up how important the musician is. I like it. It didn’t just TELL us he’s a big deal, it showed us; his music, his talk show performances, his fans. It all feels real.

The Last Showgirl

The character performs an audition. Very nervous, and obviously lying about her age. Anderson is best known for essentially being Ms. Fanservice in the 90’s. So to see her so emotionally naked and visually honest in the opening scene? Shows you what it’s going to be.

The Woman In The Yard

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.

Winner

Final Destination: Bloodlines

The disasters have always been a highlight of these movies, and Bloodline is no exception. Some truly all-time great kills, with the funniest death of a child you’ll see. The childs death made you realise that nobody was safe in these movies; death will come for anybody, regardless of age. Subverts expectations slightly, with it being a vision from a descendant rather than the actual person. It’s been years since a Final Destination movie, and scenes like this make you curse that time.

Worst Opening

A Minecraft Movie

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.

Black Phone 2

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.

Fantastic Four: First Steps

Sue and Reed at home being domestic. I have very specific issues with this opening, the big one being that it’s kind of mundane and dull, especially when there’s a REALLY good introductory scene afterwards of a talk show host explaining the characters background. That would have been a much better opener.

Lilo And Stitch

Stitch is being investigated. Not how I would have opened it. Mainly because it seems weird to open a live-action adaptation of an animated movie with a scene that’s mostly CGI. Feels like you’d want to showcase the filming locations.

Renner

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.

Winner

The Accountant 2

A character dies, and it’s one of the blandest deaths you’ll ever see. It feels like it belongs in a lesser movie.

Best Moment

A Real Pain – Pictures At A Statue

The group posing for pictures with a statue. It shows everything that works. The character interactions, the warmth, and the sadness. You can show that scene and instantly know the characters.

Companion – Lying To The Police

Her encounter with the cop. She can’t lie, but she can change her language to non-English so the cop can’t understand her. Genius.

Eternity – Enter The Archives

The first trip into the archives is very sweet. This is one of best demonstrations of love.

Final Destination: Bloodline – Tony Todds Goodbye

This broke me. The subtext is obvious, but so beautiful. Any other year, this would have won.

I Swear – Fucks In A Car

Not fornication, just swearing. Lots of swearing. You wouldn’t think two people swearing would be so sweet, yet it is.

September 5th – Whoops, We Were Wrong

I wasn’t that familiar with the events of the movie. So I was genuinely blindsided by the reveal that their sources were wrong, the hostages haven’t been saved, they’ve been killed. This will catch people out, and it will horrify you, as it should.

The Ugly Stepsister – Makeover

Weird choice, as I didn’t even have this as best moment in the end-of-year roundups for some reason. Probably because I wrote that section just after seeing the movie, whereas this is new, so I’ve had time. With time, a certain moment has stood out; when Elvira is forced to go through a makeover. Not a “haircut and makeup” makeover, full on mutilation. There’s one moment in particular that stands out: chisel to the nose. It’s simple, not overly bloody, but it makes me wince whenever I think about it.

Urchin – Karaoke Bar

Three people singing an Atomic Kitten song should be skippable. But it’s incredibly sweet, and the way the three characters do it tells you so much about who they are. It’s the only part of the movie that has genuine emotion.

Winner

Sinners – Music Montage

Sammie plays in the bar, and we see it conjuring spirits of the past and future. It’s a good thing nobody was close to me at the cinema, otherwise they would have heard me say, “That? That’s fucking cinema”.

Worst Moment

Fear Street: Prom Queen – Dance Off

It feels so out-of-character for the people involved. It baffles me that this was left in there.

Good Fortune – Arj Gets Fired

He deserved to get fired. He stole from his employer. He has no justification for being annoyed. Which makes him kind of unsympathetic, and hurts the message of the movie.

Heart Eyes – Killer Reveal

Films like this have to nail the killer reveal. Part of my dislike for the sixth Scream movie is down to how much I hated that reveal. It’s similar here. It feels lazy. I get what they were going for; but the rest of the film is too genuine to do something so subversive this late in the game.

Kinda Pregnant – Threesome/proposal confusion

It feels incredibly fake. It would be like if you invited someone to your house on their birthday and all their friends were there, along with a birthday cake and a sign saying “Happy birthday”, but it wasn’t for their birthday, and you get annoyed at them for daring to think you were planning a birthday for them.

M3gan 2.0 – Villain Reveal

I called it within seconds of the character being introduced. I guessed not only that they would be the villain, but also their motivations.

Renner – Attack 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.

The Bad Guys 2 – Wrestling Match

It’s weird how this film can open with a heist/chase that makes such great use of space and logistics, and then forgets that they’ve shown us how big the wrestling ring is, and you can’t run for more than a second without hitting the ropes.

Thunderbolts – Kid “Death”

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.

Winner

Until Dawn – Explosions In The Bathroom

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. If the characters’ choices don’t matter, why should I give a shit?

Best Closing

Bring Her Back

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.

Fear Street: Prom Queen

Someone gets bludgeoned with a trophy. Nicely thematic way to end their life, and I liked that they didn’t die immediately. They collapse, there’s not that much blood, but you can tell by the way they’re speaking that their brain is fucked.

Friendship

A hostage wig disaster. Nope, not giving you more information or context.

Novocaine

He visits Sherry in prison. Delightful surprise that there are consequences to actions. Always nice to see that in a movie like this.

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

Stonehenge related disaster. And there’s some great stuff in the credits. It comes very quickly yet doesn’t feel unsatisfying. It helps that the jokes are very funny, plus the way the “disaster” happens makes sense and suits the narrative.

The Roses

The two reconcile. Awwwww. Then almost certainly die in a house explosion that we don’t see.

Wolf Man

He’s in pain and gets shot. Best way it could have ended, had actual emotion.

Winner

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Jud has reopened the church, the jewel being the hidden centrepiece. This franchise has a habit of NAILING the endings, and that continues here. It’s closer to the ending of the first film than the sequel, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s immensely satisfying.

Worst Closing

A Minecraft Movie

The ending song is not as good as the film thinks it is.

Avatar: Fire And Ash

The ending implies that Spider will play a bigger part in the next one. He sucks, so that does not bode well.

Final Destination: Bloodlines

Most of these movies end the same way: with the “survivors” about to die. As such, it’s getting a little hard to care about anybody in the franchise.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

One of the killers is still alive. This is revealed in casual dialogue. Far too casual. “wearing jeans to your wedding” casual. Tone-deaf. That’s without even going into the killer reveal, which is one of the weakest I’ve ever seen.

Opus

“haha you caught me but that was my plan all along”. I don’t know why, but for some reason this didn’t vibe with me. It just didn’t work or land the way it was intended.

Superman/Relay

Both of these suffer from the same unrealistic ending: rich people are punished for their misdeeds. That’s like if Casablanca ended with the characters becoming robots and assassinating Hitler.

The Monkey

A bus of cheerleaders die. Funny, but needless and a bit TOO stupid.

Until Dawn

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.

Winner

The Woman In The Yard

It cannot be overstated how much the final third absolutely torpedoes any goodwill the rest of the film provides. A visual and narrative mess which confuses deliberate confusion for scares, rapid cuts instead of tension, and a final shot “reveal” that doesn’t actually reveal anything going by online discourse which gives it two different meanings. It feels like the writer isn’t sure he’s going to get another shot at writing a horror film so crammed as many horror tropes and conventions as he could, regardless of whether it worked for the story he was trying to tell.

2025 Film Awards: Day One

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Funniest/Best Comedy

Nominees

A Real Pain

At times, this is the saddest film you will see, it will break you. That’s to be expected; it’s about family trauma, mental health, and the holocaust. What you may not expect is just how funny it is. So whether its with sadness or with laughter; one way ot another you will end up crying. The laughs are big enough to just about carry you through the sadness. They’re logical laughs, too. Based on believable character reactions. If you tell people what this film is about it will be difficult to convince them it’s a comedy. Once they watch it though, they’ll get it.

Deep Cover

I was weirdly charmed by this. I think the trailer lets it down, ruining most of the jokes by changing the timing or removing the context. If you think about it too hard, then the plot does fall apart. Thankfully the jokes are good enough to tide you over the plot issues. It could be funnier, there are multiple missed opportunities, especially towards the end. But the jokes that are there are pretty damn fine.

Heads Of State

No idea why, but my brain links this and Deep Cover, so the fact I put Deep Cover in this category kind of meant I had to put this here too. There are some great comedic action scenes, especially the one where they land and fight a random group.

I Swear

When this site was set up over a decade ago, there were some discussions that had to be made. Among those; the slogan. We hit upon “Making you feel guilty for laughing”. Whilst that may not be totally accurate now due to our move away from lists/opinion pieces and towards reviews, I like to think it’s still incredibly accurate when I showcase scripts (trust me, I’ve got one lined up the next time there’s a lull in reviews, and it was written just to see if I can make a VERY dark scene work). That slogan would also be accurate for I Swear. It’s so inappropriate that you can’t help but laugh. I never thought I’d say this; but this will make you laugh at a cancer-stricken woman being punched in the face. It would be so easy for this to cross the line and be offensive, but the writers make it work. It’s also weirdly sweet at times. The scene of him and the teenage girl in the car (it doesn’t go where you think it does) is both hilarious and sweet.

The Naked Gun

Not quite as joke-filled as the original movie, but if it’s a genuine surprise that you can say something like “sometimes there’s a whole 40 seconds without a joke” then you know a film is packed with gags.

The Roses

This got the loudest laughs of any film I saw this year. Absolutely shocking, but also brilliant.

Winner

Fackham Hall

Very similar to The Naked Gun in terms of comedy style and consistency. Fackham Hall wins out purely based on the fact that I’ve excitedly told more people about it. I haven’t felt a need to watch The Naked Gun trailer again (although I have kept an eye out to see if it’s been added to digital services), but I must have watched the trailer for this at least once a week since I watched it. The only surprising part is that a Jimmy Carr movie would be so inoffensive.

Scariest/Best Horror

Nominees

Companion

Not a traditional horror movie, more of a thriller. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this. In terms of actual movie quality, this is probably the best of this list. But in terms of horror? Not quite. The gore is fantastic though when it is used.

Drop

Not quite as close to the horror genre as the directors previous work. But it would be hard to argue this doesn’t belong here at all. It’s such a simple premise, and one which hits straight at modern fears.

Heart Eyes

For 75% of the runtime, Heart Eyes is a damn fine horror movie. It falls apart at the end with the reveal of who the killers are, but before that it’s a modern classic. Brutal, smart, and (importantly), characters you don’t actually want to see die, so you are worried when they’re near death.

Sinners

Actually, forget what I said about Companion. THIS is the best movie in this category, probably one of the best movies I’ve seen all year, in fact (definitely top 3). It is more of a horror movie than Companion, it just takes longer to become one.

The Monkey

Silly, utterly ridiculous. But so inventive and bloody that I couldn’t help but feel warm towards it.

Weapons

I didn’t rate this as high as a lot of people did, but it would be naive of me to not say how creepy it is when it does work. I had a few issues, but they’re pretty much all personal preference.

Winner

Final Destination: Bloodlines

This was a new experience for me. I’ve seen all the Final Destination movies before, but on TV or DVD, but Bloodlines is the first in the series that I’ve seen in the cinema. It’s difficult for a movie this far into a franchise to still feel fresh. The deaths are as good as ever, incredibly creative and able to make you scared of everyday things.

Worst Comedy

Nominees

Bride Hard

I can’t sum it up better than William Bibbiani did in his review on TheWrap:

“It’s abrasively hard to watch. It’s not just that the jokes fall flat, it’s that the film looks like a pile of celluloid got chopped up randomly and reassembled in what the editor could only assume was the correct order, because the script mysteriously vanished”

Happy Gilmore 2

I suppose my main issue with this movie comes down to the fact that in the time since the first movie, I’ve matured as a person (not by much) and as a movie-watcher, and it doesn’t feel like Sandlers tastes have matured at all. The references to the original don’t feel organic, and the film doens’t trust that you recognise them, so they include flashbacks which disrupt the momentum.

Winner

Kinda Pregnant

The key to comedy is truth. It’s why no comedian has started a routine with “don’t you hate when you’re drinking a glass of lemonade and it mutates into a cheese sandwich, but your girlfriend is allergic to dairy ever since she was bitten by a yak?”, because that’s not a situation anybody can buy into, so the jokes won’t work. The central premise of Kinda Pregnant isn’t one you can buy into, and the way some background characters react makes it even more unbelievable. There are a few good laughs; I particularly liked it when she got a classroom to boo a small child, but those moments are too few.

Worst Horror

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Were people crying out for this film? Was there a need for it to exist? The third one is universally regarded as one of the worst horror films of all time (and think of the ground THAT covers). This version has some fairly decent kills, and it is nice to see some of the original characters again. But there’s not much else to it. It’s a tonal disaster, especially at the end. The story falls apart under the smallest bit of scrutiny. The first movie is incredibly closely tied to Scream, and it’s hard to argue against the feeling that the release of this was entirely due to that franchise being rebooted a few years back.

Keeper

Not so much a story, more a collection of creepy moments.

M3gan 2.0

I legit love this movie, but it’s not a good horror. Tbf, it’s not trying to be, but the expectation was it would at least play to horror tropes slightly.

Silent Night, Deadly Night

It had some good ideas, and I will always appreciate watching Nazi’s die (especially on the news), but SNDN was far too stupid for me to enjoy. Similar to other films in this category, the plot falls apart once you think about it. The murders all seem to happen in a vacuum, having almost no consequence on the town. I’m not saying every sentence needs to be “I haven’t seen Bob around, have you?”, but if a hundred people die in a small town, people should notice. Also, the deaths in this aren’t meant to be scary, you’re supposed to cheer them.

Winner

Until Dawn

Videogame adaptations are hard; do you adapt the story, or the general spirit? Whenever somebody says “dude! They should make a Grand Theft Auto movie, it would be sick” I wonder what that would actually be like. The fun in GTA is playing it, not the story, so a film would just be a ridiculous gangster movie. The best adaptations attempt both. It feels like Until Dawn focused on story, and in doing so, ruined what made the games great. I haven’t played the game, but I’ve played the Dark Pictures Anthology games and The Quarry, made by the same company. What makes those games special is choice; how seemingly innocuous decisions can kill people. Plus; you have to stick with your choices. It’s all about consequence. So an adaptation which makes a point of saying that consequences don’t really matter because it will all reset seems to have missed the point.

Most Unique

Freaky Tales

You really don’t see many anthology films, so that alone is weird. But the tone of Freaky Tales is what sets it aside. It feels like a comic book adaptation. The science fiction elements are so underplayed it’s almost as if the film doesn’t think it’s worth mentioning because they’re so normalised in this world. I can see why people would dislike this movie; but it’s certainly charming, and unlike anything else I’ve seen all year.

Here

This is a fascinating concept; essentially the history of a house told in a non-linear fashion with the camera never moving. It doesn’t always work, with the crossfading being a bit too distracting at times. It definitely would have been easier to maintain momentum over a shorter runtime, but I’m glad that it tries. It’s not exactly a success, but it’s too impressive to be a failure.

Presence

A host story (very much NOT a horror) from the POV of a ghost. That aspect is really helped by the flowing camera movement. I may not have liked this film, but I appreciate it.

The Second Act

A film that’s so meta that it almost folds in on itself. Too meta, even for me. This will frustrate the hell out of 90% of people, but the 10% of people who like it will love it. I don’t think I’ve ever been as weirded out by a realistic film.

War Of The Worlds

“Unique” doesn’t always mean “watchable”. I love a good screenlife film, and am always excited to watch one when it comes out. An alien invasion movie made like this is a fascinating prospect, but this doesn’t even come close to living up to what it could/should be.

Warfare

Another gimmick, this time, a war movie that takes place in realtime. Not many films portray the reality of war, this at least shows the horror, how it can completely fuck with your head. Essentially, it’s PTSD: The Origin Story.

Winner

Good Boy

A horror movie from the POV of a dog, I haven’t seen anything close to this outside of a video game.

Saddest

A Real Pain

It’s weird that a film can be in both the “funniest” and “saddest”, this manages it, and is a big part of why (spoilers) I’ve nominated it for best film of the year. It’s not just because of the holocaust mentions, the approach to mental health will also be depressingly realistic to those who suffer (or those with basic empathy).

Key scene: So many options. I’ll go with Benji when he loses his cool on the train. Other moments are sadder, but that’s when the mask falls furthest.

Bring Her Back

I was not the biggest fan of this film, but I appreciate the way it showed parental grief. It’s the grief that adds another dimension to the character, turning her from just another horror movie villain, to someone with relatable motivations; motivations which will break you slightly.

Key Scene: I guess the whole thing. The limits that Laura went to so that she can bring back her deceased child.

I Swear

To paraphrase the film: it’s not the tourettes which makes this film sad, it’s peoples reactions to tourettes which are the problem.

Key Scene; When he gets hospitalised due to a misunderstanding. You can tell that he is worried that that’s what his life will be like from now on. That he is always at risk of someone beating the shit out of him because of something he can’t control.

Winner

Final Destination: Bloodlines

I could spin a yarn about how this movie touches on survivors guilt and mortality, and say this film is on that list because of that. Really, it’s because of one scene, and one scene only.

Key scene: Tony Todds farewell. He wrote it himself, he knew he was going to die soon and was given the chance to say goodbye to horror fans on his own terms. Other movies have been sadder all the way through; but the real-life meaning behind the sadness is why this wins.

Sweetest

Freaky Tales

It seems like the modern world is designed to cause division and anger: from football teams, to wrestling companies, to MCU/DCEU (and even then there’s subdivision between Snyder/Gunn). In those times it’s nice to see films like this; films which demonstrate we can all come together in one uniting perfect ideal; knocking seven shades of shit out of nazi cunts (fuck off)

Karate Kid: Legends

This film was not made for me. It was made for fans of the franchise, or people who, at the very least, had watched one of the films in the franchise. I went in relatively blind; yet was still charmed.

Winner

Heart Eyes

You wouldn’t expect to find a horror movie in this section, but here we are. The romantic relationship between the two leads is what separates this movie from other horrors. The romance is so great that I would have been genuinely disappointed if it turned out he was the killer; it would have actually made sad for the character, just as heartbroken as she would be. Of course, I also would have criticised it for being predictable, but still.

Most Me

Essentially, films which may not be great, but I connected with on a personal level. Films which I would show someone to best explain my taste and personality.

Companion

Bloody, funny, and feminist as fuck. Some people have described this as “anti-male”, it’s not. It’s anti-abuse, and if you see that as “anti-male” then that says more about you than it does the movie.

Matt And Mara

A “platonic” friendship full of awkwardness and conversations that consist of pop-culture references? This is the exact type of thing I write. So it’s a shame I didn’t like this. Possibly because it’s so close to me that all I could see is how I would have done it.

Queen Of The Ring

It’s a film about wrestling, of course, this would appeal to me. The soundtrack is very me too, the cover of Gods Gonna Cut You Down in particular, does feel very geared towards me.

The Ugly Stepsister

I’m a fan of retellings, and few have been done as slickly as this was. A few of these types of movies have been bad, so when it’s done well it’s a huge relief. This doesn’t just retell the story, it brings its own identity to it too. There’s some great stuff in here, stuff that will stick with you long after the credits roll (actually, this was released on streaming services, so it’s actully “long after you get a pop-up telling you to watch something else because god forbid a streaming service actually lets you settle with the impact of a movie instead of just forcing the next one down your throat).

Winner

A Real Pain

A depressing yet hilarious film that touches on mental health, isolation, mortality, and the holocaust? Love it. Plus, it stars Jennifer Grey, who I’ve always had a soft spot for.

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

Until Dawn (2025) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Clover is on a road trip to find out what happened to her missing sister, she finds out. Her and her friends get trapped in a repetitive nightmare.

I’ve never played Until Dawn, but I have played some games by the same studio, which follow the same principles and guidelines. I genuinely love them, not just because I’m a fan of story-based games, but also because they’re interesting and have great accessibility options. A key part of those games is the notion that choices have consequences. Something as simple as “look at this poster” could be the difference between life and death. Importantly, you, as a player, have to live with the consequences of your actions. So it’s baffling that the main gimmick of the movie is that choices don’t matter because once you die, you reset into your original position.

Annoyingly, it doesn’t even do anything entertaining with that premise. When this has been done before, the characters die because of their mistakes, and learn from them to help them survive. Here, it feels like they’re being controlled to die, and there’s nothing they can do. For example, at one point, a character gets picked up by an invisible force and dragged into a building. What’s the lesson there? What can a character learn from that to avoid it? Similarly, there’s one set of deaths which is essentially “don’t drink tap water, you’ll explode”, which feels ridiculously unfair to the characters.

It feels like the movie itself gets bored of its own premise halfway through, with the characters waking up and realising they’ve died multiple times and can’t remember a lot of them (conveniently, the characters all forget the exact same ones). Why? How does this serve the plot? It seems like they only did that as an excuse to watch videos of previous deaths on someones phone, and cram in horror movie moments.

Which is another issue; this isn’t a story, it’s a series of moments from other horror movies that the filmmakers wanted to put in. It doesn’t settle on a tone or style that’s consistent throughout. It reminded me of Cabin In The Woods, but badly written.

The characters? They’re funny, I’ll give them that. But there are so many moments where they feel like movie characters instead of actual people. Some sentences uttered are only uttered by characters who are written; nobody responds as an actual human would respond. There’s also a weird sense of detachment. The characters quickly get used to the idea of dying and coming back, despite not knowing when their last life will be, so really, they could die at any point. There’s a moment when a character disappears, and I thought they were going to announce that she had died died, which would lead to everybody becoming less flippant with death, but nope, she’s just elsewhere. I’m not exaggerating when I say the characters treat death flippantly, at times they seem to welcome it. “fuck, stubbed my toe, guess I’ll die”. At one point, one of the characters flat-out murders one of her friends. That murder is never brought up again. If a friend drove a pickax into my stomach, I would find it hard to forgive them. Plus, can you imagine what it would be like if THAT life was the person’s final life? So their friend properly killed them and has to live with that knowledge, whilst also learning that their lives are finite.

Until Dawn is not completely terrible, though. The performances are fine, although it is hard to get past the feeling that they are discount versions of other actors; specifically, Rachel Weisz, Jenny Slate, Johnny Depp, and James McAvoy. It is weird how the film has objectively lesser-known actors than the game. The game had Remi Malek and Hayden Panettiere. Okay, this was before Bo Rhap, so Malek wasn’t a big name then, but it’s still strange.

Some of the kills are fun, and as much as I hated the explosion scene for what it did to the narrative, out of context, it was entertaining. There is a basis for a good idea here. But it needed more thought than it was given. I was really looking forward to this, and I can’t feel anything except disappointed.

Why we love…Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

On By troubledproductionsIn Why we loveLeave a comment

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Lets talk about Silent Hill (and by that I mean I talk, you read).
Not about Konami and their fucknutarry. But about the games we do have, the good and the bad.

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BURN KONAMI BURN!

As I mentioned in my Session 9 post, Silent Hill is deeply rooted in my childhood (okay teenhood), since I got the second game for Christmas when I was 13, then spend the rest of that day and days after playing it. I mean what else could get you out of the Christmas spirit better.

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But Silent Hill is special to a lot of people going back much further than me. At a time where horror games were more intone with creature features, or just puzzles with jump scares, your Resident Evils and Alone in the Darks- not to faults those series as they did they own part in progressing the genre, but Silent Hill came in with something more mature. Less violence, but more atmosphere and story building, where you don’t play as a gun toting bad ass, but as a normal guy.

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There were no end of the world conspiracy plots- well 1&3 kinda do- but were character driven and about real day to day fears that could actually happen, e.g. losing a loved one, marriages breaking up, guilt over the bad things you’ve done, ect. (Again I reference back to my Session 9 post). They became an alternative to people who didn’t want to kill the things that scare them, but think about why they do.

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Now despite the series to this date having eight full installments, it’s as far back as 3 that people say the series lost it and has been in a never ending downward spiral it has yet to- and Konami has made sure it won’t- recover from. But I disagree.
My favorite Silent Hill games remain, Silent Hill 2 (which really doesn’t need any more talking about), Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (the subject of this post), and Silent Hill 4 (the cult one). But these choices come from a gamer that cares much more for story than gameplay. I’ll put up with the worst fucking mechanics if the story grips me.

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And that brings me to, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories; an odd duck in the series. A reimaging of the classic first game, that shockingly is actually a fucking reimagining and not just a remake for the money- like 90% of all horror movie remakes. It takes the classic story of Harry Mason searching for his daughter in the spooky town, blends it up and turns it into a snow cone; Shattered Memories: Silent Hill 1 on ice. Removing the silly occult plot but keeping the father daughter drama, it embraces the pure psychological stuff- a great move in my opinion. I don’t hate the occult laden stories of Silent Hill, but I’ve always found they make better back-stories for the town, than when they take centre stage.

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Beyond its well done recrafting of the story (which I won’t spoil) the game’s other best feature is its great use of the psychology, not always subtle, but great. This takes the form of Dr Kaufmann, here your passive aggressive psychiatrist. The story of SM is framed round a FPV of you answering questions with your therapist. An idea a lot of people will recognise from this year’s Until Dawn, but is far better executed and worked into the plot than there (though it does lack the awesome Peter Stormare chewing scenery by the fistful).

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I don’t think he was given any direction. He just kinda went with it.

As instead of just picking and choosing between stock fears that will inevitably show up, it actually does try to psychologically analyse you. Staying away from most yes or no, A or B questions , it gives you a lot of variety to personalise; like colour this family picture, who looks dead or sleeping, match the couples, ect. Now a lot of it is blatant; you talk about sex, the monsters and other characters are erotic. You like to drink, you end up in bars instead of diners (I know I’m using that as an example of blatancy, but I still find that so cool).

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There’s at least three versions of every major character. And even up to nine of Harry.

But for all the point A to point B outcomes, there are just as many subtle touches to affect how it plays. If you colour in the family quick and slapdash, then Harry is impatient and rude in the next scene, but if you take your time to be neat, then he’s calmer and nice. Or if you are honest about how much you drink, then what would be soda cans littered around, are beer cans. Small but affective.

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And from the writer who would go onto create Her Story, its no surprise such effort would go into such small details. It is those little touches, used to dive deeper into the characters and story, that has made SM such a lasting game for me, and anyone who has taken the time to play it (though really it’s like a 5 hour game if you don’t rush).

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It’s scary the first few times, suspenseful the next few, then just tedious the rest. But it’s more than worth it to uncover the story.

Now a common complaint of SM is that it just isn’t very scary and for a horror game that’s a big fault. And I won’t disagree, beyond some jump-scares and damn creepy moments and locations; it’s more oppressive than scary. But was it ever really trying to be? I mean there are definite moments of horror and suspense, mainly the very frustrating otherworld chase sequences, but as I said; Silent Hill deals with relatable fears, and SM does this more than any.

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I feel this poster really captures the true heart and feel of the game.

Not dealing with murder or child abuse, but with simple divorce. Love ripped apart and the effect it has on all involved, from parents to child. Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is a horror by default, but drama by choice. And in a time where Gone Home, Life is Strange, and every Telltale game is so beloved, what’s wrong with that.