The Prince of Darkness: John Carpenter Goes Deep

Summary: a mixture of hard science and religious horror.

This film reads like someone who has read a science book trying to force that into a film about the devil. The science talk is not thought through or well developed it’s just the occasional term thrown in to try and pretend to be intelligent. The pseudo intellectual science talk mixed with the various out there religious talk becomes quite jarring after a point.

Moreover, the film has a really creepy romance where a clearly older man preys on a younger woman in a relationship. The film tries to say this is okay because she is into it too, but the age gap just feels pretty icky.

The ending of the film also doesn’t make a lot of sense and really clarifies the point that the film doesn’t have a coherent internal logic it’s just a lot of rambling posturing nonsense.

Overall, Carpenter is starting to lose it by this point.

2/5

Pros.

Some good visuals

A few good scares

Cons.

The terrible dialogue

The bad pacing

The weird choice to have the score play over dialogue early in the film.

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Hope: Avatar In South Korea

Summary: two films merge into a mess.

So the first part of this film when the townfolk where fighting the massive creature made sense, then more aliens showed up who couldn’t die, could speak and looked different to how the aliens had been shown at the start of the film.

The film has some fun moments and memorable lines but by and large it is on for too long and serious pacing issues.

You could skip the last third of the film and not miss anything, the ending sets up a sequel and is pretty weak.

Overall, a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be.

1.5/5

Pros.

A few good moments

Some good action

Cons.

It’s too long

It’s dull

It feels like two films mashed together

The ending

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Tales Of 85 Season 2: Are We Still Doing This?

Summary: Netflix cannot accept that people don’t care about Stranger Things anymore and so keep making an animated show no one wants to watch.

We are getting to a point in this show where the question becomes okay why didn’t this play a larger role in the show, or why wasn’t this mentioned again. There are whole characters that you would expect to either appear or play a much bigger role in the main show that they do based on their appearance here.

The series seems to feel like you won’t notice the plot holes or poor characterisation as long as they have big action moments every few minutes, but they can’t mask the emptiness. The action is empty too as you know the kids are going to be okay, the only real danger is for the kids who don’t appear on the main show, and you don’t care about them.

Hopefully Netflix cancels this as it just serves no one.

1/5

Pros.

The episodes are shorter slightly

Cons.

It’s boring

There are no stakes

The action has no real peril

The plot holes

The End Of Oak Street: We Got This Instead Of It Follows 2?

Summary: A street gets transported back in time.

This is the sort of film that Steven Speilberg would have made about ten years ago, when he was in his rough patch, which arguably he never got out of.

There is a lot of modernity here, the mother, Anne Hathaway wishes to leave her family and has to overcome that. She also showcases female rage by screaming at her son, not her daughter immediately after the death of his father. The death of the father, Ewan McGregor feels odd it doesn’t make a lot of narrative sense after he knocks out the dinosaur with a sledgehammer seemingly he turns his back and is then killed. However it would have made more sense with how the sense is framed if he was about to be saved in some way. Hathaway’s character later saves him in the future.

The tone is also off, this is clearly presented as a thriller yet there are forced in moments of levity, for example before his death McGregor and Hathway observe some dinosaur sex.

There are some good thrills and the film itself is serviceable if you just want to see a mindless blockbuster with dinosaurs. Even with the modernity it isn’t bad, it is just a genetic film with a number of eye role moments.

Overall, deeply mediocre.

2.5/5

Pros.

A few good thrills

It is serviceable

There are dinosaurs and they look okay

Cons.

The tone

Hathaway’s character

The ending is contrived

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Interstellar: Back In The 2010s Chris Nolan Was A Serious Filmmaker

Summary, a man goes on a mission to find a new home for his kids across the stars.

Unlike something like Project Hail Mary this film actually scienced it was hard science fiction from the off rather than wasting time with goofy elements.

The performances carried the film and there was a lot of weight to it, particularly the scenes wherein the main character sees his daughter again for the first time in decades.

The film does have some of the usual Nolan bloat as he likes to indulge in, the film would have been better sans the Matt Damon plotline, and sans the Cassie Affleck side quest but hey Nolan has to Nolan.

The film is visually great and the new worlds they explore look well realised and hold up even now 12 years later.

Overall, a sign of what Nolan can do when he’s not race swapping characters to bait the culture war.

3.5/5

Pros.

The world design

The human aspects

The science

The gravity of the situation

Cons.

Bloat

Needless subplots

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The Boroughs Season Overview: Old Person Stranger Things

Summary: the Duffers let someone else take over Chat GPT prompts and make something derivative of Stranger Things/

So this is Stranger Things for octogenarians, a group of misfit old people team up to fight aliens, sound familiar, it should, simply remove the world old and it’s the same thing as Stranger Things. The only difference being the monsters in Stranger Things come from another dimension not space, yet it could easily be seen as otherworldly.

Whilst Gina Davis praised this show for its Golden Girls’ esque collection of oldies for leading roles, the series doesn’t do much new with them. We’ve seen countless stories about evil old folks homes, and we’ve also had many stories with old people in main roles, sorry Gina.

The mystery aspects of the show are once again hard not to compare to Stranger Things as it looks incredibly familiar in terms of how they build tension and set things up for later. The writers of this show really thought the Duffers diseased franchise was a good one to copy from. No accounting for taste we guess.

Overall, Netflix needs to get better and learning what not to greenlite

1.5/5

Pros.

The performances are good

There aren’t pacing issues

Cons.

It feels familiar

The mystery isn’t very good

The evil care home idea is done to death

It’s dull

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Disclosure Day: The Government Lying Again

Summary: what if aliens were real and the government was covering it up

The plot of the film is about as new and interesting as the idea of drinking a glass of water. It has been done so so many times before, if the idea had been what would the world be like if people found out aliens were real, which is what this film sets up that would have been far more original.

There are some interesting ideas and concepts here particularly this idea of diving which the film doesn’t really explain.

The thing that is the most polarising about this film is the tone. There are rightfully incredibly serious moments in this film and then people doing prat falls and Emily Blunt calling an alien device a thingy. What it feels like is a more serious blockbuster but with some millennial quips and silliness in there which hurts it. The issue with this tonal issue is that you’ll see a very serious scene and then they’ll have something silly happen and it destroys the tension.

Overall, watchable and with some good ideas but also not great.

4/5

Pros.

Interesting ideas

Some good sequences

What it sets up

The performances

Cons.

The tone

The generic plot

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Cinema Issues: The Future of Star Wars

Lets reflect, the Mandalorian and Grogu has flopped and been upstaged by two indie horror films. The sequel trilogy is reviled and was diminishing returns. Solo flopped and most of the Disney + shows have been cancelled after one season.

It is pretty safe to say Star Wars isn’t in a healthy way. The issue as far as we see it is that new audiences don’t care about Star Wars, attempts to broaden the appeal haven’t worked, so what needs to happen is to reawaken those who have lost interest or left the fandom but once cared. This may be impossible but it’s the only card left.

What needs to happen to restore trust with these old fans is firstly some accountability, the management needs to admit failure, and needs to punish the actors and creatives who openly spat on said fans. Calling them often things like bigots, trolls or pathetic, these actors and creatives need to be fired in a public show that things are changing.

From there a consultation period is needed wherein Star Wars asks it’s hardcore fans, including the members of the Fandom Menace which it has long hated what to do next. Fans should pick the direction be it towards the Old Republic or Legends stuff. Doing this allows fans to feel heard and to feel like they have some ownership of the franchise again. This will inevitably be met with criticism from the left wing press who will scream how they are letting bigots win. What Lucasfilm and Disney should do is use the left’s logic back on them and say no Star Wars is for everyone including the fandom menace people. Having these media types upset will score them more browny points with the people they have alienated.

After that choose the best director for the job, and the right cast. Do away with anything relating to DEI and cast on merit, involve the fans again to a degree in the production stage of things. This is unorthodox however, Star Wars has alienated fans so so much and is in such a bad shape they should almost carry out their next film as a Kickstarter, sans asking for money, in order to restore trust.

You also need to commit to the course of action and to have an outline and a plan for where the story is going. One of the greatest issues with the sequel trilogy is that there was no plan.

If you can restore fan trust and bring back on board those you lost with the sequels and the wider Disney Star Wars era then you might have a chance at saving Star Wars.

However, they’ll most likely just sell it off as it’s a loss producer now.

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Backrooms: The Film That Killed Star Wars

Summary: A man finds his way into a liminal space seemingly between dimensions.

For the most part this film was very good and represented something truly original within both the horror space and broader cinema. There really isn’t an analogue.

There are some issues with pacing, and the film takes some odd turns shifting from what would be viewed as more straight horror into science fiction, however these are relatively minor.

The mystery of what the backrooms are isn’t addressed in the film and that is good as you would ruin it if they had tried to tack on some kind of explanation. There was a worry for a while they were going to tie it into the central man and his divorce it, it is a good thing they didn’t go there with it.

Overall, one of the most original horror films of the year.

3.5/5

Pros.

It is interesting

It leaves you with questions

It doesn’t require previous knowledge of the YouTube series

The ending

Cons.

Pacing

Genre feel

The focus on the lead’s divorce is dull

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Analysing The Mandalorian and Grogu’s Box Office

We are trying out a new type of article today wherein we are looking at the box office of The Mandalorian and Grogu to see the health of the Star Wars franchise.

A few things first we will be looking at first weekend numbers and estimated second weekend positioning, we won’t be looking at the life time run. Additionally this will be about breaking even theatrically so whilst you can scream about toys that isn’t relevant here.

So the Mandalorian and Grogu is the first Star Wars film to open in 7 years, and many outlets even the access media said that it had the worst opening of any Star Wars film since Disney bought them. Yet Disney said it was pleased with how it did? That’s confusing, does Disney have low expectations, did they think it would do worse? One would argue that regardless of if it’s true or not Disney have to say that otherwise it could spook second weekend sales.

The opening weekend of the film brought in around 168 million dollars, which you might go well the budget was around that so it broke even. Wrong, films needs 2.5 times their budget to break even this accounts for marketing and for cinema distribution costs. By our count the film needs around 412 million dollars to break even. However, the trades are reporting that it needs 500-600 million to break even, suggesting that the budget may be bigger than has been reported or the marketing budget could be huge. The headline which many people ran with was this that film opened to worse than Solo which was considered a flop for Star Wars. The sad truth is that’s true the numbers were lower even without adjusting for inflation and you must always adjust for inflation at the box office as the value of money changes with inflation and 160 million dollars (just an example) a decade ago is actually much more now adjusted.

Some of you may say well it’s a marathon and not a sprint the film still has a long theatrical run ahead of it. That’s true the film could reach 412 or even the 500-600 if it’s in cinemas long enough and it doesn’t suffer a huge drop off. Although it must be said that reporting is suggesting that the film could suffer a drop off of as much as 60% this weekend,, it was down Eighty Percent on Friday sales and the projections for the weekend box office say that The Backrooms and maybe even Obsession will take the top two spots at the box office. This could massively harm the run of the film at the box office, also add to that that next weekend is the release is of He-Man, which would aim for a similar demo as such the third weekend could be harmed by direct competition.

The fact that a Star Wars film is being lapped by an A24 indie horror film and possibly also by Obsession does not speak to a healthy franchise. The fact is all the Disney + shows have trained audiences to think of Star Wars as a TV show and also damaged the brand and alienated fans, as such it is going to have a hard time commanding the box office in any capacity.

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