Blackstock Boneyard: Back To Bore You To Death

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Though this film is good enough horror shlock, there is not enough to it to make it compelling or anywhere near above average.

I will admit I often found this film to be funny, though more often than not in an unintentional way on the part of the film. There were parts of the film that almost played like a comedy, everything was so laughably over the top, though I did like that about the film.

I enjoyed the B movie charm of this film and thought the dumb spectacle was very entertaining. Sadly, the characters were very milk toast and failed to inspire any kind of reaction in me; other than one of boredom.

Moreover, the film suffered from pacing issues throughout with the film feeling about double its actual length. There were times when the film entirely lost me, and I found it very hard to keep paying attention to it.

Overall, entertaining enough, but not without deep issues that bog it down.

Pros.

The spectacle

It is dumb fun

Cons.

The acting

The pacing

Frequent excursions into boring

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Ebola Rex: Does What It Says On The Tin

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

This film will never win any awards, it will never be lauded, but it will entertain you for a little over an hour and provide you with some good, switch your brain off, trashy, fun.

The characters are all paper thin, but again you aren’t really watching this film for nuance or for rich meaningful character arcs, you are watching it to see a T-Rex with a deadly disease destroy things and just generally be a pain. In that regard there is plenty of b movie esque destruction and carnage, enough to easily pad the film out.

The pacing of the film generally works. I found that the film was starting to run out of steam by the end, and had it been any longer it would almost certainly have suffered from pacing issues, but as it stands it feels well balanced.

I think how much you enjoy this film will come down to how much you enjoy B movie monster films.

Overall, fun but nothing to write home about.

Pros.

Mindless fun destruction

B movie charm

Well-paced

Cons.

Paper thin characters

The gimmick gets old fast.

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The Conjuring, The Devil Made Me Do It: Always Remember Your Heart Pills

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

I am very mixed on this film. It is different from the other two Conjuring films, but that is both a good thing and a bad thing.

As a good thing it is nice to see the film focus on one case that is very self-contained and does not feel like it is setting up a few hundred tie in sequels, prequels and spin offs. I thought the story itself was interesting and told well.

However, my issue with this film comes from its stakes. So the previous films have had the Warren’s square off against demons, sometimes a few at the same time, however here they are facing a far more human threat. The villain of this film is an evil Satanist because we still need to add to the fears of the Satanic Panic, years after it was all the rage. Whilst this could have been a cool idea it does feel quite anti-climatic and like a step back after what we have already had.

Moreover, I feel like this film is really stretching the ‘based on a true story’ concept, as yes technically it is but if you read up on the real life events you will quickly see just how loose that is.

I enjoyed Farmiga and Wilson as always and I thought John Noble was a nice addition to the cast: the acting in the film is definitely a high point.

My question really is where do they do with the series from here? They are quickly running out of stories from the Warren well, and the ‘based on a true story’ narrative is also starting to wear thin. They need to fast track some of those spin offs to fill the void, cough, cough Crooked Man.

Overall, still good, just a bit underwhelming.

Pros.

Wilson

Farmiga

Nobel

Cons.

The villain feels like a step back
It feels very final I don’t know how they will be able to continue it

The based on a true story line is starting to become a lie

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A Quiet Place 2: Much Like The Walking Dead This Post Apocalypse Feels Repetitive

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

There was a lot of hype and excitement going into this film for me, many had said it was the film that was going to save cinemas, or that it was an experience unlike any other. As such I went in with high expectations hoping for the perfect sequel I had been promised, and honestly I was left disappointed.

If I had to describe this film to someone in a sentence I would say, ‘more of the same’, really there is nothing new here it is the same gimmick from the first film just done again. This time around they do explore the world a bit more, or at least that small part of it, and we get new situations that result in noise and monsters; the issue is these situations feel very similar to what we have already seen.

From a story perspective this film does not really push the needle for me, the big ending of this film feels like an afterthought of the first films ending and the whole journey there feels anticlimactic. A lot of things are shown and not explained, for no reason other than padding out the plot.

Finally, and on a positive note, I did enjoy the newcomer of Cillian Murphy I thought he fulfilled the surrogate father role rather well, and his was easily the most interesting arc across the film; I only wish we had more time with him.

Overall, this is nothing new if you liked the first film you will like this. I would not say this is the film to rush out and see in cinemas if you haven’t already been back as honestly I don’t think seeing it in that format, as opposed to watching it at home, adds all that much.

Pros.

Murphy

Blunt

Giving the kids more to do

Cons.

The padding

The ending is a retread

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Seance: A Boarding School For Mature Students

2.5/5

I have been very impressed by the prior work of Simon Barrett, he was involved in the creation of two of my favourite films of all time The Guest and You’re Next; however, in both cases he also had Adam Wingard as backup. Here Barrett is on his own, with this being his directional debut and it becomes clear very early on just how much Barrett needs his fellow mumblecore pioneers like Wingard, as this film begins to fall apart.

So before getting into all the reasons the film doesn’t work I want to give it praise for what it does well. The twist, that I won’t spoil here, that comes in towards the end of the film is actually surprising and I didn’t see it coming, it flips the film on its head which makes it infinitely more interesting.

The issues with this film mainly come from how cliché a lot of it is, all the teen angst/ mean girls stuff is incredibly played out from the beginning; and it is more than a little weird that all these ‘teen girls’ at this boarding school are actually late twenty/ early thirty year olds in real life- it makes the film somewhat unbelievable.

Furthermore, I did not find this film scary. The supernatural element feels again familiar and poses nothing new for genre fans or even those who watch more than one horror film a year: I found the scare set ups to be incredibly obvious as well.

Overall, very generic and mediocre.

Pros.

The twist

It is relatively well paced

Cons.

The supernatural element

The scares

The mean girls story cliches

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MA: Never Party With Someone Double Your Age

2/5

Written by Luke Barnes

This film started with all the promise in the world, the idea of a middle aged woman who lures teens back to her basement to party has all sorts of troubling undertones. However, it is from there that this film starts to struggle.

The threat and the horror of this film are very human, yet that can only go so far, maybe if the writing was better, alas. We quickly get into a very overly familiar story of an unpopular girl who is picked on by the popular kids and then wants revenge, with some poisoning of your kid to keep them dependent on you thrown in there for good measure. From about the first third in I could accurately tell what was going to happen.

I don’t know what blackmail Blumhouse have on Octavia Spencer, but clearly it must be sizeable to get her to walk away from beloved TV shows and award winning films to star in this; a by all means average horror effort.

Overall, the film has promise, but then doesn’t do anything with it.

Pros.

A strong premise

A few good scares

Cons.

Overly familiar

Octavia Spencer deserves better than this

Not all that scary

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Digging To Death: A Great Upper Body Workout

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

I found this film funny, whether that was intentional or not remains to be seen but viewed as a horror comedy this film is a roaring success. I would say as is often the case this film tended to favour the comedy over the horror, and I didn’t end up finding the film at all scary.

There were a few tense moments that punctuate the film, but for the most part the tension is quickly lost, and silliness returns; this does become grating after a while as you want the film to at least take itself seriously slightly.

Something I will give this film a pro for is the look of the corpse, I enjoyed the low-fi approach they took with it, and thought the corpse looked quite striking and effective. We definitely could have used more of the corpse within the film.

The acting was all fine, nothing really to write home about, but serviceable enough that it didn’t become a problem or distracting.

Overall, a lot of fun, I hope for the film’s sake that it wasn’t trying to be a straight forward horror film, if that is the case then I would have to readjust my score as it is not scary at all.

Pros.

The humour
The ending

It is entertaining

Cons.

It is not scary

The tone is a little uneven at times

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Candyman: The Candyman Can

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

I remember watching Candyman Farewell To The Flesh as a child and being scared out of my wits, it was this remembrance that caused me to go back and watch the first film recently and also to prep for the new sequel that is on its way.

So this film feels very unique, in a Clive Barker-esque way. Though Barker didn’t write the film, it is based on one of his stories and he was involved as a producer, this is clear to see as his finger prints are all over this film. Anyone familiar with Barker’s other works will be able to see what I mean; it is something special that is hard to put into words- the plot and style of the film reflect this.

Moreover, this film features one of the all time masters of horror himself: Tony Todd, which in my book is always a bonus point. We don’t get to see a lot of Todd throughout the film, though his presence is felt. However, the few scenes we do have with him are all very strong and he presents the character with a certain otherworldly, ethereal energy that is hard to look away from.

The characters outside of Todd’s villain are all fairly lacklustre, and the story itself is very familiar-especially if you are a genre fan like me. In my opinion the framing of the lead for Candyman’s crimes was perhaps the weakest part of the film as it has been seen so many times before across the genre and it was entirely predictable.

Overall, strong but not without flaws.

Pros.

Barker’s influence

Tony Todd

The style

Cons.

The lead was very meh

The storyline was predictable and weak

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The Unholy: Modern Miracles, Seeing Isn’t Believing

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

I have been waiting for this film for some time, with perhaps too high expectations.

I am a big Jeffery Dean Morgan fan and his last foray into horror The Possession was terrific, this only caused me to get more excited for this film prior to seeing it. Before I get into some issues I had with the film, I want to state that Morgan and his performance is a bright spot of the film and he leads this film with a gusto.

My issues with this film come from its themes and messages, the film can’t seem to decide on what sort of tact it wants to take with regard to religion. At times the film is very critical of organised religion, especially Catholicism, but then at other times it is very much into embracing it. I would have preferred the film to take a hard line and focus more on the issues of organised religion from a horror stand point, but the film bends in the end. It is for this reason I don’t like the ending.

I think the horror of this film works and it did leave me chilled, however some of the effects don’t look good and the film as a whole looks a little cheap. The film is better and crucially scarier when slight things are happening rather than full on sequences where the demon/witch is moving around.

Adding to, this film features an annoyingly large amount of really repetitive jump scares that it should have cut out as they are neither scary, nor well done.

Overall, a decent if flawed horror film.

Pros.

It is unsettling

Jeffery Dean Morgan

The criticisms of organised religion

Cons.

The ending

The jump scares

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Brightburn: Evil Superman’s Origin Story

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

This film is basically what if Superman was evil, it knows this and it does it perfectly. I find this film often miscategorised some say it is a horror film, it is not, rather it is an action film with horror sequences thrown in; or perhaps an action horror if you like.

I enjoyed how they built the evil over the course of the film, the child doesn’t start vaporising people from the get-go, we see him go on some what of a rushed character journey towards evil; with his mum foolishly thinking he can be tempted back the other way. I thought once this film got to the part where he was fully evil and fully using his powers to annihilate people it really started to shine.

However, my favourite moment of this film comes at the end. After the final battle we are treated to a post credits scene, as what is a superhero film without one these days, during which we see the fact that there is in fact an entire evil Justice League of other characters, which simply begs for a sequel- hopefully this film gets one.

Furthermore, Elizabeth Banks really shines in this film: she is by far the standout performance. I liked how we saw her character breakdown more and more over the course of the film as she started to realise that the boy she has raised from infancy was in fact evil, it was a fascinating transition and one Banks sold well on the acting front.

Overall, a very strong film that deserves a sequel.

Pros.

Banks

The ending

The post credits scene

The alien unleashed

Cons.

A slow first act

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