Pearl: Who Asked For More?

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

An origin story for everyone’s favourite old lady serial killer.

Honestly I have never been a fan of the films of Ti West often they struggle to appeal to me in anyway, some such as House Of The Devil and The Sacrament have shown promise but by and large I just think he is pretty talentless. X this film’s sequel which was released first only really had a buzz because of its goofy premise a slasher vs a group of porn stars, in actuality and in a technical sense the film is actually quite bland and quite a clear copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre at times.

The more art house elements of the first one really struck me as delusions of grandeur, West has always dwelt in the shock value area of horror being gross out rather than cerebral, and though some horror filmmakers can crack both, David Cronenberg he is not. The arty elements of X didn’t work because they just seemed jarring and out of place and here they make a little more sense but you just don’t really care.

I think Mia Goth deserves praise for trying to make this character interesting despite West doing everything he can in a scripting phase to make sure she is just your typical psycho who cracks because their dreams are shattered, how fresh, Joker did this exact same thing much better a good few years ago now. I think at its core that is the issue with these films, it is nothing new and the lofty sense of self that it carries around is unearned.

Overall, Fine nothing new or interesting, but not awful either.

Pros.

Goth

It is watchable

A few nice gory images

Cons.

It thinks it is way deeper and cleverer than it actually

It borrows a lot from better films

It is badly paced

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Child’s Play: Don’t Get Your Kid A Doll And You Might Just Be Saving Their Life

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Little Andy Barclay, played by Alex Vincent, gets a Good Guy doll called Chucky, voiced by Brad Dourif, for his birthday little does he know that it will change his life forever.

Though I do enjoy the more light hearted fare that we got as the Child’s Play franchise progressed I have to say that I think the more serious approach of this film first worked well, maybe even better. I liked the wider focus on Chucky/Charles Lee Ray as an evil serial killer, who isn’t cracking jokes all the time, as well as the more serious look at voodoo magic.

I liked the plot of the film even if it does feel a little samey now as all other possessed or evil doll films take a similar line, I thought that it was engaging and I liked that most of the characters in the film just thought Andy was lying and tried to lock him away, it is more realistic.

Overall, it still holds up well though it may seem a little familiar to modern audiences.

Pros.

Dourif

A more serious tone

It has some good scares

The fact people don’t believe Andy

Cons.

It feels a little familiar and worn watching it in modern times

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Halloween Ends: On A Par With The First Film

5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Halloween finally ends

Spoilers

A lot of people have not liked this film, and most of the critical reviews of the film out so far have been deeply negative, I however enjoyed this film a lot. A little context before we get into it, firstly I really disliked Kills and everything it did to the franchise, secondly I went into this film with incredibly low expectations.

Lets get right to the end and start there. I enjoyed that this film killed off Michael Myers, played by James Jude Courtney, I thought the final showdown with Laurie, played by Jamie Lee Curtis was perfect and liked that they threw his body into a crusher just to make sure. In that same category I liked that the film didn’t kill off Laurie as I always thought the idea of both of them having to die for Halloween to end was dumb, I thought it was sweet they let her character be happy.

I also thought thematically this film worked a lot better with the idea of letting evil in and locking it out and protecting yourself being poignant frames for the film. I liked that the narrative of Laurie’s book intensively fed into the plot and direction of the film. Likewise I thought the idea of generational evil with Corey Cunningham, played by Rohan Campbell, being somewhat of the new Michael Myers was a nice twist. I thought unlike other passing the torch narratives this felt a lot more earned and a lot better structured, we see Corey be tortured by the town and finally break and then join forces with Michael even taking the mask from him at one point. However, I also liked that in the end Michael reclaimed his mask.

Lastly, I also really enjoyed how the film played with the idea of Michael being a supernatural entity. The franchise has kind of set Michael up to be almost unkillable, as he is evil itself, however, here we still see that he has regenerative powers seemingly gaining strength from killing but we are also confronted by his age and the fact that he can’t keep going forever. I think these two contrasting elements work really nicely together to give us a whole new side to Michael Myers.

Overall, a fitting end to a beloved horror series.

Pros.

Generations of evil

Killing off Myers

Laurie finally gets closure

The meta narrative of the book feeding into the themes and plot of the film

Giving Alison, played by Andi Matichak, a much bigger role then what she got in Kills

Cons.

None, I thoroughly enjoyed by time with it.

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Chucky: Halloween II

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Continuing on from the end of last season Andy, played by Alex Vincent, seemingly perishes destroying the last of the Chucky dolls. However, a few months later the original group of teens from the first season start to find themselves under attack again.

I still do like this show, even if I think this opening episode is quite weak. I think Brad Dourif’s Chucky is still al lot of fun and the show can really master tension when it wants to. I enjoyed the Chucky scenes we got in this episode.

However, my issues with this season premiere is that the writing feels quite contrived. Andy is seemingly killed off even though it is super obvious that he will be coming back, and the kids all find themselves sent to a Catholic boarding school at the end of the episode, can you get anymore cliché. Furthermore, this idea of a school for troubled kids reminded me a lot of the military academy setting for Child’s Play 3 so it seems as though the series is just recycling ideas from the films.

In addition to that I thought this episode really went out of its way to sexualise Alyvia Alyn Lind’s Lexy, which is extra creepy when you realise that the actor is only 15. This is not just a one off incident either as there were scenes in the first season that again put her character in very revealing and sexualised scenes. I understand that the show wants to tackle teenage sexuality, but it could have at least had an older cast playing younger rather than having minors play out sex scenes, it feels very inappropriate.

Overall, the season will need to do a lot more to keep me around, also stop sexualising a 15 year old it’s weird.

Pros.

Dourif’s Chucky

It is watchable

It can still deliver the scares and the tension

Cons.

It is creepy towards a minor

It feels deeply cliched

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Jeepers Creepers Reborn: The Youtube Sketch Parody No One Asked For

0.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The parody film to the Jeepers Creepers franchise.

I liked Iron Sky and enjoyed what they did with it, but that same style was never going to work with a serious horror film. As such what we get is a joke that takes various elements from the previous films and then spits them back at us through a fake out almost spoof lens. This film wants desperately for you to take it seriously, but ultimately it is so damned goofy and silly that it is almost impossible to do so.

Moreover, you can really tell this film was made on the cheap. Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with small budget films, but this one does it in all the worst sort of ways. It gives us lots of close up shots of the Creeper, and he just looks like a dude in body paint. This film goes out of its way to make the Creeper as tame and non-threatening as possible. Also don’t get me started on the baby cult thing.

Really I found there to be nothing redeemable about this film.

Overall, awful just awful.

Pros.

It is laughably bad at times

Cons

It is basically a parody of the series

The Creeper looks awful

The cult of the Creeper thing destroys the monster

It is not scary

It is aggressively average

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Orphan First Kill: Grey And Lifeless

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Ester’s origins are explored with the help of a simply awful lighting and colour gradient combo.

Really this film shouldn’t have been made. They add in some new twists and turns here, but for the most part it can’t hope to compete with the twist from the first film that Ester, played by Isabelle Fuhrman, who everyone thought was a child was in fact a grown adult. Once you know that twist a lot of the places this prequel goes to are not very exciting.

Moreover, as I said in the above summary there is some really quite poor lighting and colouring choices in this film that makes vast parts of it hard to see or tell what is going on, furthermore this is only worsen by a grey hue that seems to stick to the film throughout giving it a dull and lifeless air.

However, it is not all terrible as the film for the most part is very watchable. In addition a surprisingly out of left field evil turn from Jessica Stiles makes for captivating watching, the film would be a lot wore without Stiles in it that’s for sure.

Overall, a very average film that didn’t really need to be made.

Pros.

Stiles

It is watchable

The ending

Cons.

Once you know the twist from the first film it takes a lot away from this prequel

The lighting and colour work is awful

The pace is aggressively bad

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They/Them: This Is Why People Look Down On ‘Streaming Films’

0.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Kevin Bacon spits on his slasher legacy by making cheap slop that everyone knew from the get-go was bad in order to make a quick buck.

Honestly, I went into this with low expectations and thought hey with how low my bar is surely the film will surprise me, but no. If anything this film managed to plunge even deeper than my already incredibly low expectations and just be a turd.

So this film seems to be allergic to fun, most slasher films have a campy, cheesy element to them that means that you can laugh at them as much as me scared by them, that is part of the charm of the genre. However, this film didn’t seem to get the memo and fun is had by no one, the actors don’t seem to want to be there, and you certainly don’t want to keep watching.

Moreover, the film falls very easily into the trap of being preachy, the setting of the film was always going to invoke certain themes and ideas but this film just doesn’t deal with them well. Rather than have anything nuanced, revelatory, or even amusing to say this film comes off as a lecture. We all know conversation camps exist are bad and that non-binary, trans and gender fluid people exist, we don’t need this film to constantly tell us.

The mystery of who is the killer is trite and fairly obvious and in the end you are left thinking you have had an hour and a half of your time wasted.

Overall, absolutely no fun to watch.

Pros.

Kevin Bacon is always a pleasant presence in movies even when he is phoning it in

Cons.

It is preachy

The mystery is obvious

The ending

It has awful pacing issues

It is no fun

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X: Pornstars Versus The American South

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Ti West’s latest offering, of questionable taste, is porn stars verse an old couple with I guess super powers?

Obviously I am having somewhat of a laugh by suggesting that the old couple has super powers, but the film does seem to suggest that. Not only do they teleport around, the old lady, played by Mia Goth, seems to be everywhere at the same time, but they also perform kills on people half their age who are much more physically fit than them that can only be explained away by them possessing super strength, and pitch perfect accuracy.

On a more serious note a lot of people have lorded this film as a loving homage to exploitation horror flicks of the past, with Texas Chainsaw Massacre being an often made comparison. However, I think this film wishes it could be like those films rather than it actually being like them or is in anyway a homage. To me at least, it was a deeply generic slasher film that has been done a hundred times before and also much better than this, if that is what homage means then I have had the wrong definition all these years.

I will give the film prompts for its odd cult like religious elements they were by far the most interesting part of the film, but were explored nowhere near enough- hopefully the prequel can readdress them in more detail.

West tries to push the boundaries by including quite graphic sex scenes, but this just comes off as desperate and gimmicky. Bear in mind in a world cinema context these scenes are nothing and are practically puritanical, however within the deeply conservative world of Hollywood sex scenes these are challenging, and will leave you feeling more than a little awkward if you watch them in company.

Overall, a passable slasher film, but in no way deserving of the praise it has gotten.

Pros.

It is watchable

The gore is strong

I liked the religious cult like elements

Cons.

The sex scenes feel desperate

It is very generic

It has significant pacing issues

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Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Killing Old Women Through The Power Of Social Justice

1.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Hollywood just can’t seem to let a franchise die and as such we get this.

Before watching I had heard bad things about this film, but it managed to exceed my negative expectations.

Firstly, the characters are all annoying as hell, they are clearly a caricature of the young social justice crowd judging everyone and act as though everyone who is not as comfortably suburban and middle class as them is a racist bumpkin. Honestly, if I were a southern American person I would find this film offensive.

Adding to this the film decides it is going to rip off the plot of the rebooted Halloween from a few years back and brings back the series original final girl, played by Olwen Fouere, for a fight with big bad Leatherface, played by Mark Burnham. There is no point in doing this as not only is it blatant plagiarism, but also the actor who played the final girl in every other one of her appearances is dead, so without looking it up you don’t know who Fouere is supposed to be.

The only good aspect of this film is that they don’t hold back on the gore and Leatherface is able to run wild, as such we get quite a few nice gnarly images with good effects work.

Overall, the forced social commentary nearly kills the film straight off, but then when it decides to rip off its better you know The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise is officially dead.

Pros.

The gore

A few unintentional laughs

Cons.

The social commentary

The deeply unlikeable characters

Ripping off Halloween

The ending

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Scream 2022: Death Brings New Life

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Ghostface is back this time playing by the rules of legacy sequels.

Spoilers

In many respects this film is the best in the Scream series, it nails the tone between scares and laughs and manages to do both fairly well, it has interesting new characters that you end up caring about, and it does something meaningful with the legacy characters.

However, then you get to the third act and the film loses its way and loses several points from me. My first issue with the final was that it is incredibly obvious from the jump who the killers are, the film does little to subvert that and it all plays out exactly how you imagined it would. Secondly, the motivation for why the killer kills, that of them being basically an incel fan who can’t cope with changes to the franchise and so has to try and make his own film, the series of murders, in order to set it right felt insulting to me. I understand it may have been tongue in cheek but to me it came across as the film flashing the fans the finger, which shouldn’t be something the new franchise reviver film sets out to do.

If you put the third act in a box and ignore it then the film is much better. I enjoyed how the film developed Dewey, played by David Arquette, and gave him a fitting heroes’ death, though I think Gale, played by Courtney Cox, would have been a better fit for that plot beat. Speaking off this was the first time in the series I really bought the emotional connection between Gale and Dewey and I thought both actors brought a lot to their respective performances.

Overall, I would say a nice end for the franchise but we all know it won’t be the last film.

Pros.

Bringing back Skeet Ulrich

Dewey

The new characters

Managing to be both funny and scary

Cons.

The incel fan motivation

It is too obvious

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