The Front Room: I Made A Mess

A woman, Brandy, and her mother in law, Kathryn Hunter, don’t get on and it’s a horror film for some reason.

So going into this I didn’t know who Brandy was, I haven’t see I Know What You Did Last Summer in a few years, and so I looked her up and I saw that she was a singer and so going into the film that was my impression. As such I thought that she would be a bad actor, and of course she was and it was only later when I read more I realised that she is supposed to be an actor to, much to my surprise.

Furthermore, I question what the horror was here, as there doesn’t seem to be any. The mother is adversarial but she is never out and out evil, out side of that there is nothing. There is never a threat that the mother will kill the lead, so therein lies a problem. If the horror is supposed to come from the fact the mother is racist, then it doesn’t work as outside of California folks don’t have a fit to that, they see it and don’t like it but just accept that some people are old/stuck in their ways/ trash and know that having a cry and a fit about it won’t make them stop being that way.

Overall, other than a few unintentionally funny scenes there isn’t all that much here.

1.5/5

Pros

The M.E.S.S thing is funny

It is watchable

Cons.

It is not scary

The acting is bad

The commentary is on the nose

It has pacing issues

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Timestalker: One Of The Most Unlikable Characters In Cinema History

Summary

A woman, Alice Lowe, reincarnates over and over again chasing after a guy who doesn’t like her back.

This film was a vanity project much like Woman of the Year, review coming soon. Lowe’s other films have also drawn from her own life, but here not only is she actor and star but the whole film is an effort in narcissism. This is textual meaning that in the plot of the film the central character and her desire is the plot of the film, there is nothing more to it than that, there is no character growth, she likes the guy then eventually realises he will never be the one for her but then ends the film with him liking her causing a character development regression and undoing the growth.

To make matters worse the film has nothing to say, it is about a thin as a McDonalds paper bag, it is shallow and the character unlikable. You may root or care for her if she wasn’t so self-involved yet she is so you don’t. The film borrows a lot from the dark comedies of Ben Wheatley yet unlike his work in say Sightseers for example, there is no subtext here no broad commentary and crucially no jokes.

I don’t think I laughed once during the entirety of the film, and I would say that no one else in the entire cinema did, but then no one else was there.

Overall, I think it is sad that films like this get made because in British circles Lowe is a minor name, a better film that could have made more and been more highly praised could have been made with this money.

1/5

Pros.

It is relatively short

Cons.

It isn’t funny

It is boring

It has nothing to say

Lowe isn’t very good in it

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Smile Two: Nothing To Smile About

Summary

The smiling demon is back again.

Honestly I was fairly lukewarm on the first film in this series as it was plain to see just how derivative of It Follows it was, however, I did think it had some redeeming moments. This one does not.

For a start you have a main character, Naomi Scott, who is so unlikeable you are rooting for the monster throughout, which is not what the film wants. The reason why she is so unlikable is because she is so whiny and self-involved, she is constantly the victim whilst whining and being a diva.

Follow this up with a film that is just manically depressing, not scary, which a lot of modern horror films seem to get muddled up. The film is just oh these terrible people do bad things and then go insane and pass it on, it just feels grim and dark. There is no levity or even camp to it.

The ending I think is the worst part of the whole film. So from the moment they announced that the new lead character was going to be a singer the ending was obvious. The singer would end the film killing themselves in front of thousands of people passing on the demonic virus at a massive scale, creating pandemonium. I was right.

Overall, there is nothing new, novel or even remotely scary about this film, scratch that there is a scare here, that it will likely get a sequel.

1/5

Pros

The songs were catchy

Cons.

It isn’t scary

The woman is unlikable

It is too long

It has a predictable ending

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Megalopolis: At Least Aubrey Plaza Seems To Be Having Fun

Summary

An old man believes his own hype and makes a mess he calls art.

For all of you who may defend this film and call it art don’t bother. Too often these days if a film flops or is a trainwreck there will be a small group of people, be they political bed fellows of the film’s message or just those wanting to seem cool by liking something everyone else doesn’t.

The issue with films like this is that it makes studios more hesitant to take chances on other big budget films in the future that might be a bit more risky and for what an old man’s vanity. The writing was on the wall for this film when it struggled to get distribution plus the fact thar Coppola’s last few films have been pretty bad.

Rather unsurprisingly this is a mess, it has neither fully formed characters or anything you could call a plot, it is just a series of people and things loosely tied together. The narrative post release is that it is art and supposed to be hard to understand and to figure out, but that just sounds like an excuse to be trash to me.

Overall, Coppola should have stuck to making wine.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is funny bad at times

Cons.

It makes no sense

It has no story

The cast are wasted

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Curse of the Crimson Alter

Summary

An antiques dealer, Mark Eden, goes off in search of his missing brother only to become wrapped up in a Lovecraftian horror.

This is perhaps an underrated Christopher Lee caper, and you can see why. Whilst it has some charm with its Lovecraftian horror it feels perhaps the most dated of Lee’s output that I have recently seen. By that I mean the first scene of the film with the creature looks awful, the costume and the lighting both contribute to this. I know that these films were made on a shoe string budget but even still it looks bad.

The plot is also a little thin on the ground as it has the effect of feeling like it is simply a lot of things happening without much rhyme or reason to connect them or make them make sense. Again I gave it some leniency due to the type of film it is, but come the end credits I would be hard pressed not to mention the fact it doesn’t make any coherent sense.

Overall, the sort of budget period horror film that only the most die hard fan could enjoy

2/5

Pros.

Some fun moments

It tries to be different and edgy

Cons.

The horror doesn’t work

It doesn’t make a lot of sense

It is silly when it should be creepy

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Salem’s Lot: No One Can Do King’s Books Justice

Summary

Another King book is given the straight to streaming treatment.

This film is fine that’s about all I can say about it. It is one of those sort of films that doesn’t stick with you after and that you only half remember watching.

It was an odd choice to give a lot of the characters from the book smaller roles in order to give a story to a new character, clearly they didn’t care much about it being a faithful adaption. I don’t really know why we need the story of a little boy, Jordan Preston Carter, who decides he is going to go and wipe out all the vampires on his own. Perhaps they thought it would get kids to watch.

There are some good scares early on but then it just becomes silly, the vampires are wiping out adults left and right yet this little boy manages to just easily destroy many of them single handedly. This takes away from any sense of fear you might have as you just go ‘oh they were clearly really easy to beat then’. It also makes the adult characters look weak and stupid.

Overall, a serviceable if weak adaption.

2.5/5

Pros.

It is watchable

It has some good moments

It pays some faith to the book

Cons.

It makes bad changes to the book as well

It focuses too much on a random kid

It makes the vampires seem weak

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MR Sandman: Freddy Has Competetion

Summary

A young girl, Hailey Kate Schmidt, must survive a nocturnal nightmare.

A hell of a lot has been done already when it comes to kids having scary experiences at night, be they real or imagined, in film. However, this film managed to surprise me, I found myself somewhat taken a back at times at the direction with which this film went as I wasn’t expecting to go there. It is not subversive in a way that ruins the experience and makes you feel cheated but rather in a way that reinvents the form. I hope that more kid has bad dreams/ bad experiences at night horror films learn from this film.

I thought the horror in this film was quite smart and well developed, it wasn’t a jump scare sort of film and instead built its horror slowly through a creeping sense of dread and theat. I appreciated the film taking this approach as far too often in modern horror scares are related to oh did you see that person show up behind her with a music spike.

Overall, this film is truly new and novel.

4/5

Pros.

It is scary

The child acting is good

It is well done

It will stick with you

Cons.

It could do with being longer maybe about another 15 to build up more tension

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If you would like to watch the film for yourself its on Youtube

Ghostwatch: The British Blair Witch

Summary

A BBC crew investigate a haunted house little do they know the entity wants them there.

So Ghostwatch is something of a legend in the UK it was a found footage film that many people thought was real as it was shown on TV to look as real as possible and that caused a lot of social commotion. It was Blair Witch before Blair Witch.

The film takes the form of a televised ghost hunt, we have a traditional old fashioned BBC presenter leading us through a night that will prove whether ghosts exist or not. However, as the night progresses things start to go awry in a very Late Night With The Devil sort of way.

What works so well about this film is just how real it appears it does genuinely feel like it’s an actual televised ghost encounter. If I had been shown this at the time on live television I would had thought this was real too. There is some elements that might look a little dated by today’s effect standards but on the whole it holds up very well.

I liked the film’s atmosphere and its non-reliance on jump scares, however, for anyone familiar with the Enfield Poltergeist there are a number of familiar elements which might make the film seem a bit obvious, though this is made up for with quite a different ending to how that case went.

Overall, a British horror gem.

4/5

Pros.

It is scary

It seems real

It has a good ending

It makes the most with a limited budget

Cons.

Too many nods to Enfield

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Dr Terror’s House Of Horror: Don’t Do Tarot Kids

Summary

Christopher Lee and his friends board a train, wherein they meet a fortune teller, Peter Cushing, little do they know it will change their lives forever.

There is just something about old school British horror that you can’t quite replicate anymore. Maybe it is the setting or the creepy edge that the lives of the upper classes seem to have in these films- meaning perhaps too many films these days are focused on the working class and the plight of poverty rather than excess.

I liked the wrap around story telling device and the fact that each story also worked on its own, both things are important in an anthology. The stories themselves were a mixed bag as often is the case with these short of films, I found a few of them to be good and a few entertaining but flawed. I would suggest that the Voodoo one is the weakest as it doesn’t have much more beyond its central conceit.

I would say that the stories themselves and the effects still hold up, yes you can see strings in a few shots or things look a bit low-fi here and there but on the whole it still works well.

Overall, a good way to spend Halloween.

3/5

Pros

It has a lot of charm

Terrific performances

Some good scares

Cons.

It looks a little dated at times

The stories are a mixed bag

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: Aging Like Fine Wine

Summary

The Juice, Michael Keaton, may have aged, but much like wine it has got better not worse.

This film truly felt like a blast from the past, it doesn’t feel like we get films like this anymore, silly and fun with no mention to politics of moralising. It was nice to see the world that we all remember from the 80’s original further expanded, I thought that this film added a lot of much needed clarity and hopefully if we do get a 3^rd film it can do more of this.

The returning cast all gave great turns, and Jenna Ortega did feel like a natural addition to this world and the family, however, I would say her sub-plot was the weakest of the film. On that note some of the more interesting plot lines such as Beetlejuice’s wife, Monica Bellucci, do feel a bit short changed as they don’t go anywhere meaningful.

It is nice to see Tim Burton being Tim Burton again and I would say for fans of the director this is a must see return to form, it feels like everything he was doing in his pre 2012 career again rather than some of his more questionable recent turns.

Overall a fun film that won’t set the world on fire.

3/5

Pros.

It is fun

It explores the world

The returning cast

Cons.

Some weaker plot lines and some unfinished ones

It never hits the heights of the first

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