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

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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Scarlett: Cool Kids Don’t Do Drugs

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Just say no. One morning Scarlett, played by Kristin Jaap, awakens to find her wild cocaine usage the nice before has left her far worse off and in a heap of trouble.

I do think this film has an important message, drug use might seem cool it may be what all of your friends are doing but it also comes at a cost, addictions ruin lives and all sorts of mistakes can and are made when people are high as Scarlett finds out here. I think it is hard to watch this film and not think about just how bad drugs can be and how they can mess up your life so in that this film is doing a public service as by making you aware it is saving lives.

I thought the performances across the board were strong, though I would have to single out Jaap for extra praise as her acting worked on multiple different levels and really brought a lot of nuance and thought to the character. She really brought the tired and often very cliched, within media, idea of the addict into a new light here.

In addition this film keeps a nice tidy pace, being able to communicate its message and have an impact all within a very short amount of time, if only more films could be like this.

Overall, an important film with a good message.

Pros.

The message

The pacing

Jaap

The ending

Cons.

I think some of the side characters could have done with a little more development

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Old Man: Stephen Lang Has A Bad Day

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

An old man, played by Stephen Lang, who lives alone in the woods is surprised to receive a guest.

I think this film is entirely dependant on Stephen Lang to break even. By that I mean if you judge this film by the sum of its parts then you get a very pretentious, but not a very deep film. Add in that a lot of the thematic beats have been hit before and you have a recipe for a bad film, however, Lang’s masterful performance which is able to be compelling, sinister and also strangely warm all at the same time really raises this film up and out of the dirt. Truly this film does not deserve Lang.

I saw some listings that had this film as a horror, I would say that is untrue. It is far more of a claustrophobic thriller, and in this area the film does have some success as there are a number of tense moments between the two men and the whole film keeps you on edge.

Overall, a fine film made better by Stephen Lang without him this film would fall apart.

Pros.

Lang

A number of tense moments

It is watchable

Cons.

It is predictable

It is overly familiar theme wise

It has pacing issues

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Black Adam: Time To Put The DCEU Out Of It’s Misery

2/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Black Adam, played by Dwayne Johnson, escapes from his prison to then engage in deeply generic superhero shenanigans.

My my if this is the best the DCEU can produce then it really is in need of a reboot pronto.

This is the most generic superhero film that I have seen in a while, this film is so obsessed with giving us mind numbing CGI spectacles that it forgoes anything even barely resembling a story or character instead choosing to use an off-putting barrage of mostly badly done bang bang effects.

Johnson is playing himself, which is fine is you like that but not if you actually wanted Black Adam to have a personality beyond ‘oh look The Rock has super powers now.’ They try and give Black Adam somewhat of an upsetting backstory but the fact that the Rock can’t emote in any real way just kind of kills that off early on.

The Justice Society are annoying, I suppose this is what the film wants as it wants you to cheer on Black Adam as he beats them up. I thought that Doctor Fate, played by Pierce Brosnan, was easily the best of them and the film and then the film goes and kills him off. To do this and try and give him this big heroic send-off doesn’t work as we haven’t seen him in any other films and he has barely been introduced or developed here so his death has very little impact beyond angering fans of the character such as myself. I thought that they might bring him back in a post credits scene, but no they have to bring back Superman, played by Henry Cavil, again because God forbid they have the film be standalone.

Overall, weak and generic.

Pros.

A few cute moments between Atom Smasher and Cyclone

Some interesting comments on America as the world’s unwanted policeman

Cons.

The Rock is miscast and can’t emote or do anything beyond play himself

It is one big CGI mess

They brought in Doctor Fate only to kill him

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Luckiest Girl Alive: Exploiting Pain

1/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The struggles of a young woman, played by Mila Kunis, as she makes her way in the world.

Netflix needs to take a long hard look in the mirror releasing this only a few weeks after Blonde, both films which can be viewed as exploitative and as fetishising sexual violence and female misery. I have read to a degree that some think this film could have done with a trigger warning, or to have not gone as hard as it did, but I would argue that the real issue is that the subject matter wasn’t handled well at all, lacking any kind of grace rather being instead a brute force act of shock. I can understand to a degree the director choosing to do things the way they did to show the true horrors of life for a young woman but at the same time I would argue that this verges into a new form of torture porn along the way.

Additionally, unlike other reviewers I don’t think Mila Kunis was the right lead for this film. Though she does have some acting talent which has been shown more in her recent dramatic work I just don’t think it is strong enough to carry this film. If anything the weakness of Kunis’ acting abilities are only brought to the fore here and from that she is crushed under them.

Moreover, the pace moves so breezily by everything that nothing really has a chance to sink in or to mean anything at all. The film aims for these lofty high art goals of replicating the human condition but it comes nowhere close as the technical failings mean it is hamstrung from the opening minutes, the pacing is truly quite bad being both overly long and rushed at the same time.

Overall, yikes Netflix stop profiteering from other people’s grief and pain. Lets hope this new form of grief induced torture porn ends early so we aren’t subjected to more films like this.

Pros.

It tries to tell an important story

Cons.

It is bleak throughout

Kunis isn’t strong enough to carry it

The pacing is awful

It fixates and fetishizes grief and pain far too much

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The Curse Of Bridge Hallow: Marlon Wayans The Family Film Star

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A family moving into the suburbs are surprised to find that Halloween decorations are coming to life all over town.

Marlon Wayans in a family comedy? The phrase seems wrong doesn’t it, when I think of Marlon Wayans I think of his plethora of adult focused parody films or perhaps some of his surprising dramatic turns, but never once do I think of him as being a family film star. That said I actually liked him in this and thought that he was the best part of the film, without him this film would have been a lot worse that’s for sure.

I think the premise of the film feels very familiar and nothing new is added to it here, for the most part everything is incredibly predictable and you know where it is heading. Obviously as this is a family film the scares are fairly light on the ground, but Wayans does bring one or two laughs to make up for it.

The wider cast outside of Wayans might as well not even be there because none of them even register. For the most part they are a collection of phoned in performances and cliches lacking anything even remotely resembling character or personality, this is why Wayans and his character anchor this film so well as they at least bring some charm to proceedings.

Overall, a fairly average film made slightly better by Marlon Wayans.

Pros.

Wayans

A few funny moments

It is watchable

Cons.

It is very familiar and predictable

Most of the cast here aren’t very good

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Invasion Of The Body Snatchers: Is Anyone You Know Behaving Differently?

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

People in small town America are switched with parasitic aliens who make doubles of them.

I have never seen the original Invasion Of The Body Snatchers so I can’t say how this remake compares to it. Additionally due to my lack of experience with the original film I came into this one with fresh eyes not sure what to expect, I would say widely I enjoyed the film though there are a few elements where I think it can be improved.

I liked the paranoid thriller aspects of this film wherein we don’t know who is a pod persona and who isn’t right away, and as the number of pod people grows our heroes become more and more outnumbered both of these add to the stakes of the film as well as the greater sense of threat. However, the scaling of the threat is not done very well, these elements are brought in fairly early on and are at maximum from the get-go so there is no rising sense of things getting worse throughout the film, from the midpoint things are at their worst and it continues at the same level from there.

It is nice to see the familiar faces of Jeff Goldblum and Donald Sutherland, I would say both add a lot to the film though Goldblum probably steals the show. Outside of the two of them the rest of the performances are more of a mixed bag, I think this is more easily gotten away with due to the genre of the film and the fact some of the actors are tasked with playing aliens.

The pacing of the film leaves quite a lot to be desired, I would say the film could quarter its runtime and be better for it, as you approach the last act of the film viewing really starts to feel like a drag. It goes on for far too long.

Overall, a good paranoid thriller that could be better paced and performed.

Pros.

Some good paranoid elements

Goldblum

It is watchable

Cons.

The performances aren’t great across the board

The threat isn’t scaled up over the course of the film

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Rosaline: Reducing Shakespeare To Make Bland Tasteless Garbage

1.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The untold story of Rosaline, played by Kaitlyn Dever, Romeo’s ex-girlfriend.

Yikes another group of old people trying to right how they think Gen Z talk. This film is deeply unfunny on multiple levels and more often than not crosses over into irritating territory, I didn’t laugh once whilst watching.

Moreover, the titular heroine of Rosaline was deeply unlikeable for most of the film and behaved like a brat who used people for her own ends. Not only did this make her detestable it also meant that she needed to be redeemed by the end of the film in a narrative sense, yet the film just thought that it could cram all of her apologies and soul searching into a 5 minute sequence then move on which makes the whole thing feel incredibly shallow.

In addition to those glaring issues the film also has Rosaline using men for sex and then just chucking them treating them more as bodies than as people, and whilst I acknowledge that there is a long cinematic tradition of male characters doing this, in modern times it is seen as wrong to do so. As such if Rosealine’s character was male and behaved the same way their would be an outcry against this film yet it is okay because she is a woman? Surely for things to be truly equal if anyone regardless of gender just uses a person for their body and doesn’t even treat them like a human being it deserves to be called out as wrong. To ply further scorn, the film also includes an incredibly reductive stereotypical gay best friend character, played by Spencer Stevenson, which feels like it belongs in a film from at least a decade ago.

Overall, a terrible film that no one will fondly remember.

Pros.

A nice central romance

Dever is trying her best

Cons.

The lead is awful throughout

It is unfunny

Some of its characters are reductive stereotypes

It has nothing to say and isn’t a clever play on Romeo and Juliet

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Cursed Friends: Finding A Razor Blade In Your Halloween Treats Would Be More Fun Than Watching This

0.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A group of friends find the predictions they made decades earlier coming eerily true.

So the opening few minutes of this film could be a cautionary tale all its own, bad effects work, worse jokes and immediately unlikeable characters. Yet what follows is so much worse, the direct next sequence is the gang as tweens walking around and talking about how much they want to ‘shag’ the boy dressed as Austin Powers. If that doesn’t tell you why this film sucks nothing ever will.

I have written quite a lot about the digital future and the pros of streaming, yet this film presents me with a very real case for how it is ruining the industry. Before pretty much every movie studio had a streaming service that they needed to plug with content things like this would get made far less and that was a good thing. However, with today’s need for content at all costs these sort of low effort, unfunny, trash pieces are becoming more and more frequent.

The thing that I think is the worst about this film is how try hard it is. Every joke tries to out edgy the last until honestly it just becomes boring because behind that edge there is no real bite just desperation. In my mind Jessica Lowe’s Erica was probably the worst in this regard, she was both unfunny and unlikeable and most of her jokes were written to be as outrageous as possible. However, Lowe is just one of a truly bad bunch, no one is good here and the fact that Will Arnett even agreed to be in this is nothing short of manically depressing.

Overall, probably the worst horror film this Halloween season.

Pros.

It is not offensively bad

Cons.

It is not funny

None of the characters are likeable

It is trying too hard to be edgy

Will Arnett needs to have some conversations with his agent

It is really just awful

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Bromates: This Film Makes The Hangover Look Oscar Worthy

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

After two friends, played by Josh Brener and Lil Rel Howery, get dumped they must try and get on with their lives and get back on the horse, all with the help of each other and their wider group of friends.

So whilst this film had some funny jokes and strong performances from Howery and surprisingly from Snoop Dogg, it just isn’t enough to save it.

I think the worst part of this film is how cringey it is at times. There are multiple scenes where Brener’s character is just out and out humiliated, not in a funny way but in a sad way, and he just takes it and it is hard to watch. I suppose by the end of the film he has grown slightly as a person which I guess you could say is character development, but honestly those earlier scenes are hard not to fast forward through.

Moreover, I think this film is lacking anything new to say about male friendship. It has the same tiresome plot beats that we have seen dragged out over and over again for decades, it is so obvious where this film is going and it doesn’t even have the good grace to be funny to make up for it. There are one or two jokes that land, and they did make me laugh hard, but for the most part the jokes miss by miles.

Overall, watchable but Howery and Snoop Dog are wasted in this. To see a good Snoop Dogg film that features him well check out Day Shift on Netflix.

Pros.

Dogg

Howery

It is watchable

Cons.

It has nothing new to say about male friendship

It is the same old same old

It has some really horrible cringe

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