Imaginary: The Opposite Of A World Of Pure Imagination

Summary

A kid, a teddy, and a monster of some sort. Settle down it’s only the same old Blumhouse formula.

Once upon a time Blumhouse used to make some of the best horror films out there, they were your prime cuts of horror meat, but then slowly over time they started abandoning smarter ideas and in many senses adults and started appealing primarily to teens, turning it into slurry that is not even fit for sick animals.

As such this film has a needless teen romance arc as all the best films do. Why can’t the creatives over a Blumhouse see that some of the best horror films of all time have not had teen angst in them, even when they featured teen characters, people don’t want the CW’s writing showing up in their horror films.

Here we have a writer, DeWanda Wise, that has to use her imagination to be able to kill her childhood imaginary friend that has now come for her step daughter. When the film actually gets into the mythology of imaginary friends and talks about how kids go missing all the time as they can’t accept that they aren’t real and so leave home to be with them then the film actually starts to get scary. However, when you see the creature at the end of the film, and see those black eye effects then you are quickly brought out of any fear you felt and feel like you are watching a film made on the cheap, and I do not mean that in a good and charming way.

I will give the film that I liked the twist wherein only the step mom and the little girl could see the bear but before that point in the film we had all just assumed everyone could see it, that was neat and I didn’t see it coming.

Overall, Blumhouse continues a negative trend downwards

Pros.

The twist

The mythology

Cons.

The acting

The angst

The monster

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Demon Slayer To The Hashira Training Event Film

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Tanjiro and co begin their training to become Hashiras

As I have already reviewed the Swordsmith Village Arc I won’t be talking about the first half of this event film. It was fine but I had already seen it and talked about it so why waste words.

The opening episode of the new arc however was intriguing. The Wind and Serpent Hashira chopping down a legion of demons and unwittingly discovering the Infinity Castle that has been used to organise demon meetings before is interesting as now the Corps will seek it out. I also liked that Tamayo is now going to be more directly involved in the series if she goes to help the demon slayers.

My main complaint of the film was that it didn’t show what the remaining high ranking demons were up to, the implication is that they will now all come for Nezuko but it would have been nice to have got a moment seeing them discuss this.

It would also have made more sense for this to be a combination of the first two episodes of the new season rather than the last episode of the last season and then the first new one as most of the people in the audience, myself included had already seen the first half of this compilation film.

Overall, a promising start to the new season but it would have been better if it didn’t rehash the end of the last season again.

3/5

Pros.

A promising new start

The opening is strong and heavy on the action

It is nice to see the characters react to Nezuko talking

Cons.

It would have been nice to have had a better insight into what the demons were planning

It shouldn’t have re-shown the last episode of the last season it just seems like filler

Baghead: Pubs Are Bad Investments

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A young woman, Freya Allen, inherits a pub with a witch living in the basement.

This film has a number of things going for it in my mind, firstly the lore surrounding the witch and how she came to be there and the secret society around it is interesting, secondly the witch does manage to have some good scary moments that aren’t reliant on jump scares and finally that they stick to a dark and troubling ending. I think all three of these things make this film feel fresh and draw you in, which is a strong pro for an early in the year horror film.

However, where this film is hurt is in it’s casting. So before I go on to slate Allen I want to state that the script doesn’t give her much to work with and that her character has a terrible backstory, with the film itself making no effort to make her seem like an actual person or get you to care about her. Now with that said her performance is bad, in many senses it feels like a film project you might see out of a film school rather than an actual production, the acting feels like students who are just trying it for the first time and so have no presence. What makes matters worse is that she has a private school esque British accent despite supposedly growing up in care and having a hard knock life, either the script neglected to mention that her foster parents sent her to private school or Allen can’t do another accent as The Witcher also proved.

Overall, I am left thinking what this film could have been if they had cast someone else who was better at acting, it has good ideas and could really have been something.

3/5

Pros.

The ending

The scares

The mythology of the world

Cons.

Allen is awful

The pacing is off

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Thanksgiving: Slashing Up The Pumpkin Pie

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A group of teens are attacked on Thanksgiving.

This is what Eli Roth should be doing not making some lame fan film looking Borderlands movie no one asked for.

Whilst horror aficionado’s will be disappointed by this film’s rather lame plot, it is exactly what you have seen before many times over just now with a thanksgiving theme, it makes up for it with the violence. Whilst the slasher is not always a gore fest this one sure is and its with these visuals that the film rises above its limitations. You see a woman get cooked like a turkey.

The acting is weak but would you expect anything other than that, it is your usual collection of stock characters. As some of you who follow me on social media will know I was very critical of Addison Rae being added to this cast as influencers aren’t actors, and like I predicted this was a clearly cynical cast choice to try and get the kids in the door, she is wooden and can only mildly pull off a bemused look for most of the film whether the character is supposed to be happy or scared.

When it is revealed who the killer is it is actually a good mystery as the misdirection throughout the film works to throw you off base enough that the reveal does seem surprising, which works to the film’s credit.

Overall, with the twist and the violence slightly above average.

3/5

Pros.

The violence

The twist

The novelty

Cons.

The acting

It feels done before

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Night Swim: Swimming In The Sewer

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A haunted swimming pool, yes you read that right we have reached the bottom of the barrel folks.

There was some potential here if you played it for laughs then maybe something so goofy as a haunted swimming pool could work, but nope its incredibly serious. Essentially this film is about a group of ghosts that hang around a swimming pool that used to be a magical creatures lair, but said creature needs a sacrifice in order to work.

This film is the very worst of Blumhouse, it is not clever, there is nothing of substance to it, and it feels like it lazily made on the cheap with no thought going into it. The film barely has any scares at all and what it does have are cheap jump scares.

Everyone in this deserves so much better, I feel really bad that after Kerry Condon started to break into Hollywood this is the drek she gets signed to, she needs better management.

Overall, lame and they knew it was hence them dumping it in January,

1.5/5

Pros.

It has an interesting premise

It is short

Cons.

They do nothing with it

It feels like it goes on forever

It isn’t scary

It is far too serious

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Lisa Frankenstein: Necrophilia The Love Story

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A social outcast, Kathryn Newton, falls in love with a zombie, played by Cole Sprouse.

I was looking forward to this and it was pretty middling.

The main pro I can say for this film is that Kathryn Newton is great, she is very easy to root for and you really believe her character throughout. She might over act a little when the character fully embraces being a bad girl but that aside for the most part she gives a great performance easily the best in the film, though that isn’t hard considering her co-lead doesn’t talk.

I think on the negative side of things that this film is very confused about what it wants to be, and how it wants to go about telling the story it wants to tell. As at times it tries to be a comedy, a drama and sometimes it tries to go for horror but these disparate elements don’t jell well together at all and make the film feel disjointed and tonally at odds with itself.

Moreover, this film doesn’t really have anything new or fresh to say at all, I think Diablo Cody is a good writer yet this feels years out of date. The love story will be familiar to anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the genre and it is far too familiar to films like Life After Beth just with the roles swapped. Also if you want to talk about ripping people off the whole aesthetic of the film could easily have come out of a Tim Burton film from a decade or so ago.

Overall, whilst Newton is charming this film doesn’t do anywhere near enough to make itself a fun watch.

1.5/5

Pros.

Newton

It has a few funny moments

Cons.

It has been done better before

It feels too familiar

The tonal mismatch

It feels flat

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The Mean One: Like The Grinch But Worse

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Grinch, David Howard Thronton, goes bad and goes on a killing spree.

Basically if you have seen the Winnie The Poo slasher this is the same thing yet now with a Christmas character instead, I don’t think the Grinch is yet in the public domain so they call him The Mean One here instead.

In many ways this feels like a student film, and believe me that is harsh. None of it is particularly good, it is made on the cheap, near always dark even in places with lights on, the acting won’t be winning any awards any time soon and the film takes itself far too seriously. This film needs to be more like Nightmare On Elm Street and by that I mean it needs to have fun and embrace the ridiculousness rather than just being gritty.

I will give praise to Thronton he does bring the physicality as he did with Art, he is a good choice to play the titular Mean One, but sadly he isn’t given much of any note or interest to do, still we do get a few good gruesome kills for all the gore hounds out there.

Overall, not a new horror Christmas classic and more fodder for the horror twist of a beloved family film school of schlock

1/5

Pros.

A few good kills

Cons.

It is dumb

The characters aren’t likeable

It doesn’t have fun with it

It is too dark to see anything most of the time

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Demon Slayer: Swordsmith Village Arc

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Demon Slayer gang head for the Swordsmith Village to rest and repair following the battle in the Entertainment District.

I think that in some ways this is a step up from the Entertainment District Arc and in other ways a step back or a continuation. I liked the story more here I thought it had a lot of good moments such as Nezuko being able to move in the sun, and the introduction of the love Hashira Mitsuri Kanroji who is a scene stealer. Moreover, I thought the threat of the demons themselves were felt more accurately here as the scale of their attack felt larger, in the last arc it was an entire district sure, but here it is the whole village doing battle against the demon attacks which makes the scope feel more epic.

However, I didn’t like that again their was more filler, you could argue that what I call filler is actually backstory for the characters and what not, but I would say a lot of it is largely needless and doesn’t inform much of how we see the characters going forward. It just feels like they don’t want to get on with the main storyline quick enough so they have to pad it out in order to meet the episode count. I also thought the other new Hashira was quite dull and the arc spent a lot of time trying to give him more of a personality but even then you still didn’t like him, one could argue that it is a poor story telling decision to centre so much of your season around an aloof character and expect audiences to them like them or not want to skip through it.

Overall, though it had some cheer worthy moments this is another step backwards and if the filler issue doesn’t get addressed one could foresee that the next arc will be an even further slip in quality.

3/5

Pros.

Some cheer worthy moments

The scale of the final battle

The love Hashira

Cons.

The other Hashira

Far too much filler

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Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Demon Slayer gang head for the big city.

I preferred the more individual style of the first batch of episodes wherein they would be less serialised and more loosely connected, like some episodes would carry over but for the most part it felt more like they were going on individual adventures. Anyway, I liked this batch of episodes on the whole, I thought that the new Hashira and his wives were fun and worthwhile additions to the cast, I hope they come back again the future.

I think my major gripe with this arc is that it is a very slow start, the build up to the show down with the siblings takes far too long, there are multiple episodes that almost drag by as though they are killing time, filler I know. In terms of pushing things forward, I think this arc does a lot of good character work and improvements on the main cast as characters in a number of ways. I will say here that making Nezuko into a woman in demon form and giving her a rather low cut top and what not feels a little icky when it is clear that she is clearly a little girl at other points in the show, but maybe there is something cultural I am missing there.

Overall, a little slow in parts but for the most part another fun arc with a lot of entertaining moments.

4/5

Pros.

It advances the characters

The new Hashira and his wives are interesting and good new additions to the cast

The fights are epic

It pushes the story forward in a meaningful way

Cons.

It is a slow start

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Five Nights At Freddy’s: Possibly The Worst Video Game Movie Ever Made

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

An out of work man, Josh Hutcherson, takes a job at a Pizzeria that is full of dead children residing in robots.

I will open this by saying that though I am aware of the game franchise this is based on I have never played one of the games.

I thought this may have been the most disappointing and misguided film of 2023. My central thesis question would be who was this made for? I would guess the hardcore fans and that is it as I entered this film as a normie and didn’t understand most of what was going on. That shows a bad job on the writing front as if you are required to have a dedicated knowledge of a game series to be able to follow the plot of a film then maybe it should have come out on a fan site rather than at the cinema, at least then people like me wouldn’t have wandered into something that clearly wasn’t for us.

Additionally, the tone of this film is also completely off. So, I thought this was a horror film, the games are horror games are they not? Well clearly no one told whoever wrote this film that because for all the scenes you get of the robots ripping people apart it is entirely undone by a film breaking sequence in which they all sit down and have a tea party with a little girl and its all happy and played almost for laughs. Again I understand that their was a hostile undertone to this scene but the music and the dialogue shifted the scene and made it seem like I had entered a screening of Night At The Museum.

The acting is okay, I had forgotten the lead existed in a post Hunger Games age I thought maybe he had retired, he was warm enough and I believed his bond with his sister. Elizabeth Lial faired better and was quite easy to like and root for, it was clear that she was going to be involved in it from the jump but I like that they didn’t make her evil in the end and have kept her alive for the sequel. I think by far and away Matthew Lillard steals the show, I wouldn’t have guess the twist reveal with him and I think he played both ordinary and evil with great relish.

Overall, the actors do their bests but this film is only for the fans and if that isn’t you don’t bother.

0.5/5

Pros.

The actors across the board

Cons.

The tone

The inaccessibility of it

The weird dream stuff

The needless family drama