Clown In A Cornfield: Clowns Are So Overused

A group of clowns is terrorising small town America.

I had been meaning to watch this for some time, but I hadn’t gotten around to it until recently, and as I have I found myself quickly becoming disenchanted with it. For a start it presents itself as a horror comedy film, yet it does not really stand up slasher cliches rather it just replicates them.

The clown twist is perhaps the only novel thing about the film, although we have seen it in other films before, just not really in slasher cinema. Once the clowns take over mid-way through the film things start to get more interesting and become more crazy. The teen angst of the first act really slows things down.

The film ends with a decided meh, and that is how I would describe the whole effort really, an effort in meh. It fails in its attempts to be either scary or funny and doesn’t make fun of sub-genre tropes or try and do anything really knew with them.

Overall, it is a streaming film through and through and one that should never have been released in cinemas.

1.5/5

Pros.

A few good kills

It is short

Cons.

The teen angst

The ending

The pacing

Some of the other twists

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A Haunting In Connecticut, Ghosts Of Georgia: A Waste Of Katee Sackhoff’s Time

Summary

A family living in Georgia experiences a haunting in Connecticut.

There is something very noughties about this film, the editing style and the shifts between black and white and colour is quite jarring. Stylistically it feels almost out of place with the decade this film released in, and the effect has a repetitive quality to it.

The lead is terrible, it is hard to say if it is her or if it is the writing, it has her lay in a night gown on her side in a filled bath to show that she is troubled, but it is safe to say that she has taken a class in the Alaqua Cox school of acting as her expression does not really change at all during the film. It is a shame that this film wastes Katee Sackhoff as the secondary female lead she would have been much better in the main role, she easily outshines Abigail Spencer as every turn.

The horror and mystery of the film is very much been there done that, it focuses on a creepy old man ghost hanging out with and bothering a little girl, seen it before, and has the ghosts of this former stop on the underground railroad be central to the horror. It is very early jump scare sort of techniques as they are all very predictable.

Overall, other than Sackhoff there is very little about this film to make it recommendable.

2/5

Pros.

Sackhoff

A few unintentionally funny moments

Cons.

The horror is very predictable

It feels generic

The black and white to colour shift is jarring

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The Lord Of Misrule: Posh Lady Vs The Folk Devil

Summary

A posh English Vicar, Tuppence Middleton, runs afoul of an ancient God.

There is a good sense of place here, and a certain folk tradition, however, as the film progresses you start to realise you have seen this before. The good and fresh ideas that this film presents in the first act that then get turned into repetitive slop in the end.

The mythology of the film’s antagonist is interesting but never fully explained, which feels like a missed opportunity. Ralph Ineson is as always great, however, his character makes little sense, as the opening frames his character in the procession to see off the beast and having lost a son to it, yet then being the evil cult leader servicing the beast in the end.

Whilst I appreciate what this film was trying to do in terms of aesthetics and an adherence to British folk tradition, it was just creatively hallow.

Overall, good ideas wasted with generic storylines.

2/5

Pros.

The ideas

The setting and the feel of it

Cons.

The ending

Making Ineson the villain again

You feel like you have seen it before

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The Toxic Avenger: Dinklage Says Little People Can’t Play Dwarfs But They Can Play Monsters.

Summary

Peter Dinklage doesn’t like little people playing dwarfs in fantasy films but he is fine with them being shown as mutant freaks. The many contradictions of a man who’s career ceased to exist with Game Of Thrones.

There is so much wrong with this film it is hard to know where to start. Firstly, it feels like it was written by current day James Gunn, and that is not a compliment. In that I mean that it feels like it was written by a teen boy, with all the juvenile humour that entails but also one that was off the current masculinity, who wants his male characters in skirts. There are multiple scenes of characters getting their genitals punched through or torn off, because that’s funny right, and then the character will likely make some kind of off colour joke to try and make it even more funny, but none of this works. The film wants you so desperately to think it is funny and cool, but it is neither. It is try hard.

There is a scene in the film wherein Dinklage’s Toxic Avenger saves a group of people who are at a restaurant taking hostages and why are they doing it because they are angry about DEI. That is how basic and simplistic this film views the world, oh do you not like wearing nail polish and skirts, do you have an issue when meritocracy isn’t employed then you’re some cartoonishly evil and stupid antagonist that deserves to die.

Overall, this film shows that Hollywood hates vast parts of the audience.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is short

Cons.

Dinklage is awful

It is cringe

It is hateful

It is gross out for the sake of it

It feels like it was written by current day James Gunn

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The Ritual: The Devil Is The Girl Boss

Summary

Dan Stevens and Al Pacino need some quick cash.

So what was this film? The possession sub-genre frankly put is used up, there is not a lot of new ideas there and by and large it is like the later stages of the slasher sub-genre, before it was reinvented with Scream, and this may be the sub-genre at its most generic.

You have Dan Stevens as a priest who doesn’t seem to understand how exorcism works despite being involved in it, and who has clear sexual tension with a nun which is addressed but not in a satisfying way. Worse yet there is a scene wherein Patricia Heaton who plays a Mother Superior talks down to Steven’s priest and says she is done being told what to do by men who aren’t even half as holy as her. This scene was the moment I knew the film was getting a low score. This is the catholic church in the 1920s, attitudes like that exclaimed by Heaton’s character would be enough to have them thrown out of the Church. The idea that in period a Mother Superior would have dared speak to a priest like that is laughable.

Another weird thing about the film is the way it is edited, there are scenes that feel as though the camera work and editing is trying to ape something like The Office rather than be appropriate for a horror film.

Overall, this is one of the lowest points yet for the possession sub-genre.

1/5

Pros.

Pacino is laughably bad.

Cons.

Stevens is phoning it in

The girl power nun

The editing

The fact that it doesn’t have an original bone in its body

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Screamboat: Mickey Mouse As He Really Is

Summary

Mickey Mouse behaves as we all know he does behind closed doors.

Honestly, I can sum up whether you will like this film in one sentence did you like Terrrifer and do you find Art’s antics funny or not? If the answer is yes to both then you will like this film. It tells the tale of a group of people taking the Staten Island Ferry who run into Mickey Mouse and who then picks them off.

This is one of those public domain films, but I would say it has more charm than something like a Blood and Honey, there is more of a sense of whimsy here. I also thought all of the references and inferences to Walt Disney were quite clever.

The kills were good but weren’t to the same level of gore as in Terrifer, they again were played more for laughs than for chills, and it delivered in much the same way as the campier later entries in most slasher franchises of old did.

The ending that has the lead dress up like Minnie Mouse to try and seduce Mickey was something I never thought I would see in my life but here we are.

Overall, if you are a fan of Terrifer and of gore than you will likely like this.

3/5

Pros.

The kills

The backstory and the references to Walt

It is funny

Cons.

It can be repetitive

The acting is truly awful

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28 Years Later: A Scottish Man Managing To Outrun Hordes Of People

Summary

The Americans take over London.

So this film is a lot better than I remember it being. Distinctly as a younger man I remember liking Days Later more but now after having seen Weeks Later as I am slightly older it is far closer. I think this film is far more realised, in that I mean it feels more expansive it feels more like a complete world, whereas in Days it feels very confined.

The opening scene in the cottage is fantastic, the tension and the way Robert Carlisle’s character runs away as the music swells is the epitome of tension and the shaky cam here works really well to add to that very manic energy. This would be one of the things I would say Years Later struggles with and that is that it tries to move away from this sort of energy and go for a more meditative tone at times and one has to ask how in keeping with the franchise is it.

The military criticism here was well used, rather than coming across heavy handedly it feels as though it naturally builds upon the mistrust of the army from the first film. Though the infected are threatening, particularly in the opening scene, I think the more harrowing moments of the film come from things like watching the army use chemical weapons against civilians.

Overall, I would argue this is better than Years and could well rival Days.

4.5/5

Pros.

The tension

The commentary

The world

The ways in which it builds on the original

The cinematography

Cons.

The child characters are irritating and do irritating things

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Hallow Road: The Worries Of Being A Parent

Summary

A couple find themselves in a position that no parents ever want to be in.

So Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys are fantastic here, a lot of the film is the car journey to find where there troubled daughter has broken down in the woods, and much like with Locke a hell of a lot of the meat of the film comes from there conversations and facial acting during these tight scenes and scenes over the phone.

As the night begins to unfold and it turns out the daughter hit and kill someone and then with what follows the film takes a turn that you likely won’t expect but is not wholly unpleasant. As it veers off into the supernatural it oddly works within the world created by the film, though I would say that I think Irish folklore is beginning to become a bit tapped out at this point.

The ending of the film is quite bleak but also has a trippy component to it which leaves you asking questions at the end of the film as you pick your head back up off the floor.

Overall, well-acted and with a good supernatural twist.

4/5

Pros.

It is well acted

The horror works within the world

The end leaves open some intriguing questions

Genuine tension

Cons.

Irish folklore is becoming a bit overplayed

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Together: Dave Franco And Alison Brie Should Probably Break Up

Summary

A couple learn very obvious lessons about co-dependence. The irony being that both of these lead actors are actually in a relationship in real life and are now playing a couple on screen and well its ironic.

So I will give this film one thing it does have one particularly effective moment, and it takes place in a children’s school toilet cubicle, once you have seen it and thought through the implications of it then you will be scarred for life. However, that is really the only thing I can praise the film for.

The commentary on co-dependent couples which it ends up justifying at the end, is nothing new. In many sense this film reminds me a lot of Night Bitch the Amy Adam’s film from the end of last year, it has an interesting premise but uses it to deliver fairly boilerplate commentary that feels incredibly obvious.

Franco and Brie as a couple in this film really seem ill suited and unlike in other similar films where you are rooting for them to stay together through it all here you desperately think they should be apart.

Overall, not as smart or inventive as it thinks it is.

1.5/5

Pros.

An interesting idea

One harrowing moment

Cons.

Brie and Franco have no chemistry

The commentary is pedestrian

It is boring

The ending feels contrived

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Bring Her Back: Using Pee For Gaslighting

Summary

A woman, Sally Hawkins, goes to extreme lengths to bring back her dead daughter.

So I enjoyed this film for the fairly basic thriller that it is, there are so good twists and turns and it does not go the way you necessarily think it would. However, the issue for me from this perspective is the fact that the writing is quite weak in terms of justifications. Why did Hawkin’s character pick the central duo out of all the children in care, why did the demon knowingly kill itself at the end? These are questions that the film does not give us answers for.

The film sets up this demonic cult through a video tape that Hawkin’s character watches and as the film goes along and you see more of the tape and you think it would be interesting to explore this idea a bit more, the film immediately stops mentioning them. When Hawkin’s character goes to do the ritual are the cult present as clearly based on the video you need a number of people to carry it out? Nope. She does it on her own. One cannot help but feel like the cult was an undelivered promise.

Whilst I find the demon stuff interesting I do wish they would have shown us more of the little boy doing these creepy and extreme things, as the film itself shows some of this but stops itself from going further, which I feel like it needed to.

Overall, an interesting premise and a few good scares don’t come together to be anything special in a disappointing follow up to Talk To Me.

2.5/5

Pros.

Some good gore

A few scares

Sally Hawkins is always fantastic

Cons.

The cult stuff is not properly used

The writing is weak

The ending is very meh

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