Puzzlehead
This is a low-budget indie movie that should have been way worse than it was. In a dystopian urban future that visually resembles our dystopian urban present, a scientist invents…
Latest "Je nais se quois" files
Puzzlehead
Dead Night
Movies like this exactly are why I created a category "Je nais se quois/Flawed Gems". Definitely not a great movie, but certainly original, after a fashion, and ultimately, I thought,…
Spiral
Well, this movie put one over on me. Starts off with a bunch of guys having a reunion for a bachelor party in a fancy rental house, which logically promised…
Cannibal Mukbang
Well, this movie certainly turned out to be something much different, and much better, than I expected. That's not to say it was a *good* movie... it definitely doesn't aspire…
Bonehill Road
This is one of those movies that seems like someone who had never made a movie, or even ever known anything about making a movie, had a camera and just…
A Serious Man
In adding my review of Fargo for no other reason than that I couldn't have a "favorite movies" section that didn't mention it, I discovered that I somehow left "A…
Bystanders
Talk about a guilty pleasure. Cartoonishly evil frat guys lure a few women to a remote cabin for a party, only to drug them, rape them, and release them to…
The Dead Bodies In Room 223
A man calls a prostitute to a hotel, who overdoses while he's in the shower. Her madam shows up, gets to arguing with him, pulls a knife, and in a…
The Waiting
Here we have something odd. A ghost story but not a horror movie. Not quite a comedy, but far too lighthearted (and innocently goofy) to ever be meant to be…
Parallel (2018)
I liked this movie, it's a fun sort of solidly-second-rate sci-fi-ish thriller about a group of wannabe startup kids who find a mirror in a hidden room in their house…
Shifted
Another fatally-flawed horror gem in the finest Canadian tradition, this odd horror/thriller features an ensemble cast trying to survive trapped in a house with dwindling supplies as zombie-like former humans…
GoodBi (2022)
A germophobe nursing student begins to be inexplicably attacked by people around her wherever she goes. Don't watch this movie. I mean it. And especially, don't eat while watching this…
Exquisite Corpse (2010)
I kinda liked this movie. In this modern-day parable of Frankenstein-meets-Hitchcock, a science research student is study reanimating dead mice—requiring hefty doses of chemicals extracted fatally from other living mice—when…
Evil At The Door
Ok. Hmmmmmm. The setup for this movie is dissuasive: Once a year, an ancient secret society "The Locusts" stages "Night Of The Locusts", where innocent people are set up for…
Red Earth
An interesting indie exercise, more artsy than I often like, but in this case it's effective—think more Tarkovsky than "Brooklyn hipster with a video recorder". There are a lot of…
Dead Air
It's hard to do anything new with a zombie movie nowadays, but this movie kind of does. Bill Moseley takes a star turn in a convincing performance of a mildly…
Hostile Dimensions
This films is difficult to know what to do with. By all rights, it should suck. Zero budget, not very good acting, plotting that seems rather arbitrary, and, worst of…
The Quiet Earth
Kind of an enjoyable New Zealand sci-fi flick which, from 1985, may be the latest example I know of of that slightly campy but good, character-driven 1970s-type movie making. A…
Excision
Boy, this movie really makes kind of an impression. Annalynne McCord, last seen looking like a glamor-model-turned-actress in 90210, plays, in what is only the first of this movie's many…
The Frame
This is an interesting one. It takes so long to get where it's going, but is so passably adequate even before it's gotten there, that by the time it does…
The Radleys
Pretty decent English modern-vampire-movie-played-almost-as-drama a lá "The Hamiltons". This was pretty decent though. Modern English vampire family deals with internal politics and trying to survive without being found out in…
Sorry I Killed You
This movie is pretty sophomoric. Dick jokes (including a huge rubber dildo that appears more than once), insecurity about males being mistaken for being gay, and every imaginable prank that…
Ankle Biters (2021)
I can't believe it. Somebody actually made a "horror comedy" that works watchably well as both. I have never seen a film that is so charming and so grisly at…
Beyond the Sky
Surprisingly ok sci-fi special effects thriller, after a slow and cliched start. Filmmaker out to debunk UFO abductions gets more than he expected in the American southwest, but it winds…
Death On Scenic Drive
Serious swing and a miss here. Beautiful cinematography, and a nice analog synth soundtrack—overall reminischent of "Beyond The Black Rainbow" in those ways, including with lots of saturated lighting ond…
The Battery
Hmmmm. HMMMMMMM. Hmmmm. Here we have a seriously flawed gem. This is a "slice of life" zombie movie. Two ex-ballplayers wander around New England trying to survive after a zombie…
Torture Chamber
I think I might be the only person who thinks this is a good movie. This very Giallo-esque outing is about a severely scarred, burned kid with psychic powers who…
Salvage (2009)
The army descends on a cul-de-sac in suburban England and warns everybody to stay indoors for what initially seems to be a terrorist attack but turns out to be something…
Exeter (2015)
Slightly above-average "teen scream" flick that I just can't tell if it's supposed to be funny or it's just that over the top. They get into the action quickly as…
The Final
This bears a disclaimer. If I categorize a film as "je nais se quois", that doesn't necessarily constitute a recommendation that it should be watched. In this case, I absolutely…