Movie Reviews » Favorite

The Front

I love this movie. It's a unique and moving tragicomedy about a writer who fronts for blacklisted writers during the Red Scare. Set in the 50s but done with (at the time) up-to-date '70s fashions. Stars a long pre-scandal Woody Allen, and conducted throughout with his usual nebbishy-but-insouciant tone—but, unusually, not written or directed by him—and also features Zero Mostel in an unforgettable role as a blacklisted entertainer being brutally taken advantage of by uncaring, predatory show biz people.

I really don't have the words to explain what's so great about this movie. It's an incredibly well-written, funny, pointed, sympathetic, stirring, and at moments downright painful look at innocent lives bleakly destroyed by a political frenzy, with a unbelievably strong message. It has one of my favorite closing scenes of any movie ever—although you have to watch all the way through the credits to understand what's so very powerful…

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Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

Shadow (2009)

Ok, this movie is vexing. It starts out as a very tedious pursuit flick: a former soldier biking through rural Europe pisses off asshole locals in a bar by rescuing a woman they're harassing, so the locals chase him and the woman through the woods. Suddenly, the movie changes completely, as a creepy figure who for some reason has apparently built a huge Gothic torture complex in the middle of nowhere captures all of them and spends most of the rest of the movie silently torturing them horribly and graphically, with the kind of creative degeneracy you'd find in the worst torture porn.

I will give it one thing: the cinematography has a couple of exceptional moments. The gaunt torturer has shots worthy of "Nosferatu", and as the movie suddenly shifts into increasing (and totally unexplained) phantasmagoria, there are a couple of eerily beautiful shots here and there.

…
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Movie Reviews » Honorable Mention

The Wicker Man

A favorite classic of mine, a very unique crime/horror flick with a deserved cult following. Edward Woodward as a Christian police detective called to investigate the disappearancec of a young girl on a remote British isle where an ancient pagan religion is still avidly practiced, on the eve of their biggest festival. Villagers wear animal masks, fornicate in public, and openly teach the school children about a pagan view of sex, as the morally outraged Woodward gets drawn into something big and dark. Command performances from all, especially Christopher Lee as the lord of the isle.

What "Dog Day Afternoon" is to crime dramas, this is to horror films: a little dated, perhaps, very much of its time, but just a very well-told-eng story, and different enough, to be entertaining all the way through.

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Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois

Infinity Pool

A well-made and engrossing but slightly narratively flawed sci-fi/horror mindbender, with video montages that would make Ken Russell proud. It's not perfect but well-enough done to be satisfying for me, despite the occasional cinematic excess or tough-to-swallow narrative turn.

A tourist couple and some friends visiting a foreign nation break the rules and leave the compound, drunkenly killing a local. From there it gets into some trippy territory that's just unexpected enough that I don't want to give away any more than that.

It's not great but it was good enough that it held my attention. The plot was definitely original, if a little too weird to completely suspend disbelief. I did like the way some outlandish ideas were handled, at least at first, with some gritty, matter-of-fact realism.

By the end it goes a little over-the-top but not far enough to ruin my overall enjoyment of…

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Movie Reviews » Turned it off

Not All Movies Are The Same: Dual

I will never understand why they give a movie an English-language description, English title, English introductory cards, English credits, and then, after a very long opening sequence with no dialogue, it turns out to be a foreign-language film.

I don't mind tucking in with a subtitled foreign film, but that's not what I skim the horror section of Tubi for.

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Movie Reviews » Turned it off

The Girl Next Door (2007)

Yet another movie based on the gruesome abuse and murder of Sylvia Likens by the family of a neighbor who was supposed to be looking after her for a few months in the mid-'60s (the other one film being the more biopic-like but equally horrifying "An American Crime".) This one, despite being well-made, is based on a novel that fictionalized the incident, and really amounts to an exploitation flick. It's well-acted enough that the characters succeed in being truly, viscerally loathsome, but it doesn't offer up anything besides that.

It is very rare that I will turn a movie off just for being foul—remember, I'm the guy who loved "Necropath"—but this is just gross. The thin pretense of social responsibility afforded by being very loosely based on a true story doesn't redeem it, despite the addition of a "good guy" neighbor boy character who…

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Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

New Jersey Devil

A family in rural New Jersey deals with deaths in the area and a supernatural threat in the woods. A strangely good bad movie. Clearly a beyond-indie zero-budget production, with more than its share of totally amateur production values, plodding pacing, and wooden acting, this also strangely has moments of good direction, and although the minor characters all seem to be played by non-actors, the leads are actually alright... all enough that I actually sort of liked it, in a non-ironic way. It goes on a bit too long, unfortunately, but, I dunno, for what it is, it actually has its charms, a little.

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House On Haunted Hill (2021, aka Nighthawk)

100% forgettable, tediously slow haunted house movie about twentysomethings going out to visit a home one of them has inherited on a remote island with no cell phone service.

Why they chose to release it under the same name as a horror classic is beyond me.

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Movie Reviews » Just, Don't

Bare Skin

Overwrought and overlong, this is effectively an anthology film. A mysterious therapist calls five victims of horrific crimes in to group therapy. Most of the movie is their flashbacks showing their traumatic experiences, which mostly consist of well-shot but unexplained and difficult-to-believe attacks, kidnappings, tortures, etc., each of which goes on for much too long with too little plot behind them, and mostly featuring poor acting. Eventually the therapist reveals a connection between the five people, which I think is supposed to be some sort of twist ending, but simply doesn't make any sense.

Of all the films I've marked "just don't", this might be the "just don't"-est, there's just nothing rewarding about this. Except the production values and cinematography, which are oddly competent. This doesn't look like a cheapo indie flick, although nothing else about it is interesting. And some sure thought a lot of themselves to make…

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Movie Reviews » watchable

Juice (TV series)

Charming, absurdist, somewhat slapstick BBC romantic comedy series about a young man's struggles with his job, immigrant family, and boyfriend. The second season leans harder into outright surreality, and it basically works. I wouldn't say it's a favorite but I enjoyed it, and would have happily watched another season of it.

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Movie Reviews » watchable

Barney Miller (TV series)

I rewatched the entire series over a couple of weeks, maybe for the first time since I was a kid, and I was plesantly surprised. It has an old-school "Catskills comedian"-type repartee to it at times, and is definitely often a cut above what you normally think of as a sitcom... definitely fairly intelligent writing, aimed at adults. It has its weak, over-the-top sitcommy tropes, especially throughout the lackluster third season and the last, when every criminal they bring in is some sort of two-dimensional, ridiculous caricature (the guy who thinks he's a werewolf springs to mind as a representative third season example,) but by and large most of its 8 seasons justify why it was well thought of. It's not hilarious, but it's often witty and thoughtful. It's pretty amazing, actually, that they managed to make 8 largely-entertaining seasons set mostly in a single room. Not since "The Honeymooners"…

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Year 10

Postapocalyptic tribal violence, like Mad Max set in the deep woods of Britain instead of the highways of the outback. No dialogue at all, just action, which is interesting, and the cinematography is good and gritty, but, while it seems well-made, didn't really hold my attention.

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Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

The Last (2025)

A grave disappointment that tackles a somewhat familiar theme very well until it suddenly doesn't.

A shy, socially awkward man unexplainedly wakes up in Sydney, Australia to find the rest of humanity has vanished. Over time he finds a few other "survivors", and both his story and their interactions are mostly handled intelligently and with realism, and the many scenes of a totally empty Sydney are effective... until the cliches start showing up, and finally, the movie abruptly ends with an totally unsatisfying "resolution" that tries to sound profound but just comes off inarticulate and never explains most of the narrative loose ends that have accumulated.

It's a shame, because for the first 1/2-2/3, the movie fell unexpectedly enjoyably into the watchable category. But disintegrating in the third act into a mass of never-explained "creepy" plot points and contrived conflicts and then ending with basically a shrug that…

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Movie Reviews » Just, Don't

Final Days: Tales From The End times

A bunch of terrible, clichéd supposed horror shorts all set on the day of the apocalypse. Whether it's a zombie apocalypse, a nuclear apocalypse, some sort of pandemic of violence, or something else, it can't seem to decide, and a few of them don't even seem related to the theme. Totally amateurish, and terrible even by horror anthology standards. I think this might be just a bunch of youtube shorts collected together into a "movie". Although that may not be fair, as I've seen much better youtube horror shorts than these.

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Movie Reviews » Turned it off

Clown (2019)

Ugh. Sub-TV-movie-level acting and production, a disjoined opening scene of small town people hunting down and brutally killing people in clown makeup, then 20 minutes of nothing happening as a carful of unrealistic kids discover an abandoned carnival in the desert, I'm not sitting through 90 minutes of this.

Not to be confused with Clown (2014), which I saw a long time ago but haven't reviewed yet, and was bad but reasonably amusing.

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Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

Brute 1976

Reasonably well-made but tediously derivative and narratively meandering "tribute" to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, set in a desert ghost town instead of a Texas farm. Has a touch of The Wicker Man thrown in for good measure. Cool masks, I'll give it that, but that's just about all it's got. Although, one interesting point: it passes the Bechdel test, and in fact it has two named female BIPOC characters who have a conversation about something other than men, as both the last victim and the lead villain of this large ensemble cast are both women—they have a several-minute conversation about war and social issues, at the phantasmagorical climax of the film no less. So, I guess it's got that, too. I suppose that catapults it into "at least it's different" territory, despite how entirely derivative most of it is—albeit just barely.

I kinda feel like Rob…

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Movie Reviews » Just, Don't

No Tears In Hell

Empty torture porn that makes "Funny Games" seem like Dostoevsky. "Based on a true story" slasher pic is just repeated scenes of an improbably handsome "cannibal necrophile psychopath" luring improbably gorgeous "homeless people" to his home and doing about what you'd expect, except sicker. Boring. I gave up about halfway through. Notable primarily for how much every single person in it seems like an actor, and for being oddly well-shot for such a piece of completely unwarranted garbage.

I bet Eli Roth loves this.

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Stay Safe

Well-acted but poorly written, badly disjoined thriller about a couple who take a mysterious woman into their home during a pandemic in which martial law has been declared. This thing skips around like Jacob's Ladder with ADHD, introduces very late-in-the-game supernatural elements and ultimately is totally unsatisfying.

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Movie Reviews » Just, Don't

The Stylist

A one-note story that seems like a '90s horror anthology TV series episode expanded out to over 100 minutes. A disturbed hairstylist cuts the scalps off her customers and wears them around the house because, I dunno, movie, I guess.

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The Calling Witch

Thriller about a family living in a remote cabin who may be being beseiged by a supernatural entity the eldest daughter is writing a book about. They're not, it's a thriller, not a horror movie. Fairly well-made, not terrible, and lead actress Danika Golombek is appealing, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see this, either. More like a movie for if there's nothing else on.

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Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

Reset

You gotta give 'em points for trying. This is a pretty bad movie, but entertaining for being somewhat imaginative. Set in rural America, a father whose daughter was abducted by an otherworldly force is repeatedly attacked by hallucinatory visualization of himself, his daughter, his dead wife, and rubber suit monsters who reset time and memories every time he makes progress against them. Crossing paths with others who have experienced similar things results in a lot of shotguns being fired at people in rubber monster suits.

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Movie Reviews » Trash

DarkPlace

An incomprehensible, and incomprehensibly amateurish, Southern Gothic with abysmally lousy acting and editing, every single consumer video editing app special effect except for a star wipe, and, weirdly, noticeably slick visual composition and lighting. Odd.

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Movie Reviews » Canadian

Fido

An entertaining zombie comedy that plays something like "Pleasantville" if it was directed by Tim Burton, or "Lassie" if it was written by George Romero, or just the most twisted Disney picture ever. Small-town politics and "boys life"-type adventures play out in an alternate 1950s where a zombie apocalypse has been overcome with technology that prevents them from wanting to eat living people, resulting in them becoming docile and being adopted as servants or pets. And we all know how reliable technology is...

It's fun, pretty well done, the usual Canadian slight cut above average, and keeps just enough of both the stock zombie film tropes and stock wholesome, saccharine '50s family picture tropes to create amusing irony while it charts its own path.

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Winchester

So-so gothic haunted house story based on the legend of the Winchester Mystery House. Not terrible, not especially good. Gets kind of special-effecty near the end, which is a shame and shatters the until that point low-key mood.

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Festival Of The Living Dead

Very mildly entertaining teen scream sequel to "Night Of The Living Dead", which supposes that 50 years after a zombie outbreak, ravers would be throwing a music festival in the woods to commemorate the zombie attack—at which things go wrong in a by now all-too-familiar way.

Truthfully, though, it leans slightly towards the fun side for this kind of super-trite, 100% formulaic genre exercise, and given the abysmal track record of virtually all the direct NOTLD sequels except for "Dawn of The Dead", it's certainly better than even some of the later ones George Romero himself was involved with. That's not a very high bar to clear, though.

Still, it was a somewhat ok teen scream action/horror flick for staying kind of fun to watch, not absolute trash. I've sat through worse.

Edit: turns out this was directed by the Soska sisters, who also made "American Mary" and the…

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