Archives: Movie Reviews

Maybe the most interesting complete disappointment I've ever seen. A cinematically outstanding fantasy set in Victorian England, where a mad professor has implanted the body of a suicide with the brain of her still-living fetus and raised her as his child in what seems at first like a very creative spin on "Frankenstein" but by the second act becomes preoccupied with her growing sexual desires and her manipulation by the men in her life, to the exclusion of all else.

For maybe the first half hour I thought it was an undiscovered gem—the cinematography, set design, and even costuming are like everything Terry Gilliam ever dreamed of, truly exceptional and surreal, and for the first half hour it had a plot to match. And then, she discovers masturbation, and suddenly, everything interesting about the plot was immediately dispensed with, and never returned to. The entire rest of the movie…

Tough-as-nails US soldiers led by Mickey Rourke encounter witches and supernatural doings in the European woods during WWII. Oscillates between a war flick and a special-effects laden supernatural action extravaganza. Looks like a fun movie from a distance, owing to the big-budget special effects, but it's kind of meh.

Weirdly ok bad movie about a small town besieged by supernatural occurrences after a particle collider opens up a portal to hell or some such. Pretty terribly written and meandering, the story is a mess, but kind of weirdly ok in terms of production or something. It had that sort of "this is terrible, but it's kinda good" thing in a way that made me think maybe it was a H.P. Lovecraft story, as a lot of those seem to somehow turn out strangely a little bit kinda good in a weird way. Has a cameo by Jamie Kennedy, the patron saint of bad movies that are strangely a little bit kinda good in a weird way. Not that I'd recommend you watch it or anything. But, uh, I kinda didn't mind it?

Unremarkable, fairly color-by-numbers captivity flick as redneck junkyard owner holds women captive in an underground cell. Ends with everything blowing up. Yawn. Weirdly, has some familiar faces like Brad Dourif, Vivica A. Fox, and John Kapelos (yes, you do know him, he was the janitor in "The Breakfast Club") Not like this is terrible, but in a world where we have "Silence of The Lambs" this doesn't even qualify as sub-mediocre. I wonder how they got name actors to appear in something so unremarkable.

Hint: good horror movies don't need to start their title with "Stephen King's".

Rather scattered supernatural tale about a father dealing with his severely autistic daughter, who is apparently channeling his dead wife, or something.

Reasonably watchable Canadian fantasy/drama series, probably aimed at teens or young adults. A young woman encounters a mysterious "therapist" who sends her back in time every episode to reconcile regrets from her life. It's fun enough, nothing great, but a little different and the cast is likeable, even when the later series tend towards the "we've run out of ideas" phase of making every story about relationships, who loves who, who's marrying who, who's having a baby, etc.

One nice thing, the series ended after 4 seasons, not because it was cancelled, but because they were at a good stopping point and felt the story had been told. That's the kind of slightly-above-average judgment that made it a slightly-above-average series.

Vaguely watchable southern gothic. Strange events surround two kids after they are rescued from playing in an abandoned mineshaft. Just on the good side of mediocre.

Decent if somewhat slow British supernatural drama about a doctor who becomes convinced a young boy she is treating can control reality.

Anthology of mostly British horror shorts. One terrible, a few alright, none great.

Reasonably well made but overlong and very slowly paced suspense thriller, something of a throwback to "When A Stranger Calls" or "The Serpent And The Rainbow"—two older, surprisingly talky ostensible 'horror' films that were marketed as being much more exciting than they actually were. And "When A Stranger Calls" had better character study, although this one tries.

I wouldn't mind movies like this if they didn't try to present them as horror films. Even so, this kind of moves along at a snail's pace, much more talk than plot.