Eli Roth Presents: Dream Eater
"Paranormal Activity". Again.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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…
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.
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"…
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.
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…
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
Uncanny
Very talky "Boy invents android, boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, android gets jealous, Rainn Wilson shows up with a twist ending" story. Meh.
The Drone
I don't know what this is. 20 minutes in, seems like a TV movie-of-the-week. It was labeled "comedy". Turned it off.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Its Name Was Mormo
"Paranormal Activity", except, even less happens.
I didn't think that was possible.
I finally turned it off after an hour.
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.
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…
Girl House
An odd, slightly above-average slasher flick with a ridiculous premise (and a terrible name). A college student moves into a house full of women where they are always on camera for a porn site, until one unhappy fan discovers the location of the house and massacres them.
I will say this. This movie opens with a well-enough done scene, setting the stage for the later carnage, that I noticed it... it was a little intense and well-made, and unusually dark and disturbing in its violence, for what I expected to be a run-of-the-mill third-rate slasher pic (as most slasher pics are, and the name of this one certainly could lead one to believe it would be.)
This movie continued in that fashion... just a hair better than these movies usually are. There was a little more character development that they usually bother with, and the violence was, at…
Bad Girl School
A strange and oddly intense little film I just don't know what to make of. A hyperintense psychiatrist comes in to a "wayward girls" school to break down the girls there, and spends 68 minutes getting real close and talking to them in intense tones until their defenses are broken down.
But that's it. You think it's going to be some sort of exploitation flick but it's not. The acting is weird, and it seems like a few times they repeat lines to get multiple takes but just left all the takes in as one take, and everybody is super-arch and intense. They seem to be playing with some fourth-wall stuff, and the shrink (who is also the director) even breaks character and mugs directly for the camera at the end. And there's no plot, really, just intense, getting-in-each-other's-faces talking.
Strange.
Maid Droid
The USA-Up-All-Nite-iest movie of all time. Basically a softcore porn, minus the sex scenes, the entire plot of which is: a lonely guy gets an incredibly gorgeous robot maid that he's told will cost "no more or less than you can afford", wears the tiniest french maid outfit ever invented—when she's not peeling it off and just walking around completely naked—and has been programmed to "feel everything a woman does", except, apparently, shame, because as she very obligingly demonstrates whenever she can how capable she is of love and orgasms, it's always accompanied be her falling all over herself to fawningly thank him for how wonderful every little thing he does is. 100% nerdy male fantasy fulfillment. (Until, I guess, the part where it goes haywire and kills him in the end, but I guess they realized they had to include *some* sort of conventional cinematic…
Harvest Lake
This is one of the worst movies I've ever liked. A group of 20-somethings go on a trip to a cabin in the woods by a lake which is occupied by a monster that makes them want to have sex with each other and then with it. This movie feels like it was written by someone on a drunken bender and then made a bunch of lousy special effects out of papier-mache, and got together a bunch of friends who couldn't act together to film them doing this with a home movie camera.
And yet... there's flashes of talent here. I almost feel like this is the sort of thing where you go back and look at the terrible first amateur movie from a director who went on to great things, and say, "Yeah, you could kind of see the potential, even in this." It reminds me of very…