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Guys At Parties Like It

Guys At Parties Like It

Hunh. Story is, the very worst sort of stereotypically rapey movie frat boys don't take it kindly when a woman fights back. She fights back harder. They get nastier. It seems like these folks set out to make an '80s-style"video nasty", with a feminist slant. Sort reminiscent of of a modern"I Spit On Your Grave"in that way. None of this is my favorite thing by a long shot, but, they did do what they seem to have set out to do. The social commentary is about an inch deep, and most of the characters are paper-thin, but I get the sense any sort of social awareness is just a justification for the violence, anyway, so I didn't really care. No way I'll be watching this again, nor would I ever recommend this as something to watch.
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it
The Belko Experiment

The Belko Experiment

In this cinematic anti-masterpiece, a corporate headquarters goes on lockdown, and it turns out all the employees have remotely-triggered explosives implanted in their heads, when a voice comes over the loudspeaker and gives them challenges that require them to kill each other or be killed themselves, apparently because, movie. An exceptionally violent, bloody, pointless movie, just violence as entertainment, but, for one of those, actually kind of good cheezy fun. John C. McGinley plays a slightly different character than he usually does, which is fun.
Movie Reviews » "Found Footage" crap
Underground [2023]

Underground [2023]

AVOID. Dreadful first-person shooter spends the from 30 minutes showing girls partying. By 35 minutes they've taken a shortcut through a tunnel and one fell in a hole, but 45 minutes is way too late for the plot to start.
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Water [2019]

Water [2019]

some claptrap about a house out in the arizona desert with a haunted hot tub or something. Porn-level acting and production, EXCEPT for the lead actor's momentary Scwarzenegger impression, which is hilarious. Deserves its 2 stars on IMDB..
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Hosts

Hosts

Well, this is sure to be polarizing. Notably well directed, creepy, builds tension extremely well, very nice gloomy cinematography, the production values were totally on point... all for purposes of showing 90 minutes of the flimsiest of reasons for a nonstop bloodbath, just cruelty and violence as entertainment. Could gets possessed by... it's never explained what... but it makes their eyes glow occasionally just so you know they're evil, and makes them want to cruelly torture people, and that's the entirety of the plot. Oh, also, the way you get possessed is the possessed people show you a video of a cave or something and then your mouth lights up like a flashlight. The rest is cruelty and violence. I mean, like, on the few occasions when one of the possessed people gets taken out, you briefly see a glowing mist escape their mouths and their eyes turn normal, just so you know they're back and the people who caught them are now killing their actual loved unpossessed ones. And that happens more than once. That kind of cruelty. And with no explanation other than"unexplained lights floating around". Then there's the fact that before the carnage starts, somehow nobody notices the"possessed"people acting like stiff zombies for maybe 20 minutes until it suddenly gets bloody and they snap back to life. Happily, mostly incredibly low reviews on IMDB, restoring my faith in humanity... a story this thin, even the terrific production values didn't fool any but the absolute least discriminating viewers.
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Haunted By Her Name

Haunted By Her Name

This indiest of indie flicks is tediously slow. Billed as a guy being increasingly haunted by his recently-dead ex, what it actually is is about 20 minutes of a guy driving around interspersed among about an hour of two guys talking, and then 5 minutes of"plot twist"and incredibly amateurishly-acted-and-shot"action"at the end. Avoid. Well-meaninged but should have been a 15 minute short, not a feature film, and still wouldn't have been very good.
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The Color Yellow

The Color Yellow

One of those execrable movies that seems like someone got together all their friends to film a home movie"horror movie". In the first 15 minutes they show a"monster"that's obviously a guy in a yellow hazmat suit wearing a rubber mask. The lead actress is really kinda cute so I left it on in the background and watched youtube videos on my laptop the rest of the time, so I have no idea what else it was about. They show some guys who are supposed to be scientists and stuff at one point.
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Those Who Walk Away

Those Who Walk Away

I will never figure out how Tubi categorizes movies. It shows me strings of films with odd things in common. In this case, it's several movies in a row where they a movie basically has people talking for 45 minutes before it finally tuns into a horror movie. In this case, it's a couple on a date, as boring and ordinary an indie flick as you could ask for, before she suddenly traps him in her boarded-up house, and it turns into a decent captivity flick as he tries to avoid the monster she's trying to feed him to. Still pretty bad and derivative, but compared to the utterly tedious first 45 minutes of just a couple out on a much too long date, the rest actually seems like quality horror entertainment. The acting is alright, at any rate, and the ending is actually totally decent. But, boy. Pacing, people, pacing. No more 45 minutes of unnecessary talk before the movie starts, ok? The would have been a pretty watchable like 30 minute short.
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it
Nightmare City 2035

Nightmare City 2035

Activists try to defeat government-implanted chips that prevent the citizens from seeing that their gorgeous futuristic city is actually a slum. What a funny movie. A 2017 sci-fi B movie that looks for all the world like it's from about 1980 at the latest. Hammy acting, lots of practical and optical effects, sets that look big-budget and actors that look for all the world like Hollywood actors but aren't anybody you've ever heard of. Absolutely crap, derivative, but a little charming in that late-70s-bad-scifi way, and amusing that someone made something like this 10 years into the post-Matrix era.
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Beyond Paranormal (Director’s Cut)

Beyond Paranormal (Director’s Cut)

Strange movie. Typical D-grade awful, amateurish horror flick in which a gorgeous actress becomes possessed by the spirit of herself talking with a bad southern accent. But: has moments where the cinematography is really good, which is so completely out of place. There's a couple of isolated moments where there's no dialog or human acting, just other things happening, and I'm like,"Whaaaaa? This movie just got really good for a second."And then, 20 seconds later, back to pure garbage. Funny.
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Sex Games

Sex Games

Terrible pursuit flick that proves that any movie that mentions online video sites or"influencers"is still, in 2024, an instant avoid. A couple takes a challenge to film themselves having sex in different places for online prizes, when some murdered chases and kills them because, movie. Weird because it seems like maybe this was a 40 minute long movie, so they padded it out with scenes of a convincingly sleazy youtube host talking about what they're doing, as if he the one running the contest and getting updates from them, when they never actually mention or refer to him in any way. Which, actually, was kind of funny. But not funny enough to make this movie worth watching.
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3 Slices Of Life

3 Slices Of Life

That rarest bird, the"so bad it's good"movie I actually like. Mostly because this is exactly what I imagine we would have gotten if John Waters had watched a bunch of David Cronenberg films and decided to make an anthology horror movie instead of a trashy social satire, but was still John Waters. A dumped-on office worker releases nanobots to make his coworkers like him, which turn them into monsters, because, movie. Plus two other similarly ludicrous segments filled with fake gore that I've already otherwise forgotten.
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The Arrangement

The Arrangement

A truly strange sub-TV-movie with the most intricate plot I've seen. People's faces appear in a polaroid before they die. Some cops investigate, but they may be involved, I don't know, the whole thing has a lot of characters and a lot going on and a lot of twists and turns and it's all really confusing the director was not in any way capable of pulling it off. And the acting is terrible actors giving it an admirable amount of gung-ho.
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Matriarch

Matriarch

A stunningly original story in which a young pregnant couple's car breaks down in the countryside where, in an unexpected twist, there's no cell service, so they go to, get this, a nearby farmhouse, which turns out to be inhabited by, you'll never believe this, a crazy family that takes them prisoner and wants to keep the baby. Finally, get this, in the end, only the woman survives to escape. How in the world do they come up with this stuff? I mean, other than maybe watching the 3000 other movies with the same exact plot?
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Robbin

Robbin

unexpectedly semi-alright crime/revenge thriller. An up-and-coming young executive is framed for embezzling, so she recruits her old friends from the South Central in an elaborate revenge scheme. Very amateurish, but, somehow, so committed to what it wants to be that it gets entertaining at points. Plus, somehow they pulled together the budget for a decent car chase at the end with helicopters and all. Not as good as it wants to be, but not anywhere near as bad sa it should have been.
Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois
Island Zero

Island Zero

Crusty maine island fishermen, plus a local novelist and a local biologist, confront an unseen monster emerging from the sea. I liked it well enough that I remembered it, can't say much more than that.
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The Devil’s Chair

The Devil’s Chair

Disappointing. English horror flick with gritty, almost"Trainspotting"type production values about an electric-chair type contraption found in an abandoned hospital, which either transports the seated person to another dimension, drives them insane, or summons a demon. Actually starts out alright but by halfway through the decent performances and unusually gritty production values can't support the muddled story. Clive Barker could've made this as punchy as it wanted to be, or Danny Boyle could have made it as clever and narratively strong as it wants to be, but neither of them was anywhere near this.
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it
C.O.R.N.: The Field Of Screams

C.O.R.N.: The Field Of Screams

You know, weirdly, I liked this strictly B-movie. It was sort of a bad movie that's saved by good direction and kind of a weirdly original approach. Brother and sister get trapped in a farm town taken over by rogue artists who do taxidermy on people. I, you know, kind of enjoyed it, which surprised me. Definitely not one I'd go out of my way to see, but kind of fun for a 2nd rate"teen scream"flick.
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The Depraved (aka”Urban Explorer”)

The Depraved (aka”Urban Explorer”)

(not to be confused with"Depraved", the very good"Frankenstein"update previously reviewed) Captivity/pursuit flick. Urban explorers in the tunnels below Berlin encounter a seemingly helpful denizen of the depths when one of them is seriously injured in a fall, who turns out, once he's lured them back to his lair, to be bonkers. A slightly unusual last few minutes for this sort of fare (in that it foregoes any redemption or sign of hope at the end; ok, that's actually different), decent performances including from the leering bad guy, and half the dialogue being in German are the only distinguishing qualities this movie has.
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Outpost 11

Outpost 11

A sci-fi alternate history tale about three men stationed in an Arctic outpost during a steampunk version of WWII that gas stretched into the mid-1950s. An enemy mind-control weapon drives them all mad, and has the deadly side effect of turning a really interesting concept into a really dull movie.
Movie Reviews » Trash
Anna: Scream Queen Killer

Anna: Scream Queen Killer

Scream Queen Killer: A"scream queen"actress auditioning for a role by doing about 15 minutes of 30 secone takes on various situations, because, I guess, if you only saw her"act like there's an invisible presence in the room for 30 seconds...act like you're turning into a vampire for 30 seconds"for 12 or 13 minutes, the point wouldn't have been made. Fellas, there's editing now. You should use it.
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Demented

Demented

Proving that every rule has an exception, this awful sub-"USA Up All nite"stars Felissa Rose, who apparently takes the roles Linnea Quiqley would have once turned down as being beneath her, as a cop investigating some sort of snuff film ring. An attempt to appeal to fans of basic brutality by a director not competent enough even to provide basic brutality.
Movie Reviews » Je nais se quois
LX 2048

LX 2048

Takes a while to get going, but sort of fun future technodystopia where a company sells"insurance"where if a spouse dies, you get a clone within 48 hours... with the ability to request small custom improvements, of course. What could go wrong? (Hint: everything.) Not quite the movie it wants to be, padded out with unnecessary secondary ideas that are explored then just dropped, and so takes a little while to get going ... would have been a very good Black Mirror episode, with tighter plotting. At twice that length feels a little long for the idea, but still, I'd give it a 'B'. Reasonably well done, not great but definitely not crap.
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it
Alien Weekend

Alien Weekend

Fun little flick. Sci-fi comedy about a couple of 20-something friends who stumble into some intrigue involving a crashed ufo and a missing alien egg. Reminiscent of quirky indie sci-fi comedies like Buckaroo Bonzai, Repo Man, Bill & Ted, that sort of thing, although it doesn't really rise to anywhere near that level—it's still too much of a teen film for that—but nonetheless, a likable cast and fairly consistently successful comic elements make it a fun view. Definitely doesn't suck. Could maybe be a minor cult favorite, I bet, to people who haven't seen this sort of thing before.
Movie Reviews » "Found Footage" crap
Nyctophobia

Nyctophobia

another dreadful first-person shooter that looks like someone had a spare weekend so they decided to make a movie on their iphone with their friends. Nothing happens for 25 minutes, and then all the lights go out, and it's like an hour and a half of people running around a darkened house shouting at each other. That's it. Monsters are heard outside and never seen. Nonstop nauseatingly shaky cellphone-shot video never sits still long enough to see what's going on. Seems like they made it up as they went along. What Hath The Blair Witch Project Wrought?
Movie Reviews » "Found Footage" crap
Moth

Moth

Absolutely dreadfully boring first person shooter. Two people spend half the movie driving around doing nothing, then they spend half the movie running through the woods and arguing. And that's really it. They talk and yell and run and nothing else happens. It's not even"found footage horror"any more. They might as well make a found footage movie of paint drying.
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The Call (2022)

The Call (2022)

Teenage bullies drive a woman to suicide, so her husband forces them to take a strange phone call which is her exacting her revenge from the other side. a c-grade horror movie that somehow got Tobin Bell and Lin Shaye to star in it, making it a strange hodgepodge of occasionally creepy and intense, because, Tobin Bell and Lin Shaye, but, mostly boring c-grade horror movie crap.
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it
Mustang Sally’s Horror House

Mustang Sally’s Horror House

A true aberration, the rare"so bad it's good"movie I enjoyed. This thoroughly"USA Up All Nite"-level fare about a bunch of frat boys who go to a bordello and are killed one-by-one by the ladies is, well, thoroughly"USA Up All Nite"-level fare, from start to finish. It doesn't really try too hard, and plays like something made in about 1972. These movies, you know, they remind me of my shiftless year or two right after college, working a shit admin assistant job by day and smoking weed and watching"USA Up All Nite"every weekend. Hard not to feel a little affection for a movie that evokes that this well. I'd never recommend anybody watch it, but I may again, if there's nothing else on someday. Suprisingly, this is from 2006. I would have given it no later than 1992 at the absolute latest, and probably earlier.