Latest "Different, At Least" files
Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

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 hunt them down for sport. Things don't do as planned, though, when one of them reaches a road and flags down a car... which happens to have an incredibly realistically nerdy couple—I could swear I sat next to these two in the computer center in college—who turn out to, uh, not be people you want to fuck with.

What follows is tough to categorize. Torture porn? Revenge fantasy? The darkest pitch-black comedy I've ever seen? It's basically all of these.

It helps that it has some good moments that redeem it, so you know it isn't just an exploitation flick. The stereotypically weak characters—the female intended victims, and the geeks—turn out to be overpoweringly strong, but with…

Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

Deep Dark

Definitely a strange idea for a movie, as a down-on-his-luck artist rents a studio with some sort of unspecified monster behind a hole in the wall that speaks in a sexy woman's voice and gives him brilliant artistic inspiration in exchange for increasing demands for attention, affection, and finally sex. Yes, with, essentially, a glory hole with teeth. And one that takes credit for the careers of a bunch of great 20th century artists. And as he falls for the gallery owner who falls for him for his new talent, the hole gets jealous, making for a few scenes of minor but visually imaginative gore.

It's a B-movie but the whole thing is so bizarre it's kind of charming. Unfortunately a weak ending keeps it from being recommendable as an oddity... a strong ending would have put it over the line for sure. This is the movie I created…

Movie Reviews » Canadian

Invited

So, ok, weird. Young woman disappears, then suddenly invites her family to a zoom call of her wedding with her creepy new fiancee. But: First off, this entire movie is a zoom call. The acting is terrible. Major developments are telegraphed and predictable. So, overall all the ingredients of a terrible horror movie. But: the pacing is good. Somehow, despite the terrible acting and the utter lack of motion as the entire movie is a screenshot, tension is built kind of effectively. That, and only that, elevates it very slightly above what it looks like it's going to be. I still wouldn't, say, recommend it, but apparently found-footage horror fans (a phenomenon I don't understand; to me"found footage fan"is an oxymoron) really like this one, and I get it. Plus it's not really found footage. (Note: on subsequent research, this is a Canadian film. Ok, pretty poor showing for indie Canadian fare, it explains why it's a tiny above bottom of the barrel instead of wallowing at the very bottom.
Movie Reviews » Bad but I liked it

Don’t Blink

A group of friends get stranded at a remote cabin and find nobody there, but evidence of people having picked up and left in the middle of activities. One by one, they disappear.

The production values are good, and ratchets up the tensions well enough to be a little engaging. But it's very, very badly flawed—aside from two-dimensional characters, more importantly it basically has only a premise, not an actual plot... it's one idea, and never developed beyond showing you that idea. It never bothers to explain what's going on, and additionally includes a lot of inconsistencies and points that are brought up and then never explained, or sometimes ever even mentioned again. The character motivations are all over the place... for instance, a man who brought his fiancee to ask her to marry him has sex with his ex almost immediately after she suddenly disappears, for no other apparent…