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

Ghosts Of The Void

Hmmmmmm. Tough to know what to do with this one. It might be the most deeply flawed of flawed gems.

A captivity/pursuit flick that doesn't really have any captivity or pursuit until at least 2/3 of the way through its runtime. The director described it as "a home invasion flick without the home" but in truth it barely has the invasion, either. That's a good thing.

A struggling couple, their marriage crumbling and deep anxiety setting in as shown through flashbacks, has been evicted from their home and is spending their night in their car, parked on a darkened street outside a country club in the nice part of town. Slowly, tension builds, and it takes well over half the movie before we see someone is indeed messing with them. Someone leaves a note saying "don't park here" on their windshield... but it may be a nearby homeless…

Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

Uncontained

A surprisingly ok, watchable post-zombie-apocalypse flick about a tough-as-nails drifter stumbling onto a remote house in Alaska where the precocious young children of a government research wait for their gorgeous, tough-as-nails parents to return while zombies roam the landscape. Other gorgeous and/or tough-as-nails survivors occasionally pass through along the way.

This one was a little different, though, and just slightly better than that intro probably does justice too. It's not really cliched, outside of that, well, it *is* a zombie movie, so certain things are to be expected. It's a little light on character, too, but it's well-made enough, reasonably cinematically polished, and has something of an actual plot rather than just thrills upon thrills, and I can only assume the abysmal reviews on IMDB are mostly from blood-and-guts or fright fans disappointed because it's not really a horror movie. It's sometimes easy to forget, but we do live…

Movie Reviews » "Found Footage" crap

Project MKHEXE

This slightly-better-than-it-should-be Lovecraftian horror mockumentary is about a filmmaker investigating his brother's suicide after months of raving about a secret government mind control project, "MKHEXE". The runtime is almost two hours and somehow it manages to hold up, and the ordinarily annoying first-person-shooter horror trope is dialed down far enough that I didn't even really notice it until about 2/3 of the way through. That, the long run time, and an egregious number of video effects (why do so many supernatural phenomena resemble VHS glitching?) are all the hallmarks of movies I dislike, and yet, it kind of held my interest all the way through.

Interesting, it's one of those movies that goes on longer than it should, blowing past several points where most movies would have, maybe unfulfillingly, ended. In this case it's a good choice. It sees the story through.

Not that I'd recommend it. I wouldn't…

Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

I Am Going to Kill Someone This Friday

Fanms of Bad Lieutenant and Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer will probably like the psychotic executive protagonist of this film. This is a lower-key variety of psychopath than Christian Bale might once played, not cartoonish so much as perpetually-irritated guy plays the character with a smoldering intensity and nonstop animosity towards everyone and everything he meets.

Unfortunately, this is about all the movie has to offer. Ultimately there's not much plot, there's just waiting for an angry guy to pop off.

It was alright, mostly because of his performance.

Movie Reviews » Different, At Least

How Not to Work & Claim Benefits… (and Other Useful Information for Wasters)

Sort of a peculiar, charmingly British movie about two affably irresponsible lads who are mysteriously given $10,000 by a stranger, and after some affable goofing around find themselves being questioned by the police. Started off a bit slow for me as I wasn't in the mood for British charm qua British charm, but, strangely, as it goes on, it gradually mutates from a low-rent comedy about a couple of drifters to sort of a twisted psychodrama. I kinda liked it for where it got to, even though it took a while to get there.

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…