Movie Reviews

Med student wakes up in a hospital room with no memory of how she got there. Somewhat entertaining thriller, especially because it goes further in depth into the villain, and continues the plot past the obvious "easy" endpoint, than most movies of this type.

An orthodox Jew who's left the strict denomination is asked to sit vigil overnight in the Brooklyn home of a deceased congregant, in keeping with orthodox tradition. There's a demon in the house and/or he may be hallucinating badly. Quiet and moody enough to be engaging for the first half, especially some of the vague shots of maybe-there's-something-there-and-maybe-there-isn't in the dark, but it wears thin, feels like something I've ultimately seen before. Interesting to see a horror movie that's half in Yiddish, though. Also, decent lo-fi minimal synth score.

Totally improbable family takes refuge in a bathroom during a thunderstorm and improbably becomes trapped, as more and more improbable things happen. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that wanted more badly to be a great movie, or that required a greater suspension of disbelief. Dad acts like a psycho, because, movie. Son gets bit by a snake, because, movie. Daughter reaches her hand outside bathroom door (somehow blocked by a tree) and is assaulted, manages to grab her assailant's tongue and rip it out with her bare hands, family improbably decides to eat the improbably still-squirming tongue, then does so as if it's no big deal. I don't usually go for camp but this is so perfectly bad, with such hammy overacting, and overwrought, nonsensical reactions and character decisions, that it almost is entertaining to watch. A really spectacular car crash.

Well, I wondered what a horror movie with Jeff Goldblum and Alicia Silverstone might be like. This seems like a TV movie. A near-death experience psychically links Goldblum with teen serial killer played by a young Jeremy Sisto. Silverstone sulks and does not much else. Eventually a supernatural element is introduced involving what probably looked like hella cool CGI effects in 1995, but I'd long lost interest by then.

Charming pic based on a tale from the Decameron. Medeival nunnery with Aubrey Plaza, that little girl from Garfunkel & Oates, Alison Brie, John C. Reilly all dressed in medieval garb but acting like modern people. Better than hearing about that kind of cliched irony might lead you to believe. Could have gone either way, but, really pretty fun. I liked it.

Sort of like what you'd get if you hired David Lynch to do an afterschool special. Seemed like an ordinary teen drama, but got weird and mannered. There's a plot, but it doesn't matter. Also a bunch of musical numbers consisting of dirgelike choral versions of 80s pop crap, which I totally could have done without. "I'll Melt With You" is really totally fine as it is, thanks, you're not going to improve on it. Actually stayed just off-kilter enough for just long enough that it was mildly entertaining, despite seeming so try-hard.

Strange, seems like a BBC production. Someone described it as "The Goonies meets Silent Hill", which seems about right. Campy and melodramatic, kind of feels like the '70s Dr Who to me, in the ways that it strangely just somehow didn't grab me.

Actually, not a bad teen screamer, in some ways, although I do wish the trend of naming horror movies by coming up with a "horror" adjective that has nothing to do with the plot would stop. Visiting his dad in a resort town on a lake for the summer, a teen suspects his neighbor is possessed by a witch that makes people forget their small children, and then eats them. One of those movies that seems like it might have been made from a Young Adult novel, but, among the definitely best and most well-made of them. Some effective horror direction & cinematography and decent effects & creature design do the trick. Netflix reposted it and I got tricked into watching it again because it had been a while, and I didn't regret it, and wound up watching the whole thing.

Another Hulu "Into The Dark" installment. Murder porn. Four Twenty-something high school friends have a reunion in their old house for New Years, when old grudges resurface and things turn murderous. You know the drill. Actually not bad for what it is, among the better-made of the series.

What promises to be a total crap thriller about a young girl being pursued by a supernatural force after a "Bloody Mary"-type teenagers-foolishly-test-a-superstition-that-turns-out-to-be-true incident actually turns out to be a pretty decent, well-made supernatural thriller. Maybe it has something to do with being a British film. I'm starting to get the impression that Katee Sakhoff has some basic standards as to what she'll appear in... I don't believe I've ever seen her in something that wasn't at least alright.

contrived set piece in which a young, insecure couple agrees to stay in an empty white room for 50 days for $5,000,000. Guess whether they last or not. Hint: in act 1, they wake up and suddenly a gun is in there, which they kick under the bed. Actually, I kinda liked it for the frenetic performances. Reminded me a little bit of Jim Henson's psychedelic pre-Muppets "Room", except, instead of a psychedelia, it has Ashley Greene's boobs.

Imagine a supernatural thriller starring Julianne Moore as a psychiatrist, and a single mother with a young daughter, investigating a strange case. This is exactly the movie you're imagining.

Ensemble "comedy" (in only the loosest sense of the word) in which a family gathers for an intervention on the belief that a son is smoking crystal meth. Proves that even a remarkable assemblage of modern comedy royalty can't save an effort that doesn't bother to ever aspire to rise above "nutty" cliches and trite, predictable emotional touch points. Strictly formulaic and never funny. Seems to have been written by marketers, or maybe by an AI. Not a hint of inspiration anywhere in here.

Jumanji, but attempted horror. Dreadful.

This unbearably self-consciously "quirky" movie about a nondescript mattress salesman seems to lie somewhere on the line between "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Slackers". It desperately wants to be a "cult favorite". "Quirky" characters speak in non-sequiturs, give overwrought philosophical answers to questions like "how does your day look?", and name-drop obscure celebrities in conversations that go absolutely nowhere. And that's just the first 20 minutes, because after that I assumed the title was honest and gave the rest of the movie a miss. I bet it was filmed in Austin.

Three douchebags sneak into a closed state park to go hunting, where they are terrorized and hunted down by what turns out to be a couple of suburban kids who are in a closed state park terrorizing and hunting down people because, without them doing that, there wouldn't be any movie, now, would there.

Give these guys an 'A' for effort in this messy tale centering on two independently sick gorgeous women who meet through a support group for grieving parents. A strong director and good acting fail to save yet another "crime drama" that seems to present sickness, in and of itself, as entertainment, relying primarily on "plot twists" rather than "plot", including lead characters suddenly changing personality in what I assume is supposed to be a shocking "reveal" but instead just seems overly contrived. This one deserves credit for making the opposite mistake of most films like it: it spares the violence, and takes over 2 hours to tell a fairly thin wisp of a story, trying to draw it out as a drama rather than relying on shock as most movies of this sort do. And scene-by-scene, it's far better made than many films like it. It doesn't drag that much.…

DV-shot, slick production values, sitcom quality acting and writing, very faintly entertaining mess about hikers who encounter a UFO or something.

Good luck finding this movie, but it's well worth seeking out. Another one I can't understand why isn't considered a cult classic. Abducted girl and family vs serial killer who hasn't got things quite as under control as he thinks... I can say no more. Twisted, hilarious, gory, and uniquely bizarre. Stars Illyanna Douglas, Daniel Stern, and Kevin Pollak, which should give you a general idea of the caliber. Love it.

The Final Girl kills the maniac. Set on an Irish Farm. I didn't pay much attention to it.

Something about english girls and UFOs. Kind of slid past my brain. Possibly the lowest production values of any movie I've seen. I think these girls were like, "What do you want to do this weekend?" "Hey, let's make a movie!" "Great idea! I'll go to the art supply store and get some stuf!" Seriously. Doesn't appear to be lit or edited, just kind of shot as-is in the house where they were.