Kind of a personal favorite, despite how much of a stretch it is at points. Another one of those small, unique, strangely good films Canadians seem so good at. DJs stuck inside a radio station as society goes insane en masse outside. Some novel ideas, but does require a bit of suspension of belief at points — but in this case it's forgivable. I've heard a few other people say they particularly like this one, too.
A not-bad entry in the psycho-picking-off-teenagers-in-a-remote-location genre. but snow fields instead of woods this time, which is refreshing. Set in the norwegian outback, in an abandoned lodge. Goes on a bit long, but if you're gonna watch something in this genre, this is a decently creepy, non-annoying one.
after a team of gorgeous researchers discovered a cure for death, one of them is killed and resurrected, and gains random psychic powers, randomly turns evil, and kills her gorgeous teammates one by one for no reason.
dear Hollywood, at certain point we figured out that if the bad guy doesn't talk to anybody but the protagonist for the entire movie, they're going to turn out to be either the protagonist's other personality, or someone's already dead. Neither are very surprising twist anymore. This one is the split personality one.
pretentious, nonsensical, overstylized black and white crap. Hipster girl watches haunted house in Brooklyn, bring a guy home, inexplicably kills her then goes insane. Dull. (Much later note: Yes, I realize on re-read that this review doesn’t entirely make sense. Trust me, it doesn’t matter.)
Strangely underappreciated, moody film focusing on the human elements, rather than the violent ones, of the relationship between a child and the serial killer abductor raising him as his own in captivity in a remove farmhouse. Directed by the same woman as Jennifer's Body, another film I thought, while not great, was a cut above the usual fare.
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers remade yet again, this time as a teen scream movie. I don't mean that facetiously, it really is an explicit Invasion Of The Body Snatchers remake. Considering the entire range of things a teen scream remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers could turn out to be, this one is probably near the best end of the possible outcomes. It's entertaining enough, for a teen scream, and is peppered with some occasional really nice touches. There have definitely been some worse remakes of Body Snatchers, long as you're ok with teen scream movies. Rewatchability: maybe okay. I could see sitting through it again someday. I'd rather watch this again than the Nicole Kidman one.
Update: about two and a half years later I did watch this one again. It's a slow starter, definitely seems through the first act like it's going to be utter…
First person shooter. Zero budget, almost a home movie, except for the last 10 minutes, which they apparently spent the whole budget on. Kids running for their lives from people possessed by alien bugs for no particular reason.
Another thoughtful Canadian thriller that starts off looking like it's going to be torture porn but in fact turns out to be low-key and, after some initial grisliness, largely nonviolent, more talk than action, and that's in a good way. A lunatic abducts a judge and subjects him to a trial for a bad verdict, in front of a jury of the entire internet. Plays like one of the better (if not necessarily one of the best) episodes of Black Mirror, with its examination of the role of technology and the media in justice and morality. Plus, Donald Sutherland as the staid judge, and an intense performance from an unrecognizable Vincent Kartheiser to boot, just to elevate things that much more. Those Canadians, I don't know how they do it. (Looked online afterwards and this movie seems to have been pretty broadly panned. I'm not sure why.)
almost a Cronenberg film. Not bad for a fairly predictable, piece of shit sci-fi thriller. A "bioprogram" drug that causes you to experience years of virtual reality life goes haywire when the inventor agrees to spent 1 yr in a virtual solitary prison cell for the accidental death of a friend who used it.
Sub-USA-Up-All-Night fare about a farm family that develops boils and goes insane after a meteor lands on their farm. Starring a pre-"Wil" Will Wheaton and a post-"Dukes" John Schneider, unrecognizable in late 80s fashions instead of late 70s.
Well, I guess if they had called it "American Horror Story season 10: Ratchet" nobody would have watched it, because they would have known to expect this.
extremely decent, gritty prison noir. Tall, square-jawed, hypermasculine accountant kills a friend in a DUI, hypermasculine tough-as-nails prison gangmembers turn him into a hardened criminal and he climbs the ranks to run the gang, along the way turning a 4-year sentence into life without parole. That kind of thing could easily be very cliched but this is actually a very good, adult film, not cheap exploitation. Acting is good even if the actors are typecast, and it's well-made.
English film. Girl hired to be caretaker for invalid at dark, scary haunted house runs around dark, scary house being scared of ghosts. Not bad for that.
Madeline Brewer (OITNB, Handmaid's Tale, Cam) seems to only pick somehow above-average, if not great, projects. This movie about a hiker stumbling on a couple of rednecks living in the wilds off the Appalachian trail was much more decent than I expected. Rather than being a run-of-the-mill thriller, it actually had a story to tell. Not a great story, but a good one, and more of one than a lot of movies nowadays.
Surprisingly alright buddy road trip pick that isn't really the stupid slapstick comedy it looks like it's going to be. Episodic slice of life as pair of travelers are thrown together, and get in and out of various trouble on their way actoss the southwest. Jason Mantouzakis does his usual thing, but somehow manages not to be overbearing.
Wow, talk about a flawed gem.
Young park ranger gets lost in the woods, finds a body, has to sit tight until morning waiting for rescue. For the first 20 minutes of this movie, I assumed it was a 1980s "USA Up All Nite"-type d-grade picture. It wasn't until she pulled out an iPhone and took selfies that I realized it was new.
The acting is crap, directing is crap, everything about it is amateurish and crap. But then, she spends the night out in the woods, and I have to say, it's exactly the kind of movie I like, but could never recommend to anyone else.
Nowhere near as poetic as, say, Open Water, another bomb that I love, but I have to say, it's effectively creepy just for the setup, as she slowly creeps herself out wandering around the woods at night all by herself.…
Ok, I love this show. I think this is a comedy central thing, they're like 10 or 15 minute videos, but they present a version of hell as a cubicle farm where the vending machines never work, the break room is a small box full of whirring blades, and the boss literally tears you a new asshole ("Where's yours? Mine's in my armpit. I'd show you, but it's got the runs right now.") So ridiculous and weird that I could not possibly do it justice.
Jake Gyllenhaal as a guy who discovers an actor who looks just like him. They seduce each other's partners, then one of the women turns into a giant spider. Not sure how something this arch and pretentious could simultaneously be this boring and uneventful. It's like nothing happens in this movie. Memo to all directors aside from David Lynch and David Cronenberg: You can't be David Lynch or David Cronenberg. You just can't.
Kyle McLachlan actually turns in a kind of intense performance in the most contrived drama I've ever seen. In a town where everybody is apparently always as big a dick as possible to everybody they meet — apparently solely as a means to create dramatic tension — society cinematically falls completely apart when there's an ordinary blackout, as gun store owners raise prices 300%, people start looting, threatening, and shooting at each other. Strong performances make this enjoyable despite the ridiculous premise (and strange saturated color palette for what wants desperately to be a very bleak drama.)
This starts with a premise that could go either way: a group of teens go to find a teacher who disappeared into a cave, to discover time flows differently inside the cave than out. In this case, it goes the right way, and instead of becoming a predictable thriller, it keeps bringing in new ideas, ending up unexpectedly far afield from where it started, and in an enjoyable & engaging way. Worked for me. Would watch again, eventually.
Decent drama/thriller starring Bradley Cooper as a down-on-his-luck writer who gets access to a drug that allows him to use 100% of his brain capacity, and his subsequent business and political ascent. Between him and De Niro in a supporting role, pretty watchable.
Death as entertainment. Dee Wallace in what looks like an interesting, quirky setup — a family full of characters gathers in a rural house for Christmas when the monstrous son they didn't know the mother tried to abort 20 years ago, and she didn't know survived, shows up — devolves into a fairly by the numbers captivity/everybody-gets-killed-one-by-one-and-hardly-any-plot-besides-that splatterfest. A woman gets cut in half vertically down the center with a single axe swing, another gets an umbrella run clean through her head and then opened, if those give you any idea. Is Dee Wallace this hurting for work?
Surprisingly entertaining spoof retelling of Watergate scandal, based around the supposition that "Deep Throat" was two 15-year-old girls.
okay Aussie haunted house tale. Three researchers in an empty house tape recording things that go bump in the night. Pretty slow to get where it's going, doesn't aim high, but ultimately it's alright.
"Jurassic Park", except with zombies instead of dinosaurs, as things go wrong for a group of gorgeous tourists at a resort where you can go on safari to kill the sole remaining zombies after humanity recovers from an undead pandemic. Likable final girl and decent cinematography and action sequences make it marginally watchable, but still kind of a proof of the rule that the more guns a "horror" movie has the less worth watching it is. By the time there's explosions, you're already well expecting that at some point there are going to be explosions. And, ok, the very ending is good. I'll give them that.
Kind of like "Weeds", except instead of being the gorgeous family of an unlikely suburban pot dealer, it's the gorgeous family of an unlikely suburban zombie. Other than that, pretty much the same. Drew Barrymore gets less annoying as she matures, and it's about time that that guy who briefly guested as the only competent sales rep at Dunder Mifflin got a leading role.
Adequate direction saves this overwrought, poorly-thought out, nonsensical attempt at a thriller from being a complete crapfest. Instead it's just mostly a crapfest. Jim Carrey is actually alright at keeping a (mostly) straight face but the movie still seems to somehow have a touch of his usual mania in the way it tries to contort and surprise but instead just ends up confusing.
Inventive anthology. Lots of creepy unexplained shit, and Maria Olsen playing it straight for once. Fun, pretty original, I liked it.
this entry in the already crowded “gorgeous lone female cop works the last desk shift at a haunted police station before it closes for good" genre features a gorgeous lone female cop working the last desk shift at a haunted police station before it closes for good. Random "scary" stuff happens which eventually turns out to be related to the on-site suicides of a poorly-explained, poorly-acted Manson Family type cult. Essentially, "1408" in a police station.
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