Movie Reviews

sometimes it's a fine line between great and terrible, and this remake (of a 1964 film I haven't scene) does the rare job of staying on the right side of it by remaining consistently over-the-top enough to be enjoyably terrible instead of just terribly terrible. The cliched opening, douchebags on their way to Daytona for spring break get lost and wind up in a small backwoods town full of bizarre murderous locals, made it seem like it was bound to be terrible, and I can't say it wasn't, but I nonetheless enjoyed it for what it was. Somebody really loved and understood vintage terrible horror movies and did an admirable job recreating their terribleness, and managed to keep it cliched without making it tediously derivative. Robert Englund chews the scenery, which is about what you want him there to do, I guess.

Continuing the tradition of pretty good thrillers set in elevators, two young professionals are the last to leave the building before a long weekend when the elevator breaks down. Alright, entertaning enough... starts slow but builds pretty effectively. Plays out well as a drama, and some unexpected poetic moments in the third act. ... Ok, wow, turns out this, too, is part of "Into The Dark". Definitely the best one of the series, by far. Much better activing, production values, pacing, everything. Like a real movie. (Edit: in a recurring theme for things I think are slightly better installments of ongoing franchises, turns out this was widely panned. I have no idea why.)

So, I'm watching this movie, which stars Robert Pattinson's teeny, tiny nose as the nose of a billionaire riding around New York taking meetings and having sex in his limo all day, and I'm a little put off by how strange, stiff, and mannered the performances are, and how overall pretentious it seems. And as it wears on, I have to admit, there's something well done about it. By the end, which features a soliloquy by a madman of a lengthy that would have been incredibly tedious if anyone but Paul Giamatti had attempted it, but instead works incredibly well and is one of his shining moments as an actor as well as an all-around cinematically impressive scene, I had to admit I liked it in spite of myself. And then the credits roll, and: directed by David Cronenberg. A-ha! That's my boy, sneaking one past me by creating what…

Any horror movie starring Katie Holmes is only going to be so good. This one has very decent creature effects, though. Guy Pearce (who appears to be completely featureless other than his tiny little nose, sorta like a male Milla Jovovich) and his tiny little nose are utterly wasted in this. Also notable for (spoiler) basically being a horror movie about the Tooth Fairy. If you're the kind of person who's amused by catching goof details like the scullery maid in the beginning trying to see what's in the dark basement by holding the candle right in front of her eyes, this movie is full of that stuff.

Ok... college kids in bikinis, weekend waterskiing vacation at the lake, mean redneck locals, sharks. That's all you need to know, except that it distinguishes itself by incorporating the nuttiest revenge plan ever, and also, by netting Donal Logue to play the sheriff. He must've liked the script. The digital sharks are pretty well-done, too, that sort of thing is getting better.

Well-made but very cliched "The Lady Vanishes" plot-twisty thriller. Gorgeous man takes gorgeous wife and injured daughter to hospital during a road trip, returns to pick them up later and is told he was there alone earlier. Predictable all the way through, and with hefty doses of before-you-even-get-to-the-fridge logic. But, mildly entertaining, on the better end of mediocre.

OMG. Ok. I kinda like these teen-oriented "horror" movies that seem like they were made from preteen novels, if they have a couple of fun ideas and creepy enough moments, and am willing to forgive a lot. Case in point would be "Plus 1", which this movie shares a lot in common with, beginning with the setup, which is "teenage protagonists at a party where reality suddenly changes on them in some unexplainable way and they have to find a way to cope". This film really pushes the limits of that forgiveness, though. Unlike "Plus 1", which at least tossed in a passing meteor as an attempt at some kind of macguffin to give some reason for the otherworldly things that occur, this film doesn't bother... kids go to a party, go into a closet to play "Seven Minutes In Heaven" and emerge in a world where everything is the…

Despite a little predictability, this Irish tale of a young mother who moves out to the woods and begins to suspect that her son has been replaced by an impostor is a decent enough view. The acting is decent, the score is creepy, it's well-made enough, if not exactly exciting. I don't regret the time spent watching it.

An interesting setup, as two gorgeous high school girls obsessed with social media fame trap a serial killer in hopes of learning to commit murders so they can cover them online. Contains good laughs, especially how they become frustrated as repeated initial murders keep getting believed to be accidents, and an amusing gym battle scene with Craig Robinson, but soon sputters and stumbles, descending entirely into predictable, hackneyed writing, deus ex machina plot devices, and wrapping up tidily with some serious fridge logic. Still, it's mostly entertaining, but it fails hard enough at living up to the promise of its first half that I can't really recommend it.

teen scream ghost story. Misunderstood orphan girl goes to live with aunt and uncle, finds dead girl's ring in the woods. You know the drill. Erick Avari.

A promising tagline: "female intruder accidentally dies in an introvert's house, so he keeps the body around as a friend. Then she starts to decay..." Starts off ok but ends pretty boring, just not much "there" there. However, has that nebbishy little lady from "A Dirty Shame", who I always like.

Surprisingly engaging zero-budget haunted house flick in which a middle-aged couple, recovering from the loss of their college-age son, moves into a house with a sordid past and believes they are being contacted by him. Stars middle-aged adults, not kids, for a change, which seems hokey at first but works out to its benefit. The performances are up and down but ultimately work well. Apparently they saved their entire budget for the tiny handful of really well-done special effects, and it was a great choice. Starts off seeming kind of iffy, could easily have gone into "Paranormal Activity"-caliber crap, but by the time it kicks into high gear ends up really effective, with some genuine creepiness along the way.

two families share a cabin in a post-apocalyptic-plague woodland. More a bleak drama than a horror movie. Well-made enough, I'm sure some people will like it, but wasn't my cup of tea. Doesn't really go much of anywhere.

Joe Dante, more comedy than horror... a guy's overly clingy girlfriend, an initially painfully gorgeous Ashley Greene, returns from the dead to mess up his new relationship, while his slovenly friend improbably fucks every gorgeous woman in Los Angeles, two at a time.

"Jacobs ladder", except bad.

Simply put, the worst movie ever made, and not in that spectacular way that might be worth seeing just for the awfulness. Psycho girl played by an actress who appears never to have acted before or during filming is terrorized by a ramekin (a kind of pastry cup). Seemed like somebody's high school project. Maybe middle school.

Of course the lone hick has tunnels and a torture dungeon under his backcountry cabin. Set in the desert this time. With the likeable girl from "An American Haunting", I think, who looks like a young version of my aunt Muriel.
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Ted Demme as Martin Scorsese directs Johnny Depp as Ray Liotta, in "Blow" as "Goodfellas", with cocaine distribution as the Lufthansa heist.

Brutal, brutal, brutal survival tale of a couple of vapid photographers and models who get stranded when they crash their car in a remote desert.

Picture, in your mind, a movie about Ashley Greene and her husband moving into a haunted house, which at one point contains the lines "It wants US. It feeds on life. We opened a window into our world, and now it wants to come through." This is exactly the movie you're thinking of... except, this movie's ending makes less sense than the movie you're imagining.

another "thriller" about a psycho stalking/imprisoning, and re-stalking a woman through the woods. This one started off seemng like it was going to be good, with well-done scenes of a woman being stalked on the road by an increasingly threatening other motorist, before he captures he and it becomes much more run-of-the-mill fare. Still probably among the better of these types of movies, with some actually inventive twists and a genuinely creepy and realistic psycho, but, did the world really need another movie about nothing more than a lone woman being captured and/or pursued and victimized by a lone man and then overcoming it? Is that really a story that needed telling yet again?

Kids camping on an island snort coke with a virus that temporarily turns them into zombies. Meanwhile, in an underground facility, the drug is tested by a mysterious sciencey guy. Ha, you know, this is a bad, derivative horror movie, and an utterly acceptable watch, in that USA Up All Night bad movie kinda way. Just over the top and original enough, and not so derivative as to be painful. One of the worst movies I've ever not minded.

Couple falls asleep in a car and gets buried when a blizzard snows them in. Another example of the kind of stuck-in-a-hopelessly-remote-location survival film I like so well, although, probably my least favorite of those. Still one of them, though.

'Glee' with zombies. For real. Very nearly embarrassing enough to actually be entertaining.

mad scientist repeatedly clones and re-kills his dead ex-wife (stuffy, highbrow English version.)

Hardly worth dignifying with a review, except I don't want to someday accidentally think I didn't watch it and start it again. Family invites "Pilgrim Reenactors" to throw their thanksgiving dinner, who wind up inviting "friends" and eventually turn out to be murderous, because, movie. This would be a torture porn gore flick if it was gross instead of silly, or a horror comedy if it was funny. Man, these Hulu "Into The Dark" things could not be more scattershot in terms of quality.