Mockingbird Don’t Sing
Decent slightly-better-than-TV-movie-quality dramatization of a 1970 true story about the efforts to teach a girl who'd been imprisoned without human contact until the age of 14 to learn to speak and socialize.
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Mockingbird Don’t Sing
Chained
One of the most difficult honorable mentions I've ever given. This is an unflichingingly violent and in substantial ways misogynistic drama dressed up as a lurid horror film.
A young boy is taken in and imprisoned for many years in the rural home of a serial killer who abducts him and his mother. The violence of several killings and the boy's imprisonment and enslavement by the killer are prominently and unflinchingly shown, but the real story is the development of their relationship and conflicts.
Despite being directed by Jennifer Lynch, critics have called it misogynist and I think they're right. The women in this film are two-dimensional and serve mostly as props to move the story of the mens' relationship along before they meet a grisly end. (Note that Lynch also directed "Boxing Helena" which people had similar complaints of misogyny about.)
At the same time, while…
The Crazies (2010)
Decent enough action/horror B-movie in which a small-town sheriff is caught between a military takeover and a plague of homicidal locals after a plane carrying a bioweapon goes down and infects everybody with a virus that turns them into psychopaths.
Remake of a 1973 George Romero flick. I'd really like to see the original. I can't imagine his was this much of an action flick. But this one is decently watchable, if you're in the mood for this kind of thing. Stars Timothy Olyphant.
Recalculating
Four youtube documentarians set out to make an amatueur rip off of "The Blair Witch Project" and fail at even that. This movie contains all the most boring "first-person shooter" found footage horror cliches, and nothing else.
Five Easy Pieces
Surprisingly unengaging 1970 Jack Nicholson drama about a rough-hewn, misogynistic classical-pianist-turned-oilfield-worker returning home to his family. Not much of a plot. It seems to be considered a classic but I don't know why you hear about it so often. Maybe this is one of those movies that people who like French New Wave cinema or the like.
Uncle Peckerhead
If this isn't a cult favorite, it really should be. Pitch-black, occasionally very gory, but surprisingly fun indie flick about a down-on-their-luck punk rock band who hire a genial homeless guy to roadie for their tour so they can use his van after theirs is repossesed, but he turns out to be a flesh-eating demon.
There's absolutely no reason this movie should be as fun as it is, and yet, somehow, it is. Kind of a low-key standout for me, along the lines of other obscure indie faves like "Otis" and "The Signal" (2007) (which, BTW, the actor who plays the homeless guy/demon was in the art department for, so that's a fun connection.)
The Dark Half
Stephen King adaptation directed by George Romero. Typical dull Stephen King adaption, only less happens. George Romero really should have hung it up after "Dawn Of The Dead", too.
X (2022)
Slightly uneven but admirably well-done tribute to 1970s cinematic gore á la "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Someone knew where they were doing here and really wanted to make a quality genre picture, not just an exploitative, derivative rip-off "tribute".
In 1979 a porn production crew rents a remote farm to make make a porn that would also be a "real movie" (clearly a fourth-wall nod there; this production tries, and to a respectable extent succeeds, to rise above its genre.) Unfortunately, the old couple they rent from are at first odd and menacing and then it gets worse.
The story and motivations don't quite hold up—the reason the old couple act the murderous way they do is never even hinted at, a classic case of "because, movie"—but, like a lot of '70s horror, this goes further into character and decent moviemaking than modern audiences are probably used to. It explores…
In The Electric Mist
Matthew McUumellmahaye stars as a Florida fishing charter captain in a neo-noir crime thriller with a sci-fi twist that plays like a modern episode of The Twilight Zone. A little corny, definitely not great, but not bad, the acting kind of saves it.
A Clockwork Shining: Kubrick’s Odyssey 3
Let me save you the trouble: The Shining was Kubrick trying to send a coded message full of symbols to tell us that the MK Ultra project was being used to mind control American citizens by creating the Laurel Canyon 1960's rock scene after Jim Morrison was hired to play a rock star because his dad sprayed aerosolized LSD that had something to do with Charles Manson, and Hitler, and Sirhan Sirhan, and the Freemasons, which John Lennon secretly said in an interview that he didn't want to be in anymore shortly before being killed by a guy who liked the book Catcher In The Rye, which is a mind control device by a military intelligence officer, and, uh, I literally cannot make up bullshit that is as ludicrous as this conspiracy theory "documentary". Does contain the memorable line, "I do believe Bob Marley may have been what he appeared…
The Stuff
Super-campy, painfully 80s cult "horror" movie, apparently for kids, about a boy who discovers the popular desert everyone is becoming addicted to is alive and taking over. Honestly kind of amusing for what it is. I wouldn't go so far as to say I liked it, but considering my revulsion for campy, bad horror, it's pretty good. I mean, standing next to crap like "Evil Dead" and all that absolute garbage from that time that so many people like for some reason, it's practically a masterpiece.
Red Static Rising
An apparent home movie where two girls who clearly aren't actresses walk into an empty house and begin writhing and emoting. I lasted about 15 minutes.
Something Walks In The Woods
Here's something that's never happened before: a movie so disappointing it made me angry.
A man goes to spend the night in the woods after catching a hazy apparition on film the had been reported as walking along the edge of the trees near the road every night at sunset.
Basically, it's "The Blair Witch Project", except it's one guy instead of a group, and he sits at a campfire for a few hours instead of wandering for three days, and nothing happens.
Started off decent because the guy is actually kind of convincing. But, I mean, nothing happens. He makes camp, finds a bone, hears some noises, sits getting nervous, calls his wife to pick him up and leaves. And that's the plot. That's 90 minutes of movie.
3 Tunnels 2 Hell (aka “Serenity Farm”)
Cheapo flick about a man who acts like a bad actor who inherits a farm on an island in Washington populated by other people who act like bad actors (except one, see below), only to discover tunnels on the property with zombified creatures dwelling in them. An entirely amateur effort that manages to distinguish itself by being just a scintalla more clever than the usual bottom-of-the-barrel amateur horror movie fare, plus some oddly somewhat-adequate cinematography and orchestral score, both also just a scintilla better than these kind of awful movies usual are, plus one mid-movie soliloquy from a crusty old guy who, strikingly, can actually act, recounting the genesis of the monsters with all the gravity of Brando in Apocalypse Now.
It was funny, in the first seconds of the movie, the strings kick in on the score, and I was like, "That's kind of good background music for a…
Life Itself
Decent documentary on Roger Ebert and "At The Movies", by a friend of his. I've always liked Ebert as a critic, this sheds some light on him as a person. Has interviews with his family members, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, plus you get to see an outtake where Gene Siskel calls him an asshole, which, you always knew must've happened behind the scenes, but never thought you'd see it.
Skit
Godawful home-movie-quality "mockumentary" about a bunch of cringily inane college students in 2007 who decide to make a YouTube video, as if that's some sort of event, with not a single laugh to be had anywhere in it.
This appears to be the work of some sort of improv comedy troupe whose primary distinguishing attribute is that one of them owned a movie camera, and thought that entertaining themselves would be entertaining to an audience.
Weirdly, some of the voice work in this apparent home movie is from cast members of Parks & Rec and Reno 911, and it's executive produced by one of the producers behind Portlandia. Why would successful TV comedy people do this to themselves? Was there blackmail involved?
Belushi’s Toilet
This odd little sci-fi/not-very-funny black comedy has a certain appeal until it eventually collapses under its own weight. In the near future when all drugs have been made legal, a douchey biochemist tests his latest concotions on his douchey friends. The movie is mostly scenes of people getting fucked up or being hung over in imaginative and increasingly gross ways, yet manages somehow to be slightly entertaining and not anywhere near as bad as that sounds... not surprising, because it's Canadian, and seems to have that typical Canadian entertainment "slightly better than it should have been" thing.
Unfortunately, though, by the end, it sort of gives up the ghost, disappearing into an inscrutable and unsatisfying montage of psychedelic visuals instead of tying up the story. It's too bad.
The Mist
I have an odd affection for this atrocious Stephen King adaptation about a strange mist that brings a plague of monsters to a Maine town.
Sadly, King adaptations seem to be more often Hollywoodized bubblegum pap like "1408" than "The Shining". This is the former. Aside from the unfortunately usual cringeworthy standards so many King adaptations seem to have, this one scrapes the bottom of the barrel even worse: unbelievable and clichéd story points obviously contrived to add "drama" but only succeeding in adding cringe, two-dimensional characters, and of course the de riguer overally tv-movie-quality productions which King's stories too often attract.
Roger Ebert called it a "competently made Horrible Things Pouncing on People movie", but I think he was being generous. There are moments of true incompetence here, which is surprising, as it was directed by Frank Darabont, who also adapted "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green…
An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn
Just putting here because I forgot to review it and it's a touchstone for a certain variety of film that I find so worthless I can't imagine why they were made. See my review of "Visioneers" for a description.
Parasomnia
Wow. The ultimate "A+ for effort" horror/fantasy flick. Fails, but what an effort!
In terms of plot, if it matters, a temporary resident of a mental institution falls for the comatose girl up the hall, who it turns out... nah, I'm not going to spoil it. It's not exactly "different", but it steals so brazenly from films that are, that it is.
This "teen scream"-quality film shamelessly steals from Silence Of The Lambs, Saw, Mirrormask (actually stealing from that one shows impressive discernment) and I'm sure a million others on its way to a far more phantasmagoric second half than anyone could possibly see coming. It goes so far, and commits so hard to what it's trying to do, that it's actually impressive. And it's not even "so bad it's good"... it's not bad bad bad, it's just... aggressively mediocre, in so many ways, yet tries so hard…
Wentworth (series)
Australian for "OITNB".
Womens' prison drama plays it fairly straight and gritty, doesn't have OITNB's perverse humor. Decent, though, with good acting. Maybe it's Australian for "Oz".
Bad Boy Bubby
I've never been more torn as to whether I liked or hated a film.
This plays like the evil twin of "Being There"—a cheaply-made film in which a deranged man-child, kept imprisoned in squalor and sexually abused by his mother for his entire life, escapes into urban Adelaide, and in a highly episodic series of events is taken, "Chance the gardener"-like, into various people's company, eventually fronting a rock band, and getting laid way more often than a babbling, homeless-looking person who can only repeat things he's heard said to him really ought to be, before ultimately stumbling into true love, all without being able to string together a single coherent sentence.
First off, this film has a lot of taboos—incest and animal cruelty, for starters, as he has sex with his mother and senselessly asphyxiates first his cat and then his parents with plastic wrap.
Then, the…
The Pond (2021)
A slow-to-get-going, very quiet but beautifully shot rural folk horror that I'm sure most people will hate but I found very satisfying, once it got going, to the extent that it ever does. A researcher out at a rural pond for not-clearly-specified reasons encounters mounting hallucinations and increasingly hostile locals, with a heavy dose of pagan mythology. Picture a much quieter, almost arthouse "The Wicker Man" or "Midsommar" vibe, but fortunately restrained enough not to be distractingly pretentious.
This was very badly panned by a lot of people on IMDB, but a few seemed to appreciate it as I did, and film buffs might find it to stand out from the pack. Despite being bored for the first part, I did, and by the end I found it very good.
The cinematography stood out, and even a lot of reviewers who hated the film acknowledged that—very reminiscent of Lars…
News Readers
Goofy, mildly amusing Cartoon Network Adult Swim news parody segment repackaged as a series on Tubi. Fairly funny, although more in a "chuckle" kind of way than a "laugh out loud" kind of way, with cameos from virtually everyone you've seen play a supporting role in a comedy show in the last 15 years. Plus a recurring segment with Ray Wise as a clueless, grouchy old-school commentator, so, as Wise's presence usually indicates, there's a certain baseline that it does maintain. I enjoyed it well enough.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Funny enough, if you like Sacha Baron-Cohen's type of humor. It's not nonstop hilarity but definitely has some laugh-out-loud moments. A big plus is that they added the character of his daughter, played by an eastern European actress who is every bit as funny as he is, which helps a lot. I don't know where they found this woman.
The 5th Shadow
An artist and his wife scream at each other through an endless montage of artsy-fartsy special effects, choppy editing, and frequent changes of film stock. IMDB says it's a story of a man traveling through alternate dimensions after his wife leaves him, but fucked if I could figure that out watching it.
All Alone Together
Some sort of BS attempt at weak horror about a filmmaker. As amateurish as it gets. High-school-play-level acting, too talky, leaden pacing.
Decently lit, though, which is funny.
Altered Perception (2017)
Several couples take an experimental drug and argue about their relationships, and argue about their relationships, and argue about their relationships, and argue about their relationships, and argue about their relationships, and argue about their relationships...
Update: I came back a few days later and I had forgotten to close my browser, this was still queued to where I'd turned the TV off. So I watched the last half-hour. Spoiler alert: They spend the rest of the movie arguing about their relationships.
Abruptio
Now, this is a uniquely weird movie. A bizarre and gory tale of unseen forces manipulating humans to commit acts of extreme violence is told entirely with human-sized puppets, which are detailed enough to go straight down the uncanny valley: they blink, they appear to have nearly-real-looking human skin with stray hairs and razor stubble, although the facial expressions are largely unchanging. It helps that it's filmed in real locations.
At first it seems like someone knew they had a fair-to-middling-at-best horror sci-fi on their hands so they decided to make the best of it and elevate it into something truly strange, making suspension of disbelief much easier with the puppet-only production. But, boy, the trick kinda worked.
One critic said, "too damn strange to completely ignore", and I agree with that.
To give an idea of what's going on here, turns out some of the characters are…
Possessor
An assassin uses mind-transfer technology to carry out assassinations with other people's bodies. Decent enough outing from Brandon Cronenberg, who's still got his dad's high-concept pretensions (in a good way) but seems to be getting better at his own execution. A bit slow moving, but fans of his contrived-seeming but reasonably interesting other feature "Antiviral" will be familiar with the pacing. Might not be for everybody, but I found it watchable enough.