Archives: Movie Reviews

In the genre of "family moves into a home without knowing there's someone living inside the walls" thrillers, this one is easily forgettable. The problem isn't that it's bad, but that it's thoroughly mediocre.

Taken in yet again by Netflix's tendency to confuse "indie" for "comedy", and movies starring the likes of Amy Adams and Embeth Davidtz for "indie". In this case, acceptable enough entertainment that even the ordinarily-intolerable use of phony southern accents doesn't make it too unwatchable. City-slicker art dealer accompanies husband to visit his family in North Carolina while on a trip to secure the right to represent a possibly insane folk artist primarily characterized by obsessions with the Civil War and penises, and a totally implausible and possibly completely made-up accent.

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.

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.)

Uh-oh. Another of those kinds of movie that I like but I bet most people didn't: the entire film is a group of people having a conversation. It takes place almost entirely in one room. A college professor, reluctantly attending his own going-away party before moving on to his next job, confesses to a group of colleagues that he is immortal and has lived for 14,000. Cue 90 minutes of cerebral and, to me, well-done and interesting conversation among academic types of varying degrees of skepticism (and one unfortunate cliched religious zealot, my sole gripe with the film, only because, as here, they're all too often a cheap way of perfunctorily adding conflict), exploring all the different angles of this. For a completely unrealistic premise, I think the conversation, and the main character's takes on things, are very realistic and well thought-out along the lines of what an actual, realistic…

This one was good enough that I didn't realize it was part of Hulu's "Into The Dark" series, although the weak ending betrays it. It was directed by the same guy that did "I'm Just Fucking With You", the only one of the series that I really liked. Grieving father and his daughters go out to the desert in their Airstream to spread his wife's ashes. What starts off seeming like a "locals torment visitors out in the sticks" story turns out to be something much different, and nowhere near as cliche. If they had come up with a satisfactory ending, the whole thing would have really worked.

Turgid pacing in the first half nearly kills this sci-fi outing. An acceptable second half, with truly beautiful visuals, is still not quite strong enough to be worth waiting for. An alcoholic who resembles my long-lost friend Greg Van Ness is selected by a scientist to save the world from an incoming gamma ray burst by first having mind control devices implanted into him, and goading him (much too slowly) into an accident that gives him god-like powers. I googled afterwards, turns out this is the first directorial outing from a guy who did visual effects on a bunch of big, cosmic superhero movies. Makes sense. The VFX are great. He should do music videos.

I watched this for the first time in years recently. It's funny how well this movie aged. Steven Spielberg often strikes me as the film equivalent of music producer Trevor Horn: things he makes are often marked by a certain glossy artificiality and obvious studiocraft, dusted down with stardust and childlike wonder, engrossing but as inauthentic and unconvincing, in their way, as Mr. Rogers's studio set. There's always a sense of effort, usually at "spectacle" (in scare quotes, just like that) and in Spielberg's case, usually some cloying emotional content, which there are traces of here although it's manageable.
So it's always been funny to me to call this a "horror" movie, which almost requires grit rather than gloss and authenticity to generate scares. But, Tobe Hooper directed, and if nothing else just about anything Tobe Hooper touches is going to have a few brilliantly scary scenes. I will…

Man with a boat goes crazy in a fairly boring way.

Milla Jovovich, who must be Hollywood's least charismatic leading lady, fronts a correspondingly leaden take on ufo abductions or some such nonsense, made worse by half the movie being pretend "documentary" footage, followed or often even split-screened with "dramatic recreations" of the same scene for no adequately explained reason.

Taylor Schilling's kid speaks Hungarian in his sleep. He's possessed by the soul of a psychopathic murderer out to claim the final victim who got away. That is all. Taylor Schilling makes it ok, actually.

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.

Some nonsense about a high school actress who looks like Julia Teal, this girl I once met, and who is haunted by a meme, or something. She reads a haunted monologue and then scary shit happens, I guess.

Anthology horror. Not that well written, mostly just stories leading up to an often predictable "gotcha" or "surprise" twist and not plot-driven enough to bother follow the narrative any further than that to explore what happens, but surprisingly alright, mostly due to a reliance on character instead of gore and a pretty good cast turning in strong performances. Dylan Baker is the bright spot of the first and worst of the four stories; Samm Levine turns in the most solid acting I think I've ever seen from him; and Tony Todd ("Candyman", I've seen him a million times but never caught his name) turns in a touching performance as the husband of a terminally ill woman. Each story is slightly better than the last; overall I actually liked it.

David Caruso is the manly, tough-as-nails head of a manly, tough-as-nails asbestos abatement crew, hired to clean up the asbestos from an abandoned asylum, when intense things start happening. One guy starts listening to intense tapes of old therapy sessions that he's found, people look at each other intensely, make intense accusations, possibly supernatural or psychopathic things do or do not happen, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out what the hell was going on.

Talk about a pleasant surprise. After all this time M Night Shaymalan actually kinda pulls one off again... he seemed like a guy who thought of a good twist ending or two when he was young, then spent the entire rest of his career trying to reproduce that success, mostly without coming close. This one comes close. Not great, but certainly not bad given his many failures, better than your average crap horror movie for sure. I enjoyed it. Vacationers in tropical paradise suddenly start aging at an incredible rate. A couple of neat twists and turns worthy of any horror movie, and among his better endings. Also, unlike, say "The Sixth Sense", doesn't telegraph its punches, which is a nice change for him.

Ok, I'm about 15 minutes into this, and it looked like it was going to be a sci-fi thriller or teen scream about some teens d-bags on vacation out in the woods, but we learn in the first 5 minutes that Wesley Snipes is a stereotypical insane-seeming, camo-wearing tough-as-nails vet living in a remote cabin, we see him unloading his gun, and 15 minutes into it it's showing a meeting of tough-as-nails military officials, one of whom has a russian accent. Why do I have a feeling Chekov's rule is going to apply? "If you put Wesley Snipes as a troubled, tough-as-nails gun-toting military vet in act one, you must have him go off as a troubled, tough-as-nails gun-toting military vet in act three." Will check back in when it's done. [Much later note: apparently I never checked back in.]

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

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.

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.

Apparently this is a Coen Brothers film. And visually, it looks as good as any. Doesn't appear to have a plot, other than "The Coen Brothers love 1940s Hollywood" and "There are star cameos in this movie". Maybe other film industry folks liked this.

Very decent realist postapocalyptic drama. A couple tries to cope quarantined in their home after dirty bombs are set off in LA. Unfortunately the last 10 minutes or so try for a weak "twist" that proves anticlimactic, but a pretty enjoyable film up until that.

Donal Logue covers "Psych" without the "fake psychic" gag.

Apparently this series got roasted by critics, and for the first few episodes it's easy to understand why. Josh Gad and Billy Crystal as themselves in this behind-the-scenes look at the production of a comedy show — well-trodden ground, for sure, and firmly in the very long shadow of the "Larry Sanders" show. But as the season goes on, Gad and Crystal's relationship is given some extra depth beyond the "mismatched partners" trope, and their obvious chemistry carries things well enough that I enjoyed it, and was sorry there wasn't a second season. Strong credit for watchability also goes to the comic performance of Stephnie Weir as their neurotic, confused producer.

Once again Rob Zombie shows that if he could write as well as he can direct, he'd be the horror equivalent of Quentin Tarantino. This movie is visually gorgeous in many places. Just bring a walkman. Basically an excuse to string together a bunch of episodic vignettes of grotesque violence.

Anarchy: "Escape From New York" with less charisma.

Spike Lee does a horror movie, after a fashion, as well as his best impression of a European art filmmaker, in this remake of 1973's "Ganja and Hess". After a scuffle, a well-to-do doctor returns from the dead with a thirst for blood, plot gets tough to follow after that. Ok, I guess, considering I've never liked a Spike Lee movie. Definitely looks good visually without seeming too try-hard on that front. If this had been someone's first-time outing I'd have been impressed; from a very experienced director I say "meh". Great soundtrack, though.