Every Film I Watched in 2025

First movie of the year. It's very okay. Some very fun elements, but it's also one of those creature movies where you expect there to be tons of creatures running around the whole time, but there's only a couple creatures in the last 20 minutes and very little happens. The Re-Animator (1985) effect.

I genuinely pogged at seeing the fat baby aliens running around in the opening. Not even disappointed that they don't show up again. It's definitely a missed opportunity to not have them return during the climax like Critters (1986), but hey, nice little bonus creatures.

Also really liked the 50s period opening post aliens. Also a big missed opportunity to not have more elements from that come back in present day.

Gotta be in the top 5 Tom Atkins intro shots.

He is very funny in this, and despite only being a side character, his performance kind of carries the movie.

Very rare case where every alternate poster I've seen for this looks great. Apart from the modern blu-ray re-release ones. Those always suck.

Maybe watch this if you're into low budget 80s camp horror, but you're fine to skip.

What a nice movie. People frequently tell me it's very out of character that I hadn't seen this, so finally rectifying that in the new year. Not particularly a "me" movie, so a little confused why folk say that, but it's a good time.

I will say the start is very sleepy, to the point where I was starting to worry that it might suck, but as soon as they climb that wall it's nothing but gold.

Having been around for the image macro golden age, I of course knew this film from those two meme lines. With the "you killed my father, prepare to die" one, I thought he would keep saying it as he kept getting interrupted or something, but he kinda just keeps saying it for no reason? Just in it for the love of the game.

Even though it's literally the setup of the movie, this would be a great to watch when sick. The opposite of Gremlins 2.

Wow. I knew that as an FMV game re-cut into a DTV movie, this would be a special kind of B-movie, but I did not expect this to be as inconceivable and hard to follow as it was.

Much like Inland Empire (2006), you get the gist of overall what's going on, but scene to scene is unintelligible.

Especially what they choose to include as scenes, as every so often the film will just go on minute long tangents as he goes to a room, fucks around with a plant pot, then goes back to the previous room he was in with nothing having been affected. It is maddening to watch.

I'm not entirely unfamiliar with the game, having seen it played on YT a couple years back, but these have to be intractable elements from the game, but why the fuck they're in the film cut is beyond me. Maybe there was no other way they were hitting 90, but this does clock in at 95, so maybe cut some of the random faffing.

With the breakneck pace, shouty annoying dialogue, and baffiling scene choice, time does not move like it should. Every so often I'd check how far we were through, and every single time only four minutes had passed.

The film cut also adds some extra expository scenes, including some with Gary Coleman. There is an especially maddening scene early on with Coleman, where to spice up an exposition dump, they have a continually escalating fight with a guy in a bear costume in the background. It is so distracting that neither of us got a single line of dialogue. At one point we even pan away from Coleman and just solely focus on the bear fight with the dialogue in the background, volume completely unchanged.

The protagonist himself is essentially Xander from Buffy fused with The Mask, which might be the worst character you could ever hope to write.

Speaking of Buffy, this also features a direct Buffy link! Ms Calendar's here! Hey, I wonder what she got up to after Buffy? What's that? Born again Christian? Pro-life abortion clinic movie? Babylon Bee? Oh no…..

We also have Rob Lowe doing some very sensitive racial accents, which we initially thought were extra scenes shot for the film cut, but no, he's there in the credits for the original game.

As if this couldn't get more maddening, we have the fight scenes. It's like they got all the footage they had from each fight in the game, and then just played each shot in order. It's nauseatingly disorienting.

For genre fans, maybe check this out.

Look, LOOK, I get that is insanely influential, but that aside, I really don't get the reverence people have for this. I'm mildly familiar with the book, but this throws basically the entire concept and messaging of the book out the window, turning it into "protagonist man is a little creepy only at first and makes a zombie".

It also adds some very unsavoury "genetic pre-disposition to crime" stuff, which I thought "okay maybe that could be in the book, it's old", and then I find out the book literally predates eugenics. Book Dracula also has some of that in, so what I'm saying is Frankenstein > Dracula.

As classic monster movies go, though, it's not boring as shit to watch (unlike Dracula 1931). It's actually really funny? No one told me this movie was so funny. I see now why there's that Mel Brooks movie. I have a very specific memory of refusing to watch Young Frankenstein (1974) with my parents as a small child as I thought it'd be scary. Still might be too scary for me.

Big fan of Frankenstein sounding like an angry cat.

Some nice shots here and there, but honestly you can skip this. You don't have to pretend this holds up.

"And like that, in a blink, my virginity disappeared. Just like my mother."

Mostly a flop, but there are some elements here and there I like.

I think the brainrot has started to get to me, as I can't hear this title without hearing those Australian office workers going "Gen Z boss and a mini".

For a Gregg Araki movie, it really does not feel like one. There's a lot more presentational flair here than you'd expect from a dumpy book adaptation. However, while there's definitely Araki-isms in the dialogue here and there, they really do not work when pretty much every character is very unlikable. They really need to be said by exactly James Duval.

The protagonist is especially insufferable. She gets a little better after the timeskip, but only a little.

The main issue it has is it's very unfocused and doesn't really go anywhere, but then right at the last second it gets resolved off screen in a really out of character way. You mean to tell me this is the kind of person who would get drunk at a bar and blab about what they did? That'd be like if I went to a bar and blabbed about all the heinous crimes I've committed don't look into it.

The main thing that's really good here is the soundtrack, being exclusively 80s British goth and goth adjacent. Is this set in Britain? No! Is there a reason for this to be in the 80s? No! Does this matter? No! Give me Cocteau Twins! Gimme gimme!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2238050/soundtrack/

This got added to the 400-long hangout movie random wheel solely because Sheryl Lee was in it, and while she's only in two scenes, the reveal of second wife Sheryl Lee got a huge cheer. If Laura Dern is typecast as first wife, Sheryl Lee would've been an amazing typecast second wife, but alas.

It's okay. Solid B-tier "things going wrong in space" movie.

Some really nice set design, but unfortunately it's one of those where stuff only really happens in like the back third/quarter, so it feels like the whole thing is set up, and then it's over. The way the ship plays on their personal fears/traumas also feels really forced, like there's no real reason for it to be doing that.

Now, allegedly this was ruined by studio interference and has an extended Hellraiser-esque cut that was way better, but I'm very sceptical of this. I just don't think Paul W. S. Anderson has anything actually interesting in him. Like the world building is really undercooked, and no amount of extra visuals could redeem that.

The entire extent of it just:

"woah this ship went somewhere really messed up.."

"yes, that's right.. it was in Heck…"

I did like that bit where the Bomfunk FC kid tricked someone into falling down a pit. Also the bit where someone makes an Elmer Fudd face when they realize they've been tricked into blowing themself up. Almost every death is really funny, actually.

Unless you have a soft spot for the genre, you can skip this.

Being a Christian Mpreg movie, there is not a single moment in this where it doesn't feel like a fake film. But here it is! Oh boy, here it is.

You'd think being an Mpreg movie would automatically disqualify it from being a Christian movie - Christians traditionally being very traditional about the natural order of things - but it surprisingly (bafflingly) still manages to stay Christian.

You wouldn't think this, with it mostly hiding it's Christian-ness, and then includes a scene in church basically making fun of Christians. But then it reveals it's hand as very specifically the "Jesus loves everyone, controlling through fear and hate is wrong" brand of Christianity as everyone embraces the mamaboy.

The goodwill doesn't entirely last, as we have a scene where the it's revealed that the son being a mamaboy is potentially life threatening (with an extremely funny repeated shot of a deceased monkey), and then Dad goes "don't worry son, it's all in God's hand. Just leave it all to him" instead of seeking medical attention.

Speaking of parents, somehow we never have a conversation between the Mom and the son? You'd think that'd be an autoinclude, but she's basically absent the entire time, right up until the end where she gets one single line. There's a lot of conversations with Dad, though, so the whole time we thought this was a single father situation, but that would mean eschewing the nuclear family dynamic, and that'd be ridiculous to have in our Christian Mpreg movie.

Speaking of characters that are barely in this, the fucking girlfriend for some reason? Like, the one who was carrying the child initially before we mad scientist transferred it into the boyfriend? How is she barely in this? We theorised that maybe because she was a Disney Channel name she might have been too expensive to use more than fleetingly, but also not a big Disney Channel name, so who knows. Weird lack of women in this pregnancy movie.

Somehow we commit the unforgivable sin of skipping over the birth entirely. As in, the climax of the story. He passes out, then next scene starts and it's post birth and he does the "Wakanda forever pose" to a cheering crowd as we cut to credits. Huh??? How did he give birth? We genuinely never at any point bring up how he's meant to deliver this fucking kid inside him. How? What?

Now it is two hours long, but honestly doesn't feel overly long, as there's enough laughs to keep a group watch engaged.

It feels correct on a cosmic level that Gary Busey is in this.

Also Stephen Tobolowsky is in this, who's a name you probably don't recognise, but you definitely recognise his face. He is in everything. He's in your house! He's right behind you as you read this.

Big fan of him having a poster in his bedroom of "music". Just like, the concept of music. You know.

Recommended for genre fans looking for something a little more modern than VHS boom era. It's a little hard to source, and I wouldn't normally say this, but it is free on Amazon Prime Video in at least the UK, if you happen to have access to that.

Wasn't sure what to expect from this, given it's very out of character for Ridley Scott. It's alright. Without the frequent reference to SA would probably make a good hangout film.

Does come off a bit "laugh at the yokels", especially with Geena Davis and Brad Pitt.

Unfortunately the tone falls clean between the gap of "laugh at the yokels" and "yassss girlies on the run". There's a little bit of the latter here and there, but there's no way Ridley Scott has that tone in him.

Speaking of, it's one of those movies where there's two women in it, so every user review is about how it's the gayest most sapphic thing ever, but it's really not. Was not even remotely expecting it to be either, like there's no way the guy who made Gladiator (2000) has a queer movie in him. That's not happening. They can't even go 30 mins without each being assigned an individual boyfriend who goes with them for a bit.

Big fan of the recurring pervert trucker who sounds like the Mama Liz's Chilli Oil guy.

I laughed very hard at the ending. Not to get into spoilers, but my go to bit whenever something like that happens is "what if the happy music swelled up here" and here it just does that.

To the tell the truth, in true me fashion, I wanted to get this out of the way so I could watch some utter VHS boom slop based on this in barely watchable quality (but inexplicably available on archive.org, as these things sometimes are) that will probably be disappointing. See if you can spot it in the near future.

Michael Madsen kinda looks like my dad.

4th time. Watched in memoriam. Was either gonna be this or Mulholland Drive (2001), but this is an easier watch, and is also 20 mins shorter.

Two things I noticed on this watch:

First, despite being the first collaboration with Badalamenti, for the most part it really does not feel like a Badalamenti soundtrack. It's possible he didn't work on all of it, or he wasn't given full reign to go crazy, but apart from MachLachlan and Dern in the car, and the obligatory Julee Cruise song, it sticks out oddly, soundtrack wise.

Secondly, now being more familiar with Hitchcock, early on this really feels like it wants to be a Hitchcock. It's hard to describe exactly how. Maybe its the way a lot of the soundtrack sounds old Hollywood, and things like the Laura Dern reveal shot, etc.

Thirdly, it does take a little bit to really get going. It's actually quite lite on Lynch style in the early stretch, however the second Dennis Hopper shows up, it really starts to take off.

And I gotta mention this every time, but man Dennis Hopper in this is one of the all time great villain performances. Constantly exuding this overwhelmingly intense prescience, but despite the larger than life performance, he's very human. I wonder if Nic Cage based some of his "out there" performances on Hopper in this.

I have read a couple theories that Hopper has a repressed homosexuality angle, but I don't really see it. To me it reads way more as the guy who hits women going "I am going to demean you like a woman" than "oh no Kyle Machlachlan hot!!!"

Also Kyle Machlachlan is 27 in this - crazy.

If you're looking to get into Lynch, then IMO either this or Mulholland Drive (2001) are the best starting points. MD in particular is nowhere near as hard to understand as it's reputation would suggest - it's the details that are wibbly-wobbly, the basic plot is straightforward.

While not an awful starting point, I'd probably argue against starting with Twin Peaks, as it's way more of a commitment than a 2h-2h30 movie, and it's also less representative of his films, being a "biggest name swallows all credit" kinda deal.

You could start with Eraserhead (1977) or Lost Highway (1997) if you happen to like more experimental movies. It's safer to assume that you don't, but Eraserhead is very accessible as experimental goes (also a tight 90!). I hesitate to recommend it earlier solely because it's stylistically extremely different from everything he did after.

Procrastinated way too long on watching 2 that I watched 1 again. Not sure how I managed to watch most of Friday the 13th - a series I've mostly hated - before watching any more of these - a series I'm very interested in.

Never noticed how funny the expression on the poster is. As someone who fairly frequently deals with insomnia, I have been there. This is me at 7 am, still lying fully awake in bed, thinking about the appointment I have at 11 I can't reschedule.

Have some more script issues with it this time around (though surprisingly, less so with the infamous ending), but you're here for the atmosphere and visuals, and boy does it nail those. Pretty much every kill is fantastic.

It's mostly to do with the dream world logic, in that I don't think it goes far enough with it. It's almost grounded with consistent mechanics, which is antithetical to being an impossible to understand or control dream world, and it also directly makes Freddy less threatening.

This culminates in a stretch where she's straight up setting up Home Alone traps. And they work? Did he use up all his demon mana making his arms long in that one scene?

We also have no link whatsoever between previously IRL Freddy and current dream demon Freddy. How did he become demon Freddy? Like just don't have IRL Freddy at that point. I know later entries flesh out backstory, but this is stuff you gotta get down early.

I remember finding the scene where the mom casually goes "oh no yeah, Freddy was a real guy, we burnt him to death in mob violence" really funny, so when that scene was about to come up, I turned to the mate I was watching this witch and said "I remember this bit being really funny". The scene immediately starts with the mom going "Freddy Krueger was a serial child molester who abused many children in the area" and I had to quickly add "not that bit".

I do quite like the characterisation of the mom, and it's a rare case where the dismissive attitude of the adult characters doesn't feel forced to add more conflict and prevent progress. It's all very believable to how you would react when presented with this, as yeah it's not logical. Go to bed, kid.

With the mom specifically however, we have the bit where the daughter blows up at her for being an alcoholic before we ever see the mom drink. Constantly with a bottle after that, but it's a definite "finding the key before the lock" kinda deal.

As I said previously, the ending bothers me less so now. The execution of it is very clumsy, but I do like the tone of the final scene. The mom getting sucked into the bed is still baffling, though.

Baby softboy Johnny Depp is very funny. He looks so different that the mate I watched this with did not recognise him for several minutes.

2 soon. I hope Freddie starts being cunty in that one but in twinning with Friday the 13th it's probably 3 where he gets his main thing. His main thing being quips, of course. What else would it be? Nothing.

It's alright I guess? I'm much more glad that I've finally seen this versus how much enjoyment I got from actually watching it. I was part of the classic Child's Play pipeline of having the concept explained to me as a child, being very scared of it, then later in life finding out "no wait but it's funny".

On actually watching though, it's not actually that funny? Or that "haunted doll"? To be honest, I think it plays it's hand way too early by opening on the killer putting his soul in the doll (which is wild without context), instead of just having the kid get the doll and dripping the backstory in, before the big reveal later on.

He also doesn't get to do too much? IIRC there's only 3 kills in the movie. Gotta have more - if it's a movie about a killer X, you need the X killing things.

Chucky himself looks great, though! Especially at the end when he gets all fucked up. And despite what I've heard, the bits where he runs around also don't look that bad, not sure why people are always so hard on them.

Couple user reviews try and treat this as satire on consumerism, but that's absolutely grasping on straws. The film would absolutely benefit from working some of that in, but like, this isn't doing that.

I don't know how interested I'm in watching all of the rest of the series, like 2 and 3 just look like rehashes of the exact same movie, but for a while I've been interested in Bride and Seed. Sounds really weird when said like that, actually, I'm sorry.

Ehhhhhhhhhhh?

Really like all the stuff with Buscemi & Stromare, but the tone of all the stuff with the Minnesotans is so incredibly mean spirited, like it's really looking down on these people. Point and laugh at the snow hicks trying to commit/solve a widdle crime! Look at them trying to think! Fuck off, man.

You're telling me no one can give a basic description of what Buscemi looks like? Not even "brown hair and moustache"? Do you have that little respect for people?

It's like if everyone in Twin Peaks was Andy. You can't have every character be like this, it's insulting.

This is, of course, excluding the upper class rich guy. Very interesting there, Cohen brothers. Yes… king to B4; I read books.

It's been a couple years since I saw Raising Arizona (1987), but I don't remember the tone looking down on those people at all - apart from arguably the big chase scene.

Macy is also just a little too dull and unlikable, especially early on before the kidnapping. The stakes are too low, there's very few twists and turns to the investigation, and laughs are pretty lite outside of Buscemi. Maybe if it was "sleepy small town cop solving a huge stakes complicated case" it'd feel less mean, but not when it's this low to the ground.

Neil Breen meets Yakuza meets Inland Empire (2006).

I'd heard nothing but good things about this, and outside of an unfinished ending (the planned sequel has had two failed crowd funding attempts), it absolutely lived up to the hype.

I know I compare things to Inland Empire a lot, but there's genuinely a LOT of Inland Empire here.

Low resolution digital camcorder footage of a woman in trouble running through dark LA streets. The dingy house with all the trafficked women hanging out. The odd camera cuts, especially whenever there's a car driving. The lack of spatial grounding in the early fight scene as we keep cutting to seemingly different locations as if we were always there. Whatever the hell was going on with that dog, and the talk of dreams about the dog.

All it needs is at least 3 Laura Derns.

Laughs are near constant. I'm not sure of what to say, or what I'd even clip - almost every shot would do.

Must watch for B-movie fans.

A very dry awkward mishmash of wanting to be serious/edgy/scary 90s horror but the creatures are all straight out of an 80s saturday morning cartoon.

You can't just drop these Dr X guys on the audience outside of horror comedy and not have it instantly dissipate the tone. I actually do really like how they look, but they are absolutely the wrong movie and it really hurts it. Played straight in like an 80s horror this might've worked, though. Decades are a funny thing.

Donald Sutherland does not give a single fuck in any scene he's in, and it would be funny, but apparently was a huge bully on set which diminishes it a bit.

Jamie Lee Curtis is here, I guess. You might know her from that John Carpenter movie: The Fog (1980).

Even if you like the genre, this is extremely skippable.

Between this and Event Horizon (1997) I should watch Deep Rising (1998) to complete the trilogy.

Saw how godawful this exact poster was (which is breaking my rules for which poster I use, but the others are less funny and this exact poster is important to the review) and that every user review is either very low or very high and knew I had to see this.

And, while there are a couple shots/sequences here and there that I do like, yeah this is confusing, unfocused, pretentious trash.

I probably wouldn't have watched this if I knew it was 2h35. I audibly yelped when we hit play.

So it spends all this excruciatingly long time jumping non-linearly between alternate timelines, and I'm not sure where it's going, or what it's even exploring? And by the end we're hit with the thematic reveal that it's about "you make choices in life and they affect your life". Okay, sure. Whatever. No, it's fine. Everything's fine.

I genuinely still don't know what the outcome of the plot was by the end of it.

Jared Leto is insanely poor casting but it DID sell me on it, and it definitely delivers on "crazy Jared Leto movie". And the reason why - and this is gonna sound mean - is that it's supposed to be a relatable film about the human experience, and Jared Leto is not relatable as a human being. He is a weird little alien man who was born to play creepy cult leaders or something.

Some of the events are also very unusual to be putting in a film about the human experience. Mainly the incest. There's a very large chunk of this movie dedicated to him banging his stepsister, and then their fated reuniting in several timelines.

It's very weird, but very funny that it's there. Annoyingly, I found out after watching that this was a Belgian director instead of a French one like I assumed, so there goes half my jokes about this.

The accents are so fucked up in this movie, man. Leto's character - who is English - only has an English accent in one single timeline, and it's when he's an adult. What?

I'm really confused at the people coming away from this super positively. Like it's dumb-guy smart, which isn't an issue - dumb-guy smart can be fun - but it's also a 2h35 artsy non-linear film, which doesn't sound like there's much of a Venn diagram there?

Though it is one of those cases where, even though I didn't enjoy it and thought it sucked, I'm glad that there are people who could get something from this. Enjoying artistic expression is a good thing that I would recommend you do.

That being said, avoid. Safe default on this one.

Now, normally with something with a reputation like this, I watch it and go "it's really not that bad, maybe watch a fourth movie", but no, this is the rare case where it is exactly as bad as it's reputation. There is nothing positive I can bring to the table for Master of Disguise. It's reputation is extremely fair.

I hate this movie, and I truly mean that from the bottom of my heart.

This is awful. This is unfunny. This is annoying. This is racist. This is a script where everything that could be is very contrived. There are next to no stakes. The protagonist does not have any effect on the outcomes of almost any scene he is in.

I am not violent man, and I do not associate with violent men. At one point in this movie, simultaneously we both had the thought: "I want to punch Dana Carvey" (the exact scene being the excruciatingly long "who where why how" bit). This is a feeling I never have. Master of Disguise made me want to commit violence.

Optimistically, I thought that at best this would be a Freddy Got Fingered (2001) affair, where it's SO extreme and annoying that it integer overflows back to being kinda funny. But most surprisingly of all, after the scene that brought us to violent thought, we were almost entirely devoid of emotion for the rest of the movie.

The turtle club scene is the elephant in the room, and if you know anything at all about this movie you probably know where I'm going with this, and I'm sad to tell you that it is not true. They did not film the turtle club scene with Dana Carvey in full turtle man costume during 9/11. The film was still in pre-production. The closest it gets is that the turtle club scene was the first scene filmed, a couple weeks after 9/11, where the cast and crew held a prayer circle for the victims of 9/11, with Carvey wearing at least half of the costume.

Skip, even for B-movie fans. That fake 9/11 trivia is the only possible enjoyment you could get from this.

AKA Night Crew: The Final Checkout

Back to the slasher boom slasher mine with the Raimi-adjacent late night supermarket bash. Pretty good! Was very surprised by this, even, given that user reviews seem to be pretty low to middling.

You might have noticed that I'm using the poster for Night Crew (an infinitely better title), because for whatever fucking reason, every poster and cover for Intruder straight up spoils the twist. Why would you do this? This is insano marketing. Also Sam Raimi is in this, but he is not the co-star, that is an outright lie. Couldn't figure out from brief research if there was a territory where it was fully released as Night Crew, but hey this poster looks official enough.

Makes fantastic use of it's late-night supermarket setting in both atmosphere and kill opportunities. Lotta nasty doohickies you can use, especially with the butcher shop in the back!

And fuck me these kills are great. It's not quite The Prowler (1981) levels of gore effect, but every single kill (well, bar one) is fun and creative. Has that Prowler secret sauce of holding the shot on the aftermath of the kill. And the script - while nothing amazing - is also running circles around Prowler.

It does commit the slasher sin of not having an opening kill, but hey, rules were meant to be broken. And despite being kill-less, the opening stretch is uncharacteristically good, setting the stage for the atmosphere by putting the co-workers in a situation where they have to deal with final girl's stalker ex harassing the store and starting fights. This leads to maybe the best Sam Raimi introduction in any film.

And it's not just Sam! Ted is also here, and they're both full-blown characters in this. And by that, I mean: they're in the setting and they walk around a bit before being killed. It's still a slasher. Bruce Campbell also shows up for a minute or two at the end.

Even though it isn't directed by Sam Raimi, there's a lot of him in the camera work, often moving around in interesting ways and being positioned in very interesting places. I want to particularly highlight this really cool shot-reverse-shot that is high up, inside the bread aisle, at a harsh dutch angle. It's great stuff.

Also featured in this clip is Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988) alum Renée Estevez (of the Estevez/Sheen clan). And I need to remind folk again, DO NOT LOOK UP THE SYNOPSIS FOR THAT ONE, it contains major spoilers for Sleepaway Camp (1983) which I do consider a must-watch of the genre. In this one she dies first with the only weak kill the film, but given she was final girl in SC2 I think this is Ft13th style slasher karma (don't ask me what kind of Faustian deal Neve Campbell made). And given how great the rest of the kills are, we salute her for her service as kill martyr.

To actually address the twist, I don't know how I feel about it. There's nowhere near enough motivation for the character to do all this (needed to add some kinda foreshadowing of instability and/or extreme stress), but it makes up for it by being an insanely fun villain performance once the cat is out of the bag.

Now, it does have the classic slasher boom slasher issue of "no one knows what's happening until right before they die" but at this point I'm just accepting that that's the default, and any deviation from that is a bonus.

At the very least, when we're down to just final girl there's still 30 mins left, so there's a good third of the movie where someone does know what's going on.

Highly recommended. Probably at a tier just under Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) and Sleepaway Camp (1983) because it isn't as trope-y, but it's by no means inaccessible. If you happen to like those indie jumpscare horror games (I do not) it's probably closer in tone and setting to one of those, for what it's worth. Maybe also if you like Sam Raimi films? It has a lot of the same sauce.

YOU ALL KNEW IT WAS COMING. IT WAS OBVIOUS. IT'S A RENÉE ESTEVEZ DOUBLE BILL.

Also features Julia Parton (yes, cousin of Dolly).

Couple important key thing it trips up on, but this was a surprisingly fun easy watch. Had a good gut feeling about this one, and mostly it paid off.

It's clearly based on Thelma & Louise (1991), but it switches enough up to not feel like plagiarism.

Having them actually commit a non-violent crime in addition to being framed for murder I really like as an addition to the formula, as it firmly cements "right you CANNOT get caught by the police, you HAVE to run".

…so of course we then introduce nice good guy cop and they turn themselves in? It's like if Thelma & Louise (1991) listened to Harvey Keitel pretty much instantly and then go to jail for those crimes they actually committed.

This sucks for multiple reasons. First, and most importantly, it means your "fugitives on the run" movie no longer has fugitives on the fucking run. Second, it's very antithetical to a "fugitive on the run" movie to have law enforcement on the side of the fugitives. Third, it saps away any and all agency the protagonists could have in a story about their agency.

In general we're not given enough time for them to hang out on the road and have their friendship grow; like they're basically arguing the whole runtime. The friendship and bond between the two protagonists was the core of Thelma & Louise, and here it's almost a non-factor.

Dare I say this would've worked better at 2h - but this is VHS slop; you're damn lucky to be clocking in at 90. Cut all the Mary Woronov gang stuff. Leave the Wario/Waluigi versions of the protagonists, though, that stuffs always great.

So about those crimes we actually committed. The case gets thrown out kinda for no reason? I guess white collar crimes really don't count.

Somehow both more and less sleazy than I thought it was going to be? IIRC actual nudity only occurs once at the start, but every now and again the film goes "I'm gonna do a sexy little dance for like a minute and then we can continue" and you just have to wait and let it do it's thing. Doesn't even have the decency to be funny, like honestly.

For some reason a lot of user reviews keep saying that this has "cartoon logic", but it's like the exact same tone and level of intensity as every other B-comedy I've seen, so welcome to the genre I guess?

I think I recommend this? Extremely hard sell given it's an ultra low budget B-movie that only exists in an almost unwatchable quality and does not make for a fun crazy hangout film. There's an avenue of freak who can enjoy this though, and they - and only they - should watch this.

Wasn't too confident that this wouldn't suck, but ended up being a fun time.

Patty McCormack is absolutely killing it in this. Every line is a joy. It's rare you see a film so completely carried on the back of one performance, but it turns what would otherwise be a painfully dull nothing movie into a (still a little dull) fun time.

I do really like the focus on the daughters POV, and how a lot of the movie is her reactions and thought processes to what's happening. I see a couple reviews claiming the kid sucks, but it's fine. Nothing really of note performance wise, but the dialogue helps prop it up.

Unbelievably fucked up lighting in this. Dare I say this might be one of the worst lit films I've ever seen? It's like the project was an experiment to see if they could produce a movie without lighting scenes to cut costs or something. Genuinely I don't tend to notice lighting, but fuck me man, get a rim light or something PLEASE, I can't see shit dude.

Occasionally though, we're blessed with "red Mommy glare" light.

Very big fan of all the very real people populating this. Just the most disgusting mid 90s suburban clothing you can imagine. It's wonderful.

There's an angle where Mommy is racist at the start, but weirdly it's ONLY at the start. I joked early on "Mommy's going on about DEI again…" but then she actually starts doing that? Who knew this murderer would be a horrible person?

The predictions don't stop there, either! At one point during a tense threatening scene with Mommy, I joked "it'd be really funny if she pulls out a gun and shoots him" AND THEN SHE DOES!!!

Jason Miller is in this, and boy does he look rough. I actually didn't recognise him at first, and we kept joking about "dumpy Columbo". It suddenly hit me in the last fifth, as I realised "oh no, that's Jason Miller isn't it…"

Will absolutely be checking out the sequel: "Mommy 2: Mommy's Day (1997)", a film title so good that it's the reason we even watched this in the first place. Also helps that every user review is like "yeah the sequel is way better, way more camp".

Probably don't watch this. Much too sleepy.

Was VERY apprehensive given the extremely low user reviews, but this is absolutely fine? No idea why this is hated as much as it is. It is a perfectly fine Naked Gun/Aeroplane-like that you should probably give a shot if you like that style of comedy.

It's not a constant throughout, but every now and again it gets EXTREMELY horny, which turns out does not work well with noir? Sexual tension is, of course, a huge part of the noir atmosphere, but when you jump to "eyes-pop-out-of head, AWOOGA, BOI-OI-OI-OING!" then it lets all the air out as it farts across the room. Gotta maintain that edge.

On that note, at one point there's a sex scene misdirect misdirect? We open on a panning shot of the house as we hear what you think would be sex noises, but obviously this is a Naked Gun style of comedy, that's clearly not- oh it is? It just was that? No misdirect with that obvious misdirect you were setting up?

We've got our Twin Peaks link in the form of Sherilyn Fenn, who is in it a weirdly small amount for someone was born to be in noir movies long after they stopped making noir movies. I think I read somewhere she's gone off the deep end recently (as in like last 5 years or so), but I am too scared to look into it.

Discovered this movie while trying to see if an obscure B-movie I was struggling trying to source was on YouTube (sometimes they just are) and stumbled upon a clip, where a lot of the comments are about how this is "the funniest scene ever", so I got to play a fun game while I watched this with someone if they could guess what joke it was.

Are you ready? Are you sitting down? I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself. Please make sure you're prepared mentally and physically for what many have said is the funniest joke ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC-gKcGta6M

I have since managed to source that B-movie I was looking for, so see if you can spot which one it is in the near future.

Check this out maybe? Possibly? Your call. You don't have to if you don't want to. It's no skin of my back. Honestly. It's fine.

Cetus-Lupeedus! Another DCOM!

Was not sure if this was going to suck, or if it was going to slay, and honestly? It kinda slays. I fully get why this is one of the ones that people like.

I did know that a significant chunk of this takes place on earth, and that would absolutely be a surefire way to sink it, but luckily there's juuuuust enough in space for it to not suck.

I do really the little touch of the space kids and the earth kids having very different slang that is unfamiliar to the other group. Maybe the only neat little script touch, but it's better than nothing.

I will start saying "sweat minor", by the way. You cannot stop me. This is a threat.

Big fan of the scientists studying a rotating rat chamber, which for some reason is only possible in space?

Even bigger fan of this disgusting 90s CGI plane. Excuse the upscaling.

Fucking horrific upscale job on this general. Every copy I've seen is like this. I don't know if this is definitely the version on Disney+, but I'm fairly confident in saying that it probably is the version on Disney+.

It's not that bad in some scenes, but there's other scenes that look like this.

I thought I recognised the mean girl but turns out I was thinking of Christine Taylor, and those timelines do not match up. My mate guessed Reese Witherspoon, and again, those timelines do not match up. Just a very minor Disney Channel name, turns out.

Insane groomer energy from almost every man in this film. The boyband guy goes without saying, but also the CEO guy who keeps winking at the protagonist and going "yes I'm very knowledgeable about that boyband you're into". These are very bad flags.

For some reason the love interest is just Kubrick staring the whole time? I don't know why they did this but it's very funny.

This ending shot completely sent me.

Epic failwife fucking dies, before being revived by her new-age necromancer sister.

Ehhhhhhhhh. It's kind of like My Boyfriend's Back (1993) for your boring mom. Weirdly both are Touchstone?

Played WAY sleepier than it should be. This is a crazy, goofy, premise, so how is this so dull?

We set up that she's extremely clumsy at the start, and I'm thinking, "oh boy, this is gonna be a Three Stooges-ass death", but then it ends up being as unremarkable as the actual Three Stooges deaths, as she just chokes on a small bit of food while necromancer sister is off not listening in the other room.

It's very almost saved by Shelly Long, but it's just way too sleepy.

Skip. Was going to end with a joke where I pretended to fall asleep mid writing this, but I'm too tired to do that.

Megalopolis? I hardly know 'er!

First off, I need to clarify that I have no reverence for Francis Ford Coppola. The only Coppola film I've seen is Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) a few years ago, which I did not like. Was long before I started writing these, so I don't remember what my thoughts were. Think I found it boring?

As such, I initially had no interest in watching this, until I started hearing comparisons to Neil Breen, which certainly raised an eyebrow. A B-movie from the guy who made The Godfather (1972)? Count me in!

How, the actual fuck, did this get made? This might be the biggest "emperor has no clothes"-ing of a director I can think of.

How is the plot so simple and straightforward, but every scene is so incredibly hard to follow? Even the fucking endless list of huge name actors sound baffled at what they're saying. Only Driver, LeBouf and Plaza feel like they even know where they are, and I don't know if it's better or worse that they do.

How did Francis Ford Coppola forget that things that happen in your movie need to be set up, and that they also need to affect what happens in the movie? In almost every possible scene, I was left asking "what is happening in this scene? Who is that?"

How does Driver have clout? Why is this city council architect treated like a billionare playboy? Why does he have flubber???? What the fuck does it do??????????????

Megalopolis itself is - and I do not say this lightly - fucking hideous looking. I won't go as far as saying it's AI generated, but fuck me does it have all the hallmarks of AI generated art - colour grading in the effects-heavy shots especially. It doesn't even look like a building? It's just, like, leaves? I never want to see it again.

I absolutely understand people saying that this feels like a film from the 20s that would be considered one of the most important early age of cinema films ever made. This is not a point in it's favour. A lot changed over the last century.

We have an embarrassing portrayal of rising fascist populist leader, where it does not how to portray it other than going "uhhhh, nazi symbols? also they're mean?" Maybe there's some current goings on in the world you could reflect on? Or not. It's fine.

Also, this is getting into spoilers, but fuck it, you don't care: how do you write a "fall of Rome" story but have Rome be fine at the end? How do you fuck even that up?

Do I respect him more for going for such a big swing on his own dime? Maybe a little? Maybe more if it wasn't so painfully pretentious.

Am I interested in other Coppola films? I've been sitting on The Outsiders (1983) and Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) for a while. Not really that interested in The Godfather (1972); watched half of it during my obligatory pretentious 16yo film snob phase and fell asleep. Might throw Jack (1996) on the hangout movie wheel - has Big (1988) energy.

Is it funny? Couple scenes are. Not worth watching for that though.

Do not under any circumstances watch Megalopolis.

It's nice. Ending kinda sucks though.

As a British child of the 2000s, I basically had to put conscious effort in to have not seen this. I had seen those first three shorts, and I liked them well enough, but I wasn't crazy about them. I've not seen them since childhood, though, and it is very much the kind of thing I'd be able to appreciate much more now.

Issue with the ending is that, by not making the Wallace-rabbit (AKA the rabbit-were) part of the solution, we kind of just don't really do anything ever with that character, apart from fixing a machine at one point. Your out to "oh fuck, this guy's a werewolf, we need to cure him" should never be "oh if he gets hurt (like the villains were trying to do) then his transformation HP bar will run out and he'll go back to normal."

Not sure I can recommend it outside of if you're an animation fan, as there's not much to chew on. If you have kids they'd probably like it? Because it's not CGI, it's aged very well for 2005 kids movie. You really can't tell it's almost 20 years old.

It's alright! Every side character is killing it (though there's not enough screen-time for them), but we don't do nearly enough with Atlantis. Like we have the big establishing shot of "wow, look! It's Atlantis!" and then that's kinda it.

I had seen this as a kid, but I don't remember if I ever watched all of it. And, I can see why: it's a little forgettable and by-the-numbers after a point.

Less horny than I expected? Might be conflating it with The Road to El Dorado (2000), which was a childhood movie I did watch a bunch, and the two kinda look similar. Maybe there's shared artists? I refuse to look into it.

Right, how does no one remember anything? Weren't they all there when Atlantis fell, or is it only the girl plus king that's old? Even if it is just them, how did the knowledge of reading or driving the fish machines die out? Did the king just forget how to read???

Absolutely not qualified to talk about this, but the animation is weirdly uneven? It's on like a character-by-character basis, too, like most everyone's fine, but then the main guy and the doctor moves really weirdly.

Maybe skip this.

Pretty good! Didn't expect this to be as solid as it was!

Grade A "where'd my wife go" movie.

Simple, effective thriller, with some neat camera work and a tense, tight script. Kurt Russel especially is killing it here. Kinda not much to say on it?

I will say the wife's not in it much, but it does work for building tension that we see so little of her. A lesser movie would keep cutting to her POV as that's what the audience would be questioning, but the restraint here really works well. It does lead to her not being much of a character, but she has a nice little moment at the end which somewhat makes up for it.

Minor complaint is that we set up a Chekhov's gun and then just never bring it up again. Probably just cut that shot of the kid being gifted the Swiss army knife.

edit: this may or may not have been a joke that I misread, as there was a sizeable gap between set-up and pay-off

Check this one out.

A lot of fun! Not sure why everyone seems to hate this.

Also no idea why everyone says this is an Alien (1979) rip-off? Like, the main creature looks very Xenomorph, sure, but the rest is just standard creature movie. It's a post apocalyptic setting on Earth, following military deserters. Very "getting boss baby vibes".

AFAIK, this might actually has some minor historical significance, as it received a theatrical release, and was instrumental to the careers of B-movie legends David DeCoteau and Linnea Quigley. I don't remember where I read this, and I can't seem to find it again, however, so maybe this isn't true? More interesting if it is. Let's say it is.

I wish we got some more world building as that's the kinda stuff that really makes stuff like this work. And the characters being military deserters actually leads to a nice script touch, where they actively can't call for help because they're in hiding. That is the only positive you can give the script.

There are no mutant nomads in the film, btw.

In a movie with six people, how is one of them just credited as "woman"????

This was the weekly B-movie hangout film after Megalopolis (2024), where we wanted something very low budget and humble. Turns out, similar to Megalopolis, this was also really simple and straightforward but very hard to follow at points.

For some unthinkable reason, every single person has a different reaction to getting attacked. There is not two people who are affected in the same way. One guy even gets attacked MULTIPLE TIMES by the creature, and then MULTIPLE TIMES he just wakes up from having a little sleep in the creature's lair, and nothing ever fucking happens with that. Huh????

We also have a maddening final stretch, where this same guy is walking around this warehouse while the creature attacks him every so often, and nothing changes in the scene. We genuinely repeat this like six times before anything happens. And then we do the exact same fucking thing with a second creature. The movie is only 72 minutes long but this warehouse stretch feels like it's 40 minutes long. I was close to breaking.

We also just, don't end? Like there's no conclusion? We reach a point and go "ehh it's been long enough for a movie I guess" and then just freeze frame and cut to credits on a shot of the second creature as final guy meanders about the base.

Unbelievably big fan of the singular rat enemy. It's never even been communicated at this point that the guns are laser guns, so this got a big "WOAH!" when it happened.

While it gets more wrong than other DeCoteau films, it's an easier sell, as it's less sexploitation-y, and higher production value (I think? Might just be that this is available in really good quality). Like you could watch this as a B-movie hangout flick with a group of friends, but you're not doing that with like Nightmare Sisters (1988).

Speaking of his other films, we've wanted to watch one of the gay DeCoteau films for a while, but finding one that looks actually watchable has been tricky. Man has made like 7000 films, and - despite being gay - somehow all the gay ones look unwatchable.

B-movie fans should check this out.

It's alright! This was a beloved childhood movie, but it's one of those where I'm not sure how common of a childhood movie this was for my generation. Everyone has at least one beloved childhood animated film no one has really heard of.

And for a movie I forgot about for many years, I think this was probably very formative for me. Like there's a lot of weird little creatures running about, and even some light body horror as a treat! Big fan of the adultery axe chicken.

Man, this REALLY wants to be a 90s era Disney movie. And while it never really quite succeeds at that (all of the songs are very mediocre, though I have a soft spot for the Eric Idle/Don Rickles duet), it never really fails, either. Certainly beats Anastasia (1997).

However, unlike 90s - or even current - Disney, we have a disabled main character, with the deuteragonist being fully blind. And even more surprisingly, it's handled pretty well? And it doesn't make the crucial mistake of curing their disability at the end of the movie, simply showing someone having adapted to living with a disability, with the ups and downs it entails.

Turns out I have a false memory of Camelot being empty/corrupted when they get to it at the end. Think something like 3D Zelda.

Big fan of this baby movie for babies having an inbreeding joke that is completely not subtle. We also never give a reason for why they're like that ouside of this, so as far as the film's concerned, yeah that's cannon.

I don't know if I recommend this, but there's way worse kids animated movies you could watch.

It's kind of a mess, but it's real good! I think I might like it slightly more than 1? There's a lot more going on with the main character, and we handle the dream logic a little more interestingly and consistently.

This is at the cost of much worse kills, and visuals in general. In 1, basically every kill is amazing, and here there isn't really any that are of note. The bit where Freddy climbs out of him, however? Great stuff.

The first elephant in the room is the set up, which straight up just doesn't really make any sense with how the last film ends? Like, instead of dream invasions, this is a possession movie to revive Freddy. But Freddy doesn't need to be revived? What?

Like if 1 ended with them killing Freddy, sure, this is all fine. But - and really this is a very minor spoiler - they don't kill him at the end. There's like 18 of these movies, folks. So why does he need a host to be revived?

Now, the other, gayer elephant in the room. At first, I was thinking "something's up here, this is really blatant, there's no way they didn't know this was gay", but as it goes on, it's actually really not that gay overall? Like there's nuggets of queer subtext here and there, but it's not a constant through-line. There's arguably way more homophobic subtext, suggesting "those evil gays are all pedophiles".

So yeah, regardless of what the writer now claims, I fully believe the director saying "yeah I didn't pick up on any subtext when we made this". I think he might have said more stuff since then, but I've not yet seen any of those documentaries.

Honestly it's mostly a case of people cherry picking certain scenes and inflating their importance while discarding the surrounding context. Everyone always brings up the scene where he runs away from sleeping with the girl and goes to his macho mate, but the context to that scene was him about to turn into the monster and kill her.

I've even read some reviews that go as far as to claim there isn't a final girl, but like there very much is. He's literally saved by heterosexuality by the end. This is no The Lost Boys (1987) or even Sleepaway Camp (1983). Can't really recommend this as a queer movie, but as general horror goes can easily recommend it.

Wasn't sure where else to put this, but man is this guy is sweaty. Every second scene this boy is wet. I also really like his performance in this. I've read a lot of complaints saying that he's way too over the top, but I love a good morbing out.

Also we spent the whole movie trying to figure out who the love interest looked like. Initially went with Helen Hunt, but eventually settled on Grace Gummer. Somehow skipped Meryl Streep entirely.

Freddy's still not cracking one-liners, but I do like how he's just a sassy little guy in this.

Ending still kinda sucks, but it's similar to the last one, so it's not like it's unexpected. Excited for the ending to suck in 3!

Surprisingly okay!

A film that asks "what if burgers were an aphrodisiac", and baby if that's not the American dream, I don't know what is.

I'll be honest, the "spiking food" premise had me real worried, but while it never goes over the line, boy is it near it.

It's actually almost entirely sexless, large in part to the bizarre choice to make a PG-13 sex comedy, which mercifully does lead to less sex crimes, and also bunch of user reviews lamenting the lack of sex crimes, because of course there is.

I don't know who they bribed to get this to PG-13 either, like this is the exact same tone and beats of your average VHS sex comedy. I had no idea for the entire duration that it even was PG-13, but looking back, there's never any nudity, I guess? Is that all it takes? There is no world where 13 year olds should be allowed to watch this, that should be a crime.

I actually skipped over this the first time I saw it, but came across it again after realising it's a Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989) reunion (despite this coming out a few months earlier, but I'm making the rules here). Same director, final girl's back, the rancid camp owner's back, even Pamela Springsteen is in it a little!

Cast lists tell me coke newswoman is also back, but I don't remember seeing her. Maybe she's the prosecutor in the court room scene at the end? Just one of those mysteries man wasn't meant to know, I guess.

Also might be the single least law accurate court room scene I've seen, but they're always fun.

It is almost sunk by a repulsively unlikable lead, but he's just about not awful enough to ruin everything. Just about.

It's never clear on what exactly the formula does. Like it kinda just makes men fun drunk and women horny drunk, but it's exceedingly careful to make sure it's only ever women coming on to men who then go "ooh, no! can't do this!" This is apart from nerd guy and his boss, where he reluctantly consents but there's obviously some fucked up power dynamics there. Thankfully this kinda is as bad as it gets.

John Waters alum with no further history Traci Lords is also in this for like the last 20 minutes, so of course she's plastered over all promotional material and box art, most of the time suggesting she's a lead character. You gotta respect the hustle.

It is not a lie that Ernest is a main character, however. He's in it a fair amount.

When testing the subtitles, I got very good vibes, and thought "man, I'm gonna love this", but then I actually sat down to watch it. And while I didn't hate it, I really did not like it.

It's a smarmy, entitled, fail-upwards and never-face-consequences gen X power fantasy.

It's like the in between of Fight Club (1999) and Clerks (1994), but in a much more negative way. It's worth nothing that I've seen both of those exactly once, roughly a decade ago, so memories are very hazy.

Jennifer Aniston is here as the textbook "love interest who is basically not a character". Really important Clerks comparison I want to bring up here, as both include a similar plot beat where the protagonist blows up at her for previous sexual activity that happened long before they started dating. However, unless I'm really misremembering Clerks (and I easily could be), I remember it always taking the angle that the he was in the wrong and being unreasonable. Here, however, he's only presented as being in the wrong as part of a plot twist.

There's also a bit where he's trying to explain what he does at work to her, which is Y2K safeguarding, and it's presented as something she can't possibly understand. Like just say it's Y2K safeguarding, she's probably watched the news. Now, I am too young to have full cultural context, but this was released early 1999, so it's possible that Y2K wasn't in the public eye until later that year or something. If so, disregard this criticism.

Y2K safeguarding is also a really odd choice for what he does for work in a narrative that's trying to present his work as dull and meaningless. Like, that was a rush to fix things before a lot of important stuff broke.

It gets close to commenting on how middle management is evil and harms the worker for the purpose of extracting slightly more wealth, but it's too self-entered to actually reflect on this.

Between this and what I know about Idiocracy (2006), I've got an eyebrow raised at that Judge fella.

No I'm not re-watching Fight Club any time soon.

While this is a fairly mediocre Kaiju movie, you're not here for the movie at all. The hook is entirely in it's production history, being a North Korean film that was made by kidnapping a famous South Korean director (Shin Sang-ok).

Because of this, we expected this to be a propaganda film, but it's extremely anti-government, and turns out this was banned in NK exactly because of that. You'd think they'd be watching over production like hawks, but who am I to question NK's propaganda efforts.

I mean it doesn't suck - it's okay; bit too dry and repetitive in the back half, though. Definitely beats any of those Showa era Godzillas with Godzilla's disgusting son. Definitely feels like a Showa era Kaiju film instead of a now Heisei era one (even though it was still Showa; the timelines are weird).

Did not know this started as a weird little creature movie. Really this is where most of the enjoyment came from.

Two little things I liked:

I quite like the soundtrack? Sounds a lot like Hole Dweller. Get your North Korean Dungeon Synth here.

Also quite like how colourful a lot of the outfits are. I always dislike when fantasy costume design is "just make everything brown".

Probably don't watch this unless you're a real Kaiju head (idk if I am, even).

BTW, I used the South Korean poster for this, as AFAIK there's no traces of a North Korean poster, so the SK one felt most appropriate.

It's surprisingly okay! Expected the worst going into this, and while it's definitely cheap and clunky, it's a lot closer to 1, and also successfully works as a sequel to the events of 1.

I actually have some personal history with this one: during my first year of university, while was in living in dorms and had difficulties acquiring movies, I went to the local CEX (UK 2nd hand shop chain) and picked up a bunch of DVDs, which I only ended up watching one of. And that movie was…

Ring (1998). Not this one. I hadn't yet seen Starship Troopers (1997), and accidentally picked this one up as there was a sticker covering the 3.

In this one, we throw Christianty into the mix, and we completely misunderstand the relationship between fascism and Christianity. For some reason, all the opposers to the war (which is also a new thing in this; there are hangings) are all fervent Christians, and the war-mongering fascists are all atheists that begrudgingly tolerate the Christians? It sorts itself out by the end, as the Federation (for no real reason) embraces Christofascism whole-heartedly, but it's very odd and to the movies detriment that it didn't start here.

For most of it, I thought that the wave of peacful Christians was caused by the influence of the brain bug captured at the end of 1, as like a peace treaty psy-op kinda deal, but no it's just one guy with one bug. Also really weird to not have ALL of the religious elements be bug mind control stuff, then. Really weird relationship with religion in general. Really weird.

Until it fully established it's angle on religion, I was honestly kind of rooting for this to be a Christian movie, for no other reason than it'd be really funny for this to be a Christian movie.

Also everyone keeps referring to finding faith as "I got religion", like it's something you catch.

Weirdly, despite this being an ultra low budget cheapo DTDVD affair, every now and again there's like an actual good shot? The CGI and lighting is all awful, though. Makes it feel like a 2000s Disney Channel thing, which again, is really funny conceptually.

Also weirdly good stunt falls across the board? Like if there's one thing you can give it credit for, everyone falls over real good in this. This might be the first time I've ever said this about a movie.

The messaging does kinda fall apart at the end when the big boss bug is presented as a world-ending threat, instead of being the peace deal psyop I thought it was going for initially, but hey, that big bug at the end looks great. The satire of Starship Troopers kinda falls apart when you actually present a villain (be that fascist or bug), but at least this one only fucks it up right at the end instead of 2, which fucks it up from word go.

I don't know how to explain it, but this shot-reverse-shot killed me.

I don't think I have any interest in watching the series further. Maybe give this a shot if you like ST1 and don't mind very cheapo 2008 cheese. Most do, however; so bare that in mind. People hate this.

Extreme mixed bag.

On the one hand, it's a very boring crime drama about con artists with very little conning going on between them. On the other hand, this might be the most insane Nic Cage performance of his entire career, essentially playing a gaudy loser version of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (1986) - mommy kink included.

Speaking of Blue Velvet, there are a couple of splashes of David Lynch here and there, but not in the way that tends to get thrown around, and it's also not overly successful at it.

Outside of Cage, it mostly manifests itself through eccentric side characters. What holds it back, however, is that everyone else is very low energy. The main protagonist especially. Fucking hell, he's like a cross between James Marsden and David Spade. This guy dull as hell.

A very important ingredient in Lynch's style that I rarely see acknowledged is heightened displays of emotion, often in direct contrast to what is traditionally considered "good acting". This is why a fair number of out-and-out B-movies can feel like David Lynch.

Features the sibling double bill of Charlie Sheen alongside a brief Renée Estevez cameo. Sheen is in this way too little, as he's essentially like a 60s Bond villain, and he's a lot of fun for the like one single scene he's in.

Which brings us to scissor hand guy, who manages to out 60s Bond villain Sheen. All he needs is a secret lair.

By the way, there is not one single point where he uses the scissors to do anything. This is unforgivable, it's like the rocket launcher in Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988).

Unfortunately - and this is getting into major spoilers, but you have to be warned - they pull a Far Cry 3 and kill off Cage at the halfway mark. It was so sudden and left with little finality (they literally make a point of not burying him, and just putting him in a corner somewhere), that we were shocked that there wasn't a twist where he didn't die and comes back at the end. No, he's just gone at the halfway mark. Heartbreaking.

I also have to bring up that modern posters for this present Nic Cage as both being the main lead, and also looking like regular Nic Cage, in a movie where he looks like this.

Don't watch this. Maybe watch a Nic Cage scene compilation on YouTube, though.

Probably the weakest of the series so far, but it's still pretty solid.

It's biggest issue is that protagonist Patricia Arquette is barely in it? It kinda pulls a Gundam Seed Destiny and just has Heather Langenkamp be the main character again. And while I do like how she's used as more than just the cameo I was expecting, this shift of focus, really hurts the film. It takes away the focus from the reactions, thoughts and feelings of the troubled teens - the beating heart of your story.

The dream powers gimmick is also extremely under-explored. I really like it in concept; it's a fun way to play with the dream logic, and you can still have Freddy best them regardless to enforce a feeling of hopelessness.

However, they're introduced way too late and have little to no effect on anything outside of Patricia Arquette doing prequel Jedi jumps.

Also, they have the one kid go "my dream power is I have super strength" and he never really fights Freddy? Arquette meanwhile has a fight scene like every 20 minutes, like she is throwing hands non-stop in this.

Some neat effects early on with the first two kills, but then we kind of just stop doing the cool visual effect set-pieces.

Really bothers me that there's one part where Freddy starts effecting things IRL, you can't have him overstep the boundary of dreams. On that note, the possession angle of 2 never bothered me in how it affected the world outside of dreams, but I'm not sure why? Maybe because there it was presented as still being very dream-like. Stretched my immersion a little thin to have him suddenly possess a Harryhausen skeleton and start fist fighting.

Pogged when I saw this. Didn't know this had a double Lynch link going in.

"Ahh, hello. Was it you who rang the Bell of Awakening?"

IT'S TIME FOR ANOTHER THEME MONTH. IT'S MONKEY MARCH, MOTHERFUCKER. FIVE WHOLE MONDAYS OF SIMIAN CINEMA.

There's some fun to be had in the brief times KK & G are together on screen, but ehhhhhhh, nah. It's kind of just a dumpy King Kong movie but every now and again we cut to Godzilla.

I have seen all the Showa Godzillas (watched them with friends in uni, and burnt out RIGHT as we got to Heisei), and honestly I have no memories of almost any of them apart from vs. Mechagodzilla. These all very much blend together.

I do remember which ones sucked, however, but I don't remember this one sucking. Might've just been that after how rough I remember Raids Again ('55) being, any fun at all was better than none. Do not watch Raids Again.

Speaking of things I forgot, uhhhh, this might be the highest quantity of blackface I've ever seen in a movie. Thankfully it's not for that long, but I am looking forward to forgetting about it again.

The premise of "pharmaceutical company kidnapping King Kong in order to boost TV ratings" sounds like it could be crazy, but we really don't have any fun with the premise. Like this is almost entirely just coincidence that King Kong and Godzilla cross paths.

The military also keeps losing track of where the monsters are? Like, you'd hope they'd be on top of that given that this is the THIRD time a Godzilla has run amuck. Might actually be the third Godzilla: I don't remember how Raids Again ends.

Expect vs. Mothra early April.

It's alright! Much less sex-crime-y than I thought it was going to be, though not entirely in the clear. It's actually much less sex-focused than the poster would have you believe, being mostly just a feel-good, party slackers vs snooty overachievers deal.

Now, there's a million things like this, and none of them tend to be worth watching, but there's an important hook here. Sitcom that has definitely not nosedived in quality recently It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has the episode "The Gang Hits the Slopes" (S11E03); an episode that - on first glance - appears to be a genre parody of this kind of thing. However, after I came across this, I noticed that they both have Dean Cameron as the main guy (also the lead in Rockula (1990)), and are effectively the same character. That episode - one of my favourite episodes of the show that is definitely still very good and hasn't dropped off dramatically - potentially being a parody of very specifically one exact film instead of just a broad genre parody peaked my interest.

And it sort of is? The plot/conflict is slightly different, being a lot more coherent and existent than this film.

Genuinely, the plot beats in this feel like how events happen in a dream. Like, things happen without any establishing or set up, and you often don't understand exactly what is happening, but you implicitly understand the impact and emotion of what's happening. I genuinely can't think of a better media representation of what dreams feel like than this VHS sex comedy.

Now, as a big Twin Peaks fan, my ears perked the fuck up when I heard this line.

Now, I've heard that some of the supernatural elements in Twin Peaks are actually based on local native folklore, so this sent me into a Googling frenzy, but I'm finding it impossible to research. With the stuff I am finding, I'm not sure if it's real or if it's just stuff from that one Mark Frost book that's wiki-poisoned itself around.

I've seen a couple Reddit threads where people claim "I'm a native from that area, and yes those are folktales we tell", but - and forgive me for sounding cynical - this reads as people lying on the internet for points to me. Like, there's no way there's this many alleged natives who agree with the subject but don't add any extra info.

The bizarre thing is, the timelines actually do not match up for this to be a Twin Peaks link. Unless I'm mistaken, the first time the lodges are mentioned is S2E11, which aired 15/12/1990. This released 11/01/1991, and while B-movies like this do tend to have very short production cycles, that's gotta be too close for that episode to have aired for this to have still been in filming, right?

Also, doppelgangers are not a thing until the finale, which was WAY after this released. Also also want to assure anyone who hasn't seen Twin Peaks that this is not really much of a spoiler, it's finale only stuff.

Maybe this is all obvious and straightforward with Washington-area Native American cultural context. Who knows. I'd like to learn! But google is not helping me. Tends to do that a lot these days.

Probably don't watch this, but if you had to watch something like this, it's mostly a fun time.

MONKEY MARCH PT.II. Delightful mix of fairly competent thriller that's also a completely unhinged hangout movie.

The orangutan in this might actually be the best monkey actor I've ever seen? Like genuinely good facial expressions from this guy. Better than most human actors, honestly.

Did not expect this to end up as Elizabeth Shue hanging out in this house alone with these monkeys, but sure, I'm game.

Took a lot of clips for this, but not a lot of them are as good out of context/are technically animal abuse/include nudity, but please appreciate this dummy fall.

User reviews are mostly extremely low, and I think it's a case of the wrong people watching this. There should be more tiers in-between regular movie normal human beings can enjoy and B-movie, as this is definitely in the middle. A- movie? Pretty clumsy with big script issues, but there's definitely more than a little to genuinely appreciate.

Highly recommended if "monkey-based thriller" sounds interesting. Kinda like Cujo if Cujo was a smart monkey. Also enjoyed this a lot more than Cujo.

I get why people hate this. It fails as a Ghoulies movie in that there aren't any fucking Ghoulies in it. Instead, it makes the bizarre choice of being a supernatural police thriller that sells itself as a sequel to the first Ghoulies (1985).

As a Jim Wynorski movie, however, it's weirdly competent but not crazy/trashy enough? Very out of character in that it feels like it's slightly too low budget to be a forgotten TV movie, instead of freak B-movies. Hell, it isn't even that horny outside of dommy statanist's outfit. Zero nudity, either; like Wynorski, are you okay? Blink twice if you need help.

It would be way less confusing if we just cut all ties to 1 and had this be a standalone non-sequel. I only realised it was even the same guy as 1 from the flashback footage. That's also the only time any Ghoulies appear in the movie. No, Tony Cox & friend in their goblin outfits who get to quip once every 20 minutes don't count.

There's definitely charm here, but I'm not sure for who this would be worth not skipping.

IT'S A MONKEY MARCH M-M-M-MIDWEEK BONUS. We actually went to watch a completely different monkey movie, but wasn't able to source it, so went with this, as it's more or less the exact same movie.

Starts very strong, but does not maintain that energy, getting real sleepy in the back half.

Tries to juggle too many things and ends up ignoring all of them. Like we have all these circus performers with unique powers, and we have them do exactly one thing and then never do anything again.

Also, Pat Morita is here? He leads a secret ninja village that teams up with the chimp - yes it's unbelievable that this is somehow boring. The depiction of the secret ninja village is somehow not racist, but I guess the concept of there being a secret ninja village in modern day does end up wrapping round to being a little racist again.

Please enjoy this clip. It comes out of nowhere, refuses to end, and then nothing like this ever happens in the movie again. This is not a talking animal movie.

Importantly, it's all available on YouTube directly from the studio!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVzzzT03kM8

Don't watch this, though.

A lot of very neat visuals and effects sequences, swinging up there with 1, but extremely wonky script. It's a bizarre choice to make a sequel to 3 where we very quickly kill off all the remaining characters from 3, and then have the main character from 3 just doom all the new characters for no real reason, making the whole thing feel kinda pointless?

Though Patricia Arquette has been replaced with a different actor, with the new protagonist (who really just out final-girl mogged her into becoming the protagonist) slowly morphing into her, it is very on brand for there to be two Patricia Arquettes.

Suffers from an extreme lack of build up for really any of the new characters. Not much I can say on this without getting into spoilers, even though there isn't really much of anything to spoil in things like this.

Despite it's script issues, however, the visuals do a LOT of heavy lifting, and do carry it into being worth watching. Some of these sequences are real neat, even if towards the end it starts to get a little confusing as to where anyone is spatially.

Also some neat character work here and there. Probably the strongest protagonist when she actually gets to shine, but the script is often getting in the way of that. At least she gets SOME time to shine, unlike in 3.

Sadly we don't have a direct Lynch link this time, but in an extremely weird turn, despite Badalamenti not composing this one but composing 3, a lot of the creepy ethereal music in this sounds extremely Twin Peaks?

Excited for 5. Maybe that's optimistic.

It's okay, but way too long with way too little going on. Kinda not much really to say about this one.

You'd think with the plot part of the conflict would be class tension based, but no, instead there isn't really much of any conflict. Or stakes. Or themes. Hell, there's not much even in the way of plot, really.

I get big "this gets put on the TV in the background on Christmas Day" energy from this, and I don't know why.

Apparently on release people got confused/mad at the modern licensed music, and while it didn't bother me as I am not insanely lame, I do kind of understand why: it doesn't put it's camp foot forward, sitting kind of strange tonally, until you get fully acclimated. It's kinda like how I didn't really get what kind of tone Jennifer's Body (2009) was going for until it had been a bit.

The love interest's 2001-ass hair and clothing was making me unreasonably annoyed. I'd post a screenshot but I'd have to open the film again and I don't wanna see that shit.

Extremely skippable.

AKA 2.

While ultimately a weaker version of the exact same movie, this one paces it's crazy a lot better instead of heavily front-loading it all, but it's nowhere near enough to save it.

Nic Cage actually does get to do a trademark "Nic Cage morb out" in this one, where he has to make a scene in a snooty London building.

Also, big fan of the main character drama in this being everyone annoyed at Nic Cage for being a Gary Stu.

There's a bit in this where he "kidnaps" the president (by getting him interested in a dusty basement, him telling his bodyguards to go away, and then quickly locking the door), which led to a lengthy argument of what exactly constitutes kidnapping.

Like, surely there's like a minimum amount of time it has to be for it to be kidnapping, right? Like if you shove someone in the boot of your car, and then immediately take them out - that's just assault, right? So how long do you need to have them in the boot for it to be kidnapping? Do you also have to travel a minimum distance?

I thought I'd saw this as a kid without having seen 1? There's a very specific scene, in a specific location, at a specific angle, with specific lighting I remember, where they talk about how cool it was that he did that shit in 1, but that scene doesn't seem to exist, so I'm not sure if I saw this or not? I don't know what the hell else I could be confusing it with. One of those The Librarian movies, maybe???

It doesn't suck, but don't watch this. One of the all time most skippable movies.

MONKEY MARCH PT.III. This was THE big swing of the month, and was unexpectedly kinda neutral on it.

Another extremely normal French movie, in that it's a Chimpanzee cuckolding movie. This was originally a joke, but no, it does kinda turn into him wanting to watch women bang this chimp (especially his wife) - which thankfully never actually happens, but we get real close.

Bestiality aside (a segway I can't say I've used before), this is like actually an artistic movie exploring the concept of love and attraction. It's very much in the camp of "absurd premise played entirely straight", and there's a lot in subtleties of emotion, so it is by no means anywhere near as crazy as it sounds outside of the concept.

I don't know if I could recommend this movie to anyone, but it is decent at what it's attempting to do.

Very dull and very ugly. I also do not remember it looking like that? I remember watching the start of this as a kid, and I remember it looking like a regular movie, but fuck me is this thing brown and CGI.

I've never seen another movie that looks so much like Avalon (2001), but there the uncanny visuals are used as part of exploring it's themes. Here, we aren't doing anything like that - or at all! It's just using the film serial throwback aspects as an aesthetic coat of paint.

What something like this really needs is a fun villain, but they don't appear at any point as we advance through the plot. This was confusing, until we have the reveal at the end, that - and you don't care about spoilers for this - the villain was dead the whole time, making the entire plot feel completely pointless.

Would be a great movie for an old guy to fall asleep to.

Do not watch this. Do, however, watch Avalon (2001).

This is the kind of movie that makes you hate movies. Brain-melting combination of completely mediocre and insanely annoying.

It has a "Jekyll & Hyde" set-up, but it genuinely plays out a lot closer to The Substance (2024) - but instead of "hot younger you", it's just regular Eddie Murphy. He isn't even really that villainous until the end.

Also turns out this is a remake of a 60s movie, because every like 2nd 90s movie with a budget I watch seems to be this.

Was losing my mind with how insanely long every family dinner scene goes on for. I started yelling at screen for sweet release.

At one point we have this wonderful ear worm of a needle drop, and I have not since known peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTbglsNi5xA

I will not be watching the sequel.

It's alright! Right off the bat, the title annoys me. This is a snake movie. Like 2 minutes in they go "no, no: 'worm' as in 'wyrm'". Get that worm shit out of the title.

It's mostly a little too slow, small scale and uneventful, but every now and again there's an extremely cool drug-induced vision sequence that lasts about 10 seconds. I won't show a clip of one of these, as for one, it's very unrepresentative of the movie as a whole, and also they're all extremely explicit - these are not visions of nice things.

Extremely fun villain. The film often gets billed as a horror comedy - and it isn't - but she definitely is full on in camp horror comedy territory. A lot very on the nose "yes I'm a snake person" bits.

As an English person, man are these are some fucked up English accents. I'm guessing it's like, posh north? I think?

I definitely prefer Crimes of Passion (1984), and I'm definitely exited to check out more Ken Russell films in future.

MONKEY MARCH PT.IV. American/South Korean giant monster movie. It sucks.

Excruciatingly dull and stuffed full of repeated shots of stock footage. It's not uncommon to see the same shot of stock footage like 6 times in a single scene.

Do not watch this.

Here is the one singular highlight of the movie:

It is extremely funny that there's a couple shots of the guy in the ape suit actively apprehensive about potentially getting hurt in the upcoming shot, and they just use those takes.

Right, so there's this B-plot of white actress lady coming to SK to film a movie, and every single scene we see them filming is a horrific rape scene; like, EVERY one. This is the tonal equivalent of a head-on collision, and I cannot fathom why you would have it be something this heavy and not something light and fun. It should've been filming something like a dumpy giant ape movie that then gets interrupted by the actual giant ape.

Like, when he kidnaps the white woman (because I guess that's what giant apes do), she's running and screaming for help, so from the ape's point of view he's basically saving her.

There's also no way that the film was doing this on purpose; and even if it was, you still shouldn't make it something so heavy.

Do not watch this.

Going in, I'd heard everyone say this sucked, so was worried, but it really doesn't suck. It's a very mixed bag.

Kinda similar to 4 in that, while there's a lot of very neat visual effects sequences, the script is very messy. Compared to 4, while I think this script trips up on more things, it's a much bigger swing than 4, which was a less interesting version of the previous film.

I actually really like how they handle the dream logic in this, but what I don't like is that it's almost never in an actual dream? They claim "oh the fetus is dreaming" which doesn't really work. You can't have "guy who does shit to you in dreams" just start doing shit to you outside of dreams.

Speaking of, I forgot to mention this for the last film, but we keep adding more and more origin story lore to Krueger, but we still don't have any details on how he went from IRL guy to dream demon? Like, go into that, I don't care how we was born unless it was demon-y. Why is he a demon now? That's the important bit here.

A recurring complaint I'd heard about this one was "oh why doesn't she just get an abortion, that would clearly just solve everything", but like it really is not presented in a way where that's on the table. Like, the mechanics aren't too clear, but even if it would, it's essentially the trolley problem. In dreams we see the kid old enough to talk, and it's not a creepy evil kid, it's just a regular kid.

Like I assumed that the kid would actually be Freddy, but it isn't, it's just a fetus that Freddy is influencing somehow? It would make much more sense if the fetus was just Freddy, instead of her getting pregnant in just a normal regular way somehow reviving Freddy, who can then influence the world through the fetus.

There is the single parent aspect of it, which it definitely would've benefited from having more "could you actually take care of this kid" drama, but let's not get ahead ourselves with the 5th Nightmare on Elm Street movie.

Also, man these returning NoES protagonists need to stop being so sociable. Like, you're just getting these people killed, you gotta start being a loner.

Starting to get anxious about the series now.

Freddy mpreg poster (apologies for watermark, best version I can find).

MONKEY MARCH PT.V, THE EXCITING FINALE.

Being a George Romero movie, was worried that this would be too much of an actual movie for B-movie night, but I was incorrect.

It's okay? It's got a few severe issues holding it back, but it's a very entertaining hang-out movie. Also way less horror than that poster would suggest. Epic cymbal monkey is not in the film.

It leaves so little explanation as to how the protagonist and the monkey is linked that we still weren't really sure what the mechanics were by the end? Like, this is a world where paraplegics are given guide monkeys, and this is normal; sure. We're out of monkeys, so my evil scientist friend will give me the monkey that's secretly on The Substance; sure.

Like the entire problem is entirely just the evil scientist friend not telling them that the monkey was on The Substance. If it was just a regular monkey, everything would be fine?

Also - and this is very important for a thriller - it is impossible to be intimidated by a Capuchin. You just can't do it. And this leads to a very untense climax, which is the opposite of what you want. In Link (1986) the orangutan is genuinely very threatening, but in this it's hard to not feel like you could easily 1v1 this monkey.

For any Northern Exposure heads in the crowd, Maggie's here! Not in it much, but she's here.

Honestly I straight up just did not recognise her at first, so I thought there was a plot point that was not there where he was cheating on his partner pre-paralysing accident. Instead, we do very little with her.

I get and like the concept of him succumbing to more and more anger due to the frustration of his new life, but we don't communicate this too well. Instead, he kinda just comes off a huge asshole who yells at women a lot.

Or I think possibly the monkey being near him is giving him rage? It's really not clear. Could also be both: Twin Peaks rules.

I don't know if I recommend this. Doesn't quite stick the landing of what it's trying to do, and there's definitely more fun hangout films.

Tune in next week for the start of AVIAN APRIL. Just kidding. Had you going for a moment.

3rd watch. It is an absolute hot mess, but I think I love this movie.

Despite the plot reaching light speed in the back half, it's still followable - provided you're already familiar with the plot.

A large part of the issue is that, even in the early stretch where there is some semblance of pacing, we drop a lot of key jargon without ever giving context for what the fuck that is if you don't already know. And then we treat all the new things we add in the same way.

The start is especially rough, where we open on non-stop jargon and plans of what we're going to do later to a faction we haven't met yet. Like, for some reason, instead of starting by introducing Paul on Caladan and having the box, etc., we choose to start in the deep end by showing the Emperor conspiring with the guild, telling you plot beats that are going to happen later. We see even see a hideous sentient squid monster before we see Paul.

I really like all the new additions. The weirding modules are great, as aside from being flashy with a lot of impact, it also addresses an issue in the book, where we don't start with the Fremen overpowered and actually have Paul having something to offer them outside of being a messiah figure.

Speaking of addressing issues in the book, we actually have the fucking water of life scene! It doesn't just happen off screen! I will never let this go!

I forgot that this kind of just doesn't end? Like we go to confront the Emperor, make it rain, and then just hard cut to credits without establishing where we're going from here?

On that note, the main issue (aside from all the Fremen being white) is we have a complete lack of "btw he's an impending space Hitler" which misses the main takeway of the book (even if the book itself doesn't stick the landing on this).

In it's typical messy ways, we actually do mention it exactly once early on, and then it's never brought up again. We also do the same with mentioning the Fremen plan to terraform Arrakis exactly once early on, but that's absolutely a sub plot you should cut in a film adaptation.

The baron is so fucking good in this. Completely puts the Villeneuve one to shame.

Feyd should've just been cut. He appears like, 3 times throughout the whole film? He only has like two lines?

The OST is fantastic. Another area where it puts the Villeneuve one to shame.

Kyle Machlachlan is really good as Paul. Does a much better job than the villenue version at portraying Paul at the various stages of the character arc. This is at the cost of no "impending space Hitler" Paul, but the Villenue version jumps from 0 to, like, 7.

Finaly, the voice. I get why it's garbled demon voice in the movies - it's very flashy and standout, but in the book it's like a very subtle jedi mind trick, which is a lot more interesting. If it was me, I'd try representing the voice with an extreme mouth close up. Maybe some reverb on the audio or something.

3rd watch. Some might say this is the greatest movie ever made.

Gonna be honest I forgot to write this one. Here's the entire body of the last review I wrote:

wonderful movie

style gushing from every pore to the point where it's ended up with this weird reputation of being a very unrealistic depection of hackers and hacking, but really it isn't - it's just extremely hightened and visual

some nice background meat about the generational divide and the rise of computer literacy, but it's by no means a focus

i will say on rewatch however, the whole "two viruses" part of the script gets a little convuluted and unnecersarry

I thought these later ones were meant to suck? No, really; I'm yet to see one these that wasn't at least decent. Even if the scripts start to get a bit shaky, or here where it gets a bit too Loony Tunes in places, it's still all pretty good as far as fun, creative, 80s (now 90s) horror goes.

We finally, FINALLY add some backstory as to how he went from IRL guy to dream demon guy; but then we keep adding more and add that he had a wife and kid and white picket fence and no that's too far now, what are we doing?

Probably the weakest protagonist in any of these? She just doesn't have much presence. It's very much a case of taking a side character, then halfway through going "Surprise! They were actually the main protagonist the whole time!"

While we don't have a Twin Peaks link in terms of cast, we do have a direct name drop!

Speaking of that segment, we add this whole weirdo town with weird people acting weird, and I really don't think this works in the series. Everything needs to be kept to Freddy-related interference (even if it's goofy). Adding in a bunch of Harvester (1996) NPCs feels much too left field.

Ending is very anti-climactic, but unlike 1 at least it fucking ends. It's kinda crazy how every one of these (apart from 2 I guess?) go "RIGHT now we've killed him FOR REAL" and then he just gets up again in the next one.

I'm honestly not sure why these are all disliked so much? Like, I get I'm a weird clumsy low budget aficionado, but they don't feel that different from the ones with prestige.

At the end of all of these I usually say that I'm worried for the next one, but fuck it, I'm actively looking forward to New Nightmare now. I bet it'll be fantastic.

Got duped by the poster. This thing sucks. Ultra generic, barebones 2005 action adventure. I genuinely had no idea what the villains goals were at any point of the movie.

It's sort of a National Treasure (2004) clone but not enough to end up anything like it. It makes sense when you're watching it, okay?

Right, there's so there's some solar-powered secret factory deep in the desert, where the villains are making… something? And whatever they're making produces a lot of toxic waste as a byproduct, so they put all the toxic waste barrels in one room in the back, which will POISON THE GLOBE IN ONE WEEK. And the CIA doesn't seem too bothered by that?

The toxic waste poison also causes some of the nearby villages to gain zombie curse eyes like it's Resident Evil 5 (2009), but this doesn't really come up again after the start. Maybe also like RE5, I've not played that one.

They spend the whole movie looking for this fucking boat we don't care about, and then we drop that as we move onto the toxic waste plant plotline. But then at the end of the movie, we accidentally stumble onto that fucking boat, and there's just zero fanfare whatsoever? Like not even a single line that's like "oh hey, here's that fucking boat we spent the whole movie looking for".

Continue to ignore this.

While ultimately a weaker version of the exact same film, there's some neat new stuff here and there. The most important of which is a The Smiths needle drop. Sure, italo-horror movie, why not?

Still just a zombie movie, btw. No reason for this to be called "Demons".

There being no set up to why the demons are crossing over the TV screen in this one weirdly ends up adding greatly to atmosphere, as it turns it into "what if you were watching something spooky at night and it became real". And leaves the movie feeling very nightmare-like.

You could argue the first one does this too, but there's a world of difference between "cinema with an entire audience" and "alone in your room watching TV".

At one point there's a kid zombie who looks exactly like the chicken jockey in A Minecraft Movie (2025), so that was a big "frantically point at the screen" moment.

Once the pregnant woman successfully 1v1s the chicken jockey, a little rubber puppet demon emerges from him, and it's great! This thing is like genuinely intimidating, and definitely would be the kind of thing that would've haunted me for years had I seen it as a kid.

This also brought up the question of whether this would be a new mechanic added to the formula - making it less of just a zombie movie by having a 2nd form they turn into.

Turns out, no, this is the only time it happens. This is a giant missed opportunity, but at the same time doesn't seem that feasible with the budget we're working with.

Speaking of the pregnant woman; it's a pregnant woman in a horror movie: there's gonna be something fucked up with this baby, right? And she gets slashed by that rubber puppet demon from before, so there's GONNA be something fucked up with this baby, right?

So at the climax of the movie she goes into labour, and… it's just normal baby. Like, everything's just fine. I couldn't tell if this was an on-purpose subversion or not, as we never REALLY foreshadow that something might be fucked up with the baby, like that's just genre familiarity, but it does lead to the ending being hopeful instead of being depressing and dark, which really IS genre subversion.

It does lose the ability to recognise every zombie from earlier in the movie like 1 had, but 1 was only able to achieve that through a small cast of distinct characters, so it's much more a case of 1 going above and beyond than a failure in 2.

Probably check this out if you enjoyed 1.

Another DCOM. Weirdly these seem to keep getting better?

This has been on the hangout movie wheel long enough for to forget that this is an absolute scam movie, as we very quickly leave Hawaii to go to Vermont, because - surprise: it's actually a snowboarding movie. Snowboarding movie with a strange snow sports-based class tensions undercurrent.

What saves it from being the trite that it otherwise very much should be is that it's impossible to tell where this one's going. We keep violently whipping from plot to plot, and we only introduce the big competition at the end in the last like 12 minutes.

At one point we're suddenly in Hawaii again, as the two main characters state that they were stowaways on a military plane? Huh???

Also, why the fuck would you have a film named "Johnny Tsunami" where the main character is named "Johnny" but he's not the titular "Johnny Tsunami"? Johnny Tsunami is actually his surf bum grandad, who is ultimately a minor supporting character. A good like 50% of user reviews are people saying the grandad is hot.

I don't remember how many of these are left on the wheel.

Woof.

This is the thing that everyone always says about it, but fuck me this thing is hideous looking. It is rancid looking. And I mean generally, not just the titular Alita.

I do get the idea behind making her face like that in contrast to everyone else - especially when we have a flashback and there's other people who look like her, but aside from looking terrible, it's in direct conflict with her being way higher tech than the other cyborgs.

It's other main issue is the script. It's kinda just snippets of the start of the manga with zero flow, leading to a lot of pacing issues and just a complete lack of any climax or conclusion.

As I've no familiarity with the source material, I found it impossible to work out the hierarchy of villains when they all keep arguing and shutting each other down. Was also never clear what Jennifer Connelly's deal is, and then a character opens a box to reveal that she has been reduced to just a brain and eyes.

I do not understand the rules of the sport at all. Every time it's played it seems like a different sport.

I will say, though - credit where credit is due - Christoph Waltz is perfect casting as Ido. Never feels like he knows where he is (and who can blame him), but he looks exactly like the character.

This was - no lie, no exaggeration - the only film I've ever seen that almost made me pass out.

It is so excruciatingly dull for it's entire runtime, and then right at the end we have a full on jump scare when the pet rat jumps out, and fucking hell it got me more than any jumpscare has ever gotten me. Then, about a second later, my vision started to darken and I could feel my head begin to droop. It was quickly fine after that, but that was the closest I've been to passing out in many years.

The tone is not at all what you would think it would be. Rather than fun and whimsical, like something like Night at the Museum (2006), it's like a dark existential nightmare. And I know that gets thrown around whenever there's something dark in a kids film, but a large chunk of this film is arguing about the mechanics and ethics of animating these toys. At one point the main toy solemnly looks down at his feet and exclaims "there is no God".

If it wasn't so painfully dull, I could recommend this as a weird movie since it's tone is so dark, but as it stands, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.

It's okay. Probably kinda sucks, actually, but it's likeable enough to mostly get away with it.

Fair warning, this is going to reference US politics a lot, as that's kinda the whole meat with this.

This thing has aged like fucking milk into the 2nd Trump presidency, and it honestly makes this pretty hard to watch. The villain is straight up just a guy doing a Trump impression, and it's an extremely white-washed, smarmy liberal portrait of Trump, to boot.

He's a big smelly dumb-dumb meanie with big smelly dumb-dumb followers and is also following all the laws and rules? Not black-bagging civilians to foreign gulags? Not siccing unidentified gestapo on immigrant families in the process of trying to follow procedure?

The main way this issue manifests in the story is how we handle clones. We establish there's a law to prevent exploitation where you can only have one of a person at a given time, and everyone just follows the law no exceptions? Even the fash-coded expedition cult? The main conflict is that we accidentally break this rule, and nothing bad even really comes of it?

Speaking of clones, the premise is that we can make infinite clones of people, and we only ever do it a handful of times with one guy in a montage at the start, and then never again. This concept of "you cannot die permanently" essentially goes unused.

It's very unfocused throughout the middle chunk, until we suddenly remember we set up the main conflict early in the movie. However, this end conflict ends up being so simple and straightforward that it takes the wind out of the whole thing.

Skip.

Quintessential 80s B-movie.

I don't know if this is true but it definitely feels like the most nudity I've ever seen in a film. It's like every 2 minutes they go "right, clothes off", to the point where it starts being funny.

Speaking of, a lot of "a man definitely wrote this" dialogue. Outside of obvious horn-dog stuff, there's also stuff like "what if they liked James Bond movies like I do".

The protagonists look fucking IDENTICAL for most of it. We genuinely could not tell the two apart early on in the movie. They both have identical hair, identical builds, very similar faces and identical outfits. It was like The One (2001) all over again.

Please watch this scene. There is no additional context that can be given.

Surprisingly, there's a drag character in this and it's never weird about it? Completely misused, though. Like it's supposed to be a reveal where they remove their makeup to reveal that it was one of the villains the whole time, but that's the first time we ever see that supposed separate character, completely nullifying the reveal.

Must watch for genre fans.

Expected this to kinda suck, but you know what? It's charming.

Been playing through the Tony Hawk series for the first time and thought: "hey I should watch like a classic tropey skateboarding movie", and it's a fun time.

Tony Hawk is actually in this, doing some stunt work, but you can't really spot him or anything.

I'm surprised I didn't know about this film earlier honestly, because there's not one but TWO Twin Peaks links. Pamela Gidley (Teresa Banks in Fire Walk with Me), and Sherilyn Fenn. They share a lot of scenes, no less!

Very funny comparing how different the costuming is. I genuinely would not have recognised Gidley if not for recognising the actor thumbnail on Jellyfin.

Also the friend from NoES 2 is here! He's even gayer in this!

At one point the gangs meet up late night to fight and they're doing this "punching glove on a stick" joust thing, which feels like something a kids movie would do to be less violent, but also 20 minutes ago there was a full on sex scene, so idk what that's about.

Easy recommend if you're feeling a cheesy 80s skateboarding movie.

God fucking damn it, I was THIS close to actually liking an Argento film, and then even moreseo than Suspiria (1977) we end on a complete empty fart of a climax.

Honestly it's kind of just Suspiria (1977) again, but I think I enjoyed this more? I think? I'd have to rewatch Suspiria.

It - of course - shares the issue of both ITA and ENG audio tracks being bad overdubs that suck all the weight of the performances dry, but thankfully it affects this one less. Not sure how, either.

Alongside being a complete wet fish, the main character never knows what's happening at any point and nothing he does affects the movie in any fucking way. For fuck sake.

It's also really hard to tell who is who in relation to who, so there's a couple long stretches where we follow a character and we're not really sure who they are or how they fit into things.

There is a very cruel scene where cats are being drowned, and I while I'm not certain that any animals were harmed, I also do not trust an 80s Italian movie on this. He does immediatly get eaten by rats after this, though, which was very satisfying.

We also have a bunch of villains, that - right at the end - are revealed to not actually be the villains at all, and were just an unrelated 3rd party who had no idea what was going on! This makes everything much less interesting! Yes! I love it!

Right, why do user reviews keep claiming that it's a nonsense plot that makes no sense? I mean it doesn't end up anywhere meaningful, but outside of that this is a very simple and straightforward horror plot? If this doesn't make sense to you PLEASE keep away from that video of the train moving towards the camera, I don't think you could handle it.

I do really like the lighting and atmosphere, though! That is like the one thing I can categorically say is very good in this!

Man, do I just give up on Argento? Does he actually just suck outside of very nice stylized lighting?

Back in the DeCoteau mines for something that exceeds even brain melter.

Now, I am very against treating art objectively, but this is undoubtedly the single worst film I've ever seen.

Genre legends return for what can only be described as twunk x GILF bisexual purgatory.

It is so hyper repetitive that it actively feels like a scam to call this a movie. Not only are shots reused near constantly throughout the film, we also just repeat scenes for extended lengths of time. There are like four different scenes where one of the twunks lies fully on top of a bed in his underwear just rubbing his belly for four actual minutes. We timed it. Four actual minutes.

Please just watch this clip. Really encapsulates the whole experience.

Why was this made? The more I learn about it, the less it makes sense.

Right off the bat, I need to draw attention to the CGI. Everyone is very ugly in a very unappealing way, but a lot of the animation is very funny. Was crying with laughter during the Grendel fights.

Speaking of, Grendel has big Crispin Glover energy. The model reminds me of some ugly early 3D thing or maybe practical costume thing, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is.

So, the core of this is the character arc of Beowulf, and it's a complete failure. Like, it's supposed to be a Faustian deal, but there's only upside? I mean, sure, he feels a little sad every now and again (could've focused on this more) but the bad only happens to other people while he gets to the big hero at the end like he wanted the whole time.

So, obviously, I think "well this is going to be an issue from the source material", but no! This shit is all original! Turns out Beowulf is only important as it's the first time someone told a story about fighting a dragon or something!

"Angelina Jolie gold naked xenomorph" sounds like something a greasy pervert anxiously writes into an AI image generator while looking over their shoulder, but no it's here in a major motion picture! She also doesn't fit with the art direction at all? Instead of the regular ugly style, it's just hyperrealistic Angelina Jolie. I don't know what gooner dark magic they pulled, but before she starts moving the model actually looks pretty good.

On that note, this movie was unexpectedly extremely horny. Like I'm pretty sure there are more cleavage closeups than women with names.

Don't watch this. Maybe just watch the Grendel scenes.

2nd watch. I think I like it more now?

It's very Daria-core, but I somehow never made that connection until a friend pointed it out.

Might be an autism movie? It's a little hard to explain, but there's a lot that lines up.

Some best in class weird little side characters. Might be the peak of Will Forte's career.

Somehow doesn't come off anywhere near as problematic as it should? I think it's because it treats Birch as like an actual human being?

I will say there's a weird lack of Scarlet Johanson for how important their changing relationship is to the core of the movie.

I have no idea how people interpret the ending like that; like she literally says what it is earlier in the movie. Like, c'mon guys.

There's a couple of r-slurs here and there, but it's exclusively by the kids who suck in a movie about these kids who suck maturing. It gets off with a yellow card.

The friend I watched this with didn't get it, and I think it's because it's one of those things you need to watch for the first time at the right age, and we are now past that. I still think it's worth watching, but it'll be harder for it to resonate. Kinda like FLCL (2000).

Kinda wanna re-watch Wilson (2017) now. Maybe I'll finally watch Art School Confidential (2006), but always got a vibe from that one.

Absolute scam movie. It's presented as if it's Hackers (1995) with Sandra Bullock, but all the computer stuff boils down to "what if there was an icon in the bottom right of a program and if you right clicked it it showed you govonment secrats!!!!" and like one time where she types /whois in IRC.

So what it actually is is a "there's a conspiracy where my identity has been erased and I'm framed for something I didn't do" movie, which - while it has computer-y backgrounds - does not involve computers in the moment to moment. You need people to be on computers in your computers movie. Perhaps while One Love by The Prodigy plays.

Characterisation is completely off. She's meant to be this avoidant loner type, but it's just regular-ass completely normal Sandra Bullock.

Hard avoid. It's not unwatchable, or anything, but there's really nothing of note here. Apparently Bullock die hards like this, though? Just one of those mysteries of life, I guess.

Aside from some extra ripe 90s CGI, it's nowhere near as bad as it's reputation. Really, it's just a very mediocre super hero movie, with little of note.

There's multiple villains that are all trying to get one over on the others, but I did not get what any of their plans were. Like no one has any leverage, and they all kinda have the same goal?

John Leguizamo does not shut the fuck up at any point, like the entire movie is him doing his little quips and making reverb fart sounds. I get that this character shtick would work better in comic form, but oh my god when put in a movie where he's a main character with a lot of screen time, it is so gratingly annoying.

No real reason anyone should watch this.

It's alright. First 3rd sucks, then the back 2/3 have some neat stuff in them.

One of the most book-ish 80s horrors I've seen. So, of course, I went to look it up after, and it's a completely original script.

What I also found out after, was that this was written by Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost! There are some similarities, in-fact - but don't let that get your hopes up.

Was very apprehensive going into it, as like every single review was claiming that this is extremely racist. And like, I get a little bit, but not really. I have no doubt that this is absolutely misrepresenting African spiritual practices, but also those are the good guys we're rooting for, so for 80s it's basically progressive.

It really wants to include all these occult elements, but without a good enough reason to use these things in the first place. Like it kinda just ends up a really convoluted and ineffective plan to just kill one guy. Needed a little extra exposition to expand on this.

Extremely neat ending stretch, where we have a lot of spacial dream warping-about, not that dissimilar to the Twin Peaks finale. Knowing Mark Frost, this might also just be lifted straight from Aleister Crowley.

Unfortunately it falls in the exact gap of not failing enough to be a fun hangout movie, and not doing enough right to straight recommend as an atmospheric horror movie.

Maybe watch if you really like the supernatural elements of Twin Peaks and don't mind being underwhelmed.

AKA Wes Craven's New Nightmare AKA Nightmare on Elm Street 7.

Probably the most interesting film in the series? That doesn't mean it's the best, though. There's a lot here that's real good, but unfortunately all the main important stuff for something like this is kinda weak.

Extremely rare case where going full meta works. Probably because it's taken seriously while not thinking that doing this is making it very smart. Just playing it very straight.

Fantastic performance from Langenkamp. If I'm honest, I think she's a little mixed in 1, but here she's amazing.

Despite only really playing off the first one, it does feel like the more of the series you've seen, the bigger the payoff this feels like. Honestly you could go straight from 1 to this, but it works better the more familiarity with Freddy you have.

Unfortunately though, it's too preoccupied with doing cool meta stuff that they forgot that they were supposed to be making a supernatural slasher. The biggest victim of this is the kills. They're all just kinda very weak apart from that one that's a worse version of the one from 1.

The other victim, ironically, is Freddy himself. He's barely in it, and we sap him of his characterisation and give him a generic regular voice. So you think, "okay, this is a more grounded Freddy for this darker film, got it", but then we get to the end showdown with Freddy and it's back to Looney Tunes shit, so it kinda ends up as being the worst of both worlds.

It's biggest issue however is that's too long. It's almost 2h, and with the way ti's paced it feels like it's all just setup until the last 20 minutes. I'm a firm believer that slashers should only ever be 90 minutes.

Kid could probably be toned down a little; he's a bit much. Again starts to lean a little goofy, would work better to be a bit more subdued.

Gigantic missed opportunity to not kill Robert Englund on screen. He might not've even died? We have the death flag, but then he kinda just dips from the movie? Not sure what's going on there.

So that's us done with the series. The plan was to watch them until they got bad, but like they kinda just never did? Overall the series is pretty great, like even at it's lowest it's always offering a lot of fun creative film making. The later ones are over-hated, for sure.

I'm avoiding the remake, as I can whole-heartedly believe that a 2010 remake is unwatchable, but we will be checking out Freddy vs. Jason (2003) at some point after a brief revisit to that series with P8.

Man Linda Blair really had a weird career after The Exorcist (1973), huh?

My first - and likely last - foray into the "women in prison" genre. Found out after that it was an American/West German production, and that is extremely unsurprising given the contents of this film.

I also technically did not watch all of it, but I'll get to that.

I expected this to be like campy toxic yuri or something, but it's just a dark miserable time. Again, West German. There isn't even really any lezzing out outside of a couple lines of dialogue? Like I thought that was the point of these?

Every other scene is Blair snitching to a different person about a different thing, how does this not end with her getting stabbed like Ceaser.

She's also not miscast as a badass like in Savage Streets (1984), but this ends up being a big negative, as the film is a lot less fun because of it.

Right, so: whenever there's about to be a kill or a sex scene, we cut extremely hard - like "half-assed TV edit" hard. But this is a "women in prison movie", there is no shot in hell that this had a TV edit, and I can't find any reference to there being one.

And while I'm very much used to cheapo movies using extremely hard cuts to get around showing kills that they do not have the budget for, it felt strange for the sex scenes, as it kills the pacing of scenes.

Also, when trying to source this - as often when trying to source obscure films - I ended up with two copies, so we watched the one with better video quality.

Turns out, this version had a shorter running time, so yes, this ended up being a censored cut.

So I've technically not watched the whole film, but catching up on what I missed would essentially involve watching a rape montage, and I am not doing that.

Not recommended. Obviously.

This thing fucking sucks, but it does have one or two good jokes hidden in there. I think I saw this as a kid? I genuinely have no memory of anything outside of maybe the intro where Jason Statham is in the film for 2 seconds and has no lines?

Almost all of the jokes themselves in isolation are actually fine, but it's joke-a-minute style jokes that are stretched out as long as gratingly possible, and it just burns all the humour away. Naked Gun this is not.

Plot is insultingly bare-bones. We have literally one single suspect (outside of the one intended to be the incorrect one), and surprise surprise, it's them. The titular ring is barely ever mentioned. You'd think a movie called The MacGuffin would center on The MacGuffin, but no, it's solely a murder mystery. The ring does not factor into anything at any point.

At one point we need Steve Martin to have a win, so we introduce this James Bond character who does an epic action moment and makes it look like Steve Martin did it - which you'd think would be setting something up for later in the movie - but this James Bond guy is never even mentioned again.

Also this is your classic "higher up purposefully puts dumb guy who's going to fail in charge so the thing fails", but it does not make sense how him failing in the case benefits the boss at all? It's not like he wants rid of him, we fucking bus him in. It's not like "ooh, actually, we can swoop in and take the credit now that he's succeeded" because he doesn't fucking achieve anything.

This is also a PG movie that has a scene where the protagonist goes to take viagra in preparation to have sex. PG movie. What.

Do not watch this. Hamburger.

It's okay, but like surprisingly okay, as I was very worried this would be a dull bomb.

This is yet another "I've been tricked into watching something on the basis that it has Twin Peaks similarities that turn out to be false", but this one has some legs to it.

While watching it, I thought "ehhh, it's probably just a coincidence", but when reading the synopsis it seems like there's no way this wasn't the ENTIRE basis for Twin Peaks. In practice however, those elements are kinda minor/executed poorly, and combined with the twist (spoiler, there's a twist) it shoots the notion dead completely.

So I left thinking it was probably just one of those weird little coincidences, but looked into it, and no, there's a whole bunch of character names in this that are in Twin Peaks, and Twin Peaks loves using really on-the-nose references in character names .

The twist at the halfway point honestly kinda kills the tension of the movie entirely, but then it manages to claw it's way back up, which is very impressive. Rare you see a film recover from that.

Laura kinda doesn't have much presence, honestly. There's also a LOT of flash back footage with Laura, which kills the mystique they're trying to set up with the character. The reason Laura Palmer works so much in Twin Peaks is because we do not ever see directly, we entirely see her in either recorded footage or through people speaking about her being this big impactful figure. Laura in Laura is kinda just "office worker who men faun over".

I'm only half joking when I say this, but might be the first film to give a woman agency?

Very watchable for a 40s movie, also. More watchable than a lot of 60s movies I've seen, honestly.

Maybe watch this.

Very very okay. Some parts are very bad, but there are some fun crazy moments to (try) and balance it out.

Unfortunately, it front-loads almost all of it's crazy, so it ends up not crazy enough for most of it.

I was not expecting how creepy this would be. The opening is his partner dying, and then he becomes the carer for his little sister, but then we timeskip and treat this as a romantic relationship? Yes: that is them on the poster. Yes: it's real weird.

Not sure if the anime is like this, but I would not be surprised.

Also I'm not sure if this is a mistranslation but this might be another incest film? I swear to god this is not on purpose, I don't know how this keeps on happening.

A lot of Looney Tunes hitting women in this. Like, a LOT. Quickly gets very uncomfortable.

Jackie Chan is also extremely miscast as the lead in this. There's not enough fight scenes to justify him in that role. Like, I do not buy him as womanising pervert, he only works as funny little guy.

Surprising amount of white people in this. Every so often we'd go "oh hey, look, there's another one."

This is the film with the famous "Jackie Chan street fighter" scene, and thank God - I was falling asleep towards the end of this, and that Street Fighter scene gave me a 2nd wind.

Probably skip this.

It's okay, but a bit too low energy with way too little happening. By far the best parts are when it gets blisteringly 2001. This might be the most 2001 movie there is.

I think Angelina Jolie is very mis-cast. I understand why you'd cast her as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, but she's just not believable as a posh English person. She also acts like how you'd have the brash American act to contrast to the more prim and proper British person. Cannot do the accent, either.

The flip side of this is Daniel Craig, who for some ungodly reason is doing an awful American accent. Why not just have him be English?

Speaking of guys who are in this, Rimmer's here! He's in it a weirdly little amount, as he kinda just evaporates after the beginning, and they can't quite make up their mind how they want to characterise him.

It was kinda refreshing to have the villain be the Illuminati. You don't hear much about them, these days, huh? I guess that conspiracy has just been completely displaced by "deep state" crap, which is less funny and like 500 times more dangerous.

Jaw dropped at this end-card. God bless 2001, man.

AKA Danger USA. I think I've seen both titles used equally, but Mind Trap is more accurate, as this is real brain melter shit.

This is one of those films where we saw the poster mid conversation, and had to just drop everything to figure out what's going on there.

After watching it, I still don't get what "total mind seduction" is referring to. I mean it definitely sold me on the film, like I get definite Videodrome (1983) vibes, but that is not the movie.

It's actually closer to Inland Empire (2006), but unlike Laura Dern, the protagonist knows when she's in something fictional or not. The audience, however, does not know.

So this is a movie industry/cold war political thriller, except we have no money to do any of this with. Everyone is chasing this secret experiment dream scanner room, to make sure it can't be used to sway the cold war, but it turns out if you go to use it it just fucking kills you instantly; so, whatever.

Everyone is SO gullible in this movie. Like every character just believes every lie they're told immediately, which is real funny in a political thriller.

Also, some of the ADR I've seen. Every like 5th line is like this.

If this had money behind it, there's like a 60% chance it'd actually be really good.

Can probably recommend this as a brain melter B-movie.

It's alright I guess? Starts off pretty great, but then kinda fizzles out as it goes along.

Stop calling this a A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) ripoff, this is way less supernatural than it is presented as being. "Slasher in a psych ward" is not unique to NoES3. Does share cast, though - the protagonist is in both films. I do not remember who she was in NoES3 (gotta be one of the kids), and it's funnier if I don't look it up.

Coincidentally it has the exact same main issue of NoES3, in that the young female protagonist is given nothing to do, and then one of the psych ward doctors takes over the role of protagonist. Similarities kinda end there, though.

Aside from this, it has the Videodrome (1983) issue of where it starts being way more interesting than where it ends. Like there's some good, fairly unique meat here, with the protagonist being a surviving member of a suicide cult that does not regret their time.

Like when she wants to leave, and they ask where she'd go, given she has no family, she just goes "idk, probably join another death cult". I've not seen these explored in another movie. Probably exists, not really a Jonestown head, but I am a low budget slasher head.

Eyebrows from Ski School (1991) is here! Shockingly good performance. You wouldn't think it from the character, given that he's the sleazeball function of the party, but he gets a scene to pop off and boy does he.

Tommy Pickles is also in this! Tommy Pickles is very sad in this film.

Let out a huge laugh at this end card. I've been blessed with some extremely funny end-cards as of late.

I'm very against objective numerical ratings, but this is textbook "3 out of 5" stuff. If you're a fan of these kinds of movies, you'll find it at least okay.

Despite the reputation this has, it is very much above average for the series, but still has a lot of very big issues.

The elephant in the room is that this is a scam movie. Manhattan is only in the last 25 minutes, he only kills like 4 people there, and only two scenes are recognisably Manhattan. The rest are random dark back-alleys that definitely weren't filmed in Canada. Ignore how all these one-line characters are extremely Canadian.

So what it actually is, is a boat slasher. A boat full of people, like so many people, yet Jason is walking around the boat the whole time not finding anyone. Like honestly, the scenes of him looking for people to kill are like when you're struggling to find a specific item in a supermarket. There's SO many people on this boat, and he's just never running into anyone.

So, after he kills like 3 people, we turn around to the main cast and go "right, you're the last 5 left". What the fuck happened everyone else?

In a nice twist, it actually has characters know there's a threat for most the film, which is always my biggest issue with most slashers.

Honestly my biggest issue with this is the pacing - going to Manhattan at the end decimates the energy. You wan to start big, open and fun, and then over the course of the film, we close the threat in on our characters, ending somewhere closed off and claustrophobic, with no options. This film does the complete inverse, and it's not in it's favour.

Kills are all weak, but at least it's not like 7 where they were actual kills that got ripped out of the movie due to censorship. Much better to have unsullied mid kills.

Speaking of, they revive him with electricity at the start of this one again, but like, he doesn't need to be revived? He (extremely minor spoiler) starts and ends 7 in the exact same state?

Also kinda weird that we split up the protagonists trauma in to unrelated separate events?

We open on her having dead parents, and that she's haunted by a drowning child (Jason). From this, we guessed it'd be a reveal that she's actually his sister that's been hidden the whole time - it's part 8, they've held out long enough to start adding family members, would not have even minded.

But, no, turns out her uncle pushed her off a boat as a kid, and she got grabbed by kid Jason underwater, which isn't even metaphore, like in-universe he was just hanging out underwater all that time.

And then we add that - completely separately - her parents died in a car crash. Why not link these two things together? Like I get people can have multiple things happen to them, but this is the 8th entry in a cheapo slasher series, we need to keep our characters streamlined.

For the second time now, we kill him for real at the end. Turns out he's 4x weak to toxic waste? I mean, I guess no one tried that before. He also morphs into small boy when this happens, and we just leave him in the toxic waste. It feels like this should be thematic payoff, but we haven't really set anything up.

It's a little goofier than normal, which does lead to the fun bits being fun, but man the energy falls through the floor in the Manhattan chunk, and that's really what makes it a harder to recommend entry in an already hard to recommend series.

I'm genuinely really looking forward to Jason Goes to Hell. Nightmare on Elm street never got bad like I was told it did, so where else to look but the worm movie?

Childhood movie I saw exactly once.

It's alright; it's okay. Looks nice. Some of the fights are very well animated. Some of the jokes are funny. Really not much to say on this.

Will I watch any of the sequels? Probably not, no.

AKA Mobile Suit Gundam: G-Saviour

Wanted something lower energy after Mind Trap (1989). I remember seeing this once before as a teenager (when I was very into mech anime - hence the username), and thinking it was alright, and yeah, this is alright!

I thought I remembered most of this, but man I remembered like none of it.

It's biggest issue is that there's just nowhere near enough mecha for being mecha media. It's definitely a budgetary constraint, as this is cheapo Canadian TV territory, so maybe probably just a poor concept that shouldn't have been attempted.

What's little mecha there are is all CGI, which for '99: actually pretty good CGI?

We don't even see the Gundam until the halfway mark, at which point we instantly run away, and then like 5 minutes later our first big action scene is… shooting rocks? really?

Right, what the fuck does the light macguffin do? It's presented as the solution to the food shortage problem, but like, we don't elaborate on how? Is light really the bottleneck there? I remember I used to see a bunch of memes about how this all revolved around seaweed, but I don't remember seaweed ever being brought up.

At one point we thought "hey those look like Starship Troopers costumes" and turns out they actually just were; this was re-using some stuff from Starship Troopers (1997).

There's more funny moments in this than I expected, was kinda worried this was gonna be a dull slog, but it wasn't.

Probably easier to recommend to general B-movie fans as opposed to actual Gundam fans. Not much Gundam here, though it is hitting all the broad plot beats. Very specifically if you have a soft spot for cheapo late 90s sci-fi TV, maybe check this out.

It's alright. Not quite fun enough, but not quite low-energy either.

Way less gay than every review claims. There's a little bit of subtext/analogies, but only towards the end, and it's counter-balanced by being aggressively heterosexual whenever it's physically able.

Interestingly, though this film does say "gay" a couple times, Lost Boys is significantly gayer despite never directly saying anything.

Little world-building moment I liked where he awkwardly tries to buy pigs blood at the butchers (Vampires just drink pigs blood in this), and the butcher winks, saying "first time?".

Speaking of the pigs blood, very big fan of all the novelty drinks bottles they made for this.

Apparently if you're a fan of Robert Sean Leonard and queerbaiting you'll love this, though. I'm gonna be honest, I've never heard of the guy.

Pride month rating: too straight.

It's okay, but the script is a hot mess, and it really holds back the good here from shining. I'm surprised it's so well liked, like every review is glowing.

…but then you look closer, and every single review is just "the mom hot".

My only previous context for TAF was S1 of the Wednesday TV series (which I mostly liked, btw), but man these fuckers are so unlikable here. They're all just kind of aggressive contrarian dickheads without an arc?

This is aside from Christopher Lloyd, who is really the only likeable character - and he has a nice arc, but in terms of the conflict it's kind of the films main issue.

Like the set-up is "I'm gonna pretend to be their missing brother to steal from them", but he literally is the missing brother. It's not like a twist or reveal, either, like that's just clearly the fucking guy.

And this hurts the film so much because you need the contrast of "spooky weirdos vs lamo normies", it doesn't work when he's also a fucked up weird guy in the exact same way as the rest of the cast.

It also kinda just… starts? I was very lost for the first like 5-10 minutes of this with no context.

Twin Peaks link! Carel Struycken's in this!

Also the rare but ever appreciated not-SMG Buffy link! Baby Harmony is in this!

I don't really have a conclusion for this one.

Really liked this! Might be my favourite Scorsese? It doesn't really feel like him, stylistically, as it's very manic, but it's not like "white boy crashout" movies are unheard of for Scorsese.

It is sort of an edgy 90s Taxi Driver (1976) if you squint.

Was extremely worried it might be dour to the point of feeling wanky, but no, there's actually a lot of humour in this that balances it out, and importantly: makes the emotions feel much more human.

Going in, I thought that there was a big supernatural element, but there really isn't, it's pretty straightforwardly a movie about a paramedic in a burnout spiral.

There's a couple of textbook Nic Cage morb outs, but it's overall a good vehicle to actually getting good out of him.

At one point REM plays and, I don't know why, but I found that really funny.

Also can someone sort out Patricia Arquette's roots please. PLEASE.

On the one hand, roots changing from scene to scene is a very neat, subtle, cinematic flourish. On the other hand, I cannot see old grumpy straight guys thinking to do that. So who knows?

Highly recommended for Nic Cage fans or if you've ever experienced burnout, which has gotta be, like, every adult, right?

It's okay. Some fun highlights, for sure, but it's a bit of a slog. Much less of a "brain melter" than we thought it was going to be.

Speaking of assumptions, we assumed it was gonna be "housewives eat their cheating husbands", but no, they're cheating and then they eat their kids and shit.

It sounds like it might hate women, but it doesn't really come across that way. They get to queen out enough to offset it.

Doesn't entirely settle on a tone, and it really suffers for it. Does it want to be fucked up, or does it want to be funny and campy? You can only pick two out of three.

Now, I don't know if it's just because I've seen a lot of films like this that ARE also horny, but this really feels like it's missing an axis by not being at all horny. Food for thought. The food being people.

For genre fans, it doesn't suck, but it's hard to recommend. It's a couple rungs down on the iceberg, for sure.

It's okay. Unusually hard to put my finger on what the issue is here, outside of it having a really hard time figuring out what direction it wants to go in.

When I watched Mind Trap (1989), I said that if it had a real budget behind it, there was a 60% chance that it'd be really good. Well, this is that movie, and it did not hit that roll.

From the poster, it looks like a family adventure movie, but it isn't. Turns out, he's psychic (but it's never really used for anything), then it turns into a lab with a big dream machine, then it turns into a cold war movie, then it does actually turns into a family adventure for a bit, and then it turns into a government conspiracy movie.

There is no reason for Dennis Quaid to be psychic? Like, it's only ever used to shortcut not having to use a machine to jump into dreams. There's other ways to write that.

A couple of the dream sequences are very, very neat - especially the kids nightmare with the hyper stylised suburban house set. Sadly this only happens like twice in the movie, though.

We have the rare triple Lunch link with this one. Max von Sydow (coincidentally, called Paul in this), David Patrick Kelly AND Chris Mulkey from Twin Peaks. DPK's pretty great in this, actually; gets to be real psycho.

There's enough neat stuff in here that you could watch this.

Damn this really was just the exact same movie as the previous, huh? Slightly better than vs. King Kong, for sure - it's not as dull.

I remember Mothra doing more? She doesn't do shit, and then dies instantly, and then the rest of the fight is the two Mothra babies who can only do String Shot. I genuinely can't remember if I've seen the original standalone Mothra (1961) or not. I'm probably remembering subsequent Godzilla films with Mothra.

Way more of this centers on who owns the rights to the Mothra egg or not than it has any right to. Why can't Mothra just steal the egg back? Why are the fairy twins going through legal channels to get the egg back? Why is Mothra just suddenly introduced at the end with no fanfare?

I don't remember any of the rest of these just being the exact same movie, but I also don't remember them that well. I know at least the next one has aliens.

Very confusing watch. It's hard to figure out what exactly it's going for, and at the same time it feels like basically every 80s teen movie.

I guess it's like a "friends hanging out and just being girlies" at boarding school, but then we also have a plotline where the headmaster is selling under the table nude footage of the students, and it's never really treated with that much severity? I mean he gets arrested at the end, but it's treated like a white collar money crime or something. Also user reviews all say he was also selling coke, but I don't remember.

So, the premise is that there are two sisters who are new to this boarding school. One is the mean popular type, and the other is the underdog outsider type. Scroll back up to the poster and guess which sister is which?

Nope, incorrect. Patricia Arquette is actually neither sister - the 2nd one is not on the poster and is barely in the movie.

Despite only being a side character, this seems to have been marketed as a vehicle for PA, which is strange because this was only the 2nd movie she was in, releasing the same year as NoES3? Gotta be something I'm missing here.

Going back to user reviews, like every single one claims she's like the gayest gay character of all time, but like, she just wears very slightly less effeminate clothing and smokes a couple times? Folk are getting a little too comfortable with doing this.

The gayest it gets is honestly that poster where she's doing the Kevin James shrug in that outfit that is absolutely not in the movie. The same cannot be said about the protagonist, however. Her poster outfit is actually underselling it, like there's some extreme new romantic shit happening here.

Also there's a lot of male gaze-y nude shots that feel very out of place for the movie they're in. Like, who is this for exactly?

Probably don't watch this.

So, as I said last time, this is a complete scam movie. As scam movies go, however, it's a nice time that at least somewhat makes up for the scam.

We introduce the babysitter at the start of the movie, and then within like two minutes of her being introduced she dies. We drop her body off at the morgue, and then straight up do not revisit this at any point until an ending joke sting right before credits roll.

Instead, it's like a coming-of-age "girlboss lies about her qualifications to land a cushy job she has no right doing" movie, but it's a fun time.

And man, she doesn't do shit at that job. No, no, instead Lucy from Twin Peaks is given all the work, and she's never given any reward when the lie comes crashing down at the end!

Speaking of women who were in Twin Peaks, David Duchovny's here! This might be the most he's ever emoted! It shocks me still!

I won't say the romance beats aren't cute, but boy this BF sucks. They go on one (1) date, and then he starts getting real pushy about opening up about stuff she has communicated she does not want to talk about.

Instead of the obligatory "they make up and are fine again at the end", this also would've been a good addition to the coming-of-age story to have a relationship sour, but that's probably getting ahead of itself.

Again, as scam movies go, it's alright? You could watch this.

This is a point and click adventure game that, through some long-winded chain of butterfly effect events, manifested itself as a big budget studio movie.

It's the kind of thing that seems like it will absolutely have a big dumb twist ending that ruins it all, but it doesn't? It's pretty decent, actually. Bit sleepy when getting there, but it's neat.

Big fan of the Strangers being the perfect in-between of how the Harkonnens are portrayed in both Dune film adaptations.

Apparently everyone's mad about a voiceover at the start that gives everything away, but the copy I saw didn't have that. If a director's cut exists, it devours the original entirely.

In-fact, I think the film gives away it's shtick a little too soon; there's a lot of fun you can have playing around with the mechanics they set up, but they tell you what those mechanics are too early. I made my guess as to what was happening, and then literally the very next line was a character verbatim explaining what was happening.

Was disappointed Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime did not play over the credits.

Check this out, maybe.

Right, so, I feel like I gotta immediately be on the defensive here.

I've seen a lot of films similar to this now, and I've always gone in shields-up, bracing for impact, but I almost always came away with it not being that bad, and that I'd mentally prepared for nothing. So with that in mind, I wanted to go explicitly out of my comfort zone and find one of these that would be as bad as I thought it was going to be.

And boy was this shit rancid.

The poster is so on the nose it wraps back around to being fully passable as artful satire.

So the basic premise of this is that a trio of creepy middle-aged rapists rent a luxury beach house in order to prey upon young women, but they're not successful, so they hire our "hero" - a pickup artist - to try help them pull. A good 80% of these methods are just actively trying to trick women to coming to their house alone. Most scenes in the movie are montages of them trying this.

But, oh no! We have a heel turn where one of the creepy middle-aged rapists starts acting slightly more mean to everyone, but like his actions aren't that different from what the protagonist has been doing for the whole film?

Weird amount of Friday the 13th links? One of the women from 6, and even Jason himself from 7 onwards!

Obviously don't watch this.

Back with another DeCoteau bisexual brain melter.

Nowhere near as crazy as it was made out to be. In fact - dare I say it - it was a bit tame?

It's kind of the in-between of Creepozoids (1987) and 1313: Cougar Cult (2012). Interestingly, it has the exact same issue as Creepozoids, where the mechanics of the creature are not quite clear, as it keeps doing seemingly the same thing with very different results.

There's kind of nothing really to say about it? There's a giant eye creature that slowly floats around, zapping people with different effects, while we hold on possibly the least explicit sex scenes that are physically possible and also last for like four minutes straight each. There is an unrated version, but DeCoteau films are always so unexplicit that I have no idea if this was the unrated version I saw or not.

Don't watch this. There's other DeCoteau films that just do this but better.

Man this shit is so fucking good.

It's actually kinda hard to talk about, though, since so much of it revolves around the payoff of giant spoilers.

I will never understand the "not like a video game" complaints; it's WAY more like a video game than most media depicting video games. It's a very futuristic "virtual reality simulator" style, for sure, but we also recreate adventure game NPC behaviour in a way that feels very game like (even if I have an issue with that when you take the whole thing into perspective, but that's getting into spoilers).

Probably the most focus on trademark flesh tech of any Cronenberg - though not seen all of them. Naked Lunch (1992) also has a lot of flesh tech, but this film revolves around tech. Maybe there's even more in A History of Violence (2005), or something.

I will say on re-watch the 40 minutes before they start gaming are a bit too slow. There's a lot of good world building, but just not much is happening.

Now: the ending. It's the kind of thing that a lot of hack movies do - and in any other context should absolutely sink the movie - but man, they execute it fucking perfectly.

Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Oooh that big long 360° phone shot is good.

There's some good here, for sure, but overall it's very mediocre.

Right off the bat, this Italian-ass poster is very misrepresentitive of the film. This is not a giallo affair, this is a movie where a trucker on several days without sleep chases a van he thinks a serial killer is inside. This absolutely sounds like the set up to him being wrong about that, but he isn't. This is a very simple movie.

The protagonist being an expat does really help in establishing the sense of loneliness the film is aiming for, though between Keach and Curtis there is an overall lack of 'stralians in the 'stralia film. Could probably work in a Lost in Translation (2003) comparison if I'd seen that.

It also starts to drop off pretty hard when Jamie Lee Curtis (from that John Carpenter movie, The Fog) shows up, which is probably the first time I've seen a film do that.

Aside from the gross age gap relationship (which coincidentally, is also a big issue in The Fog), she ends up lightening the tone too much. Like Stacy Keach joking to himself by way of talking to his dog works, as there's a sense of loneliness and vulnerability there. When you take that same dialogue but he's talking to a friendly face it just doesn't land the same way.

Villain has like no characterisation whatsoever? Like, we gotta do something with him; the film revolves around him.

Probably skip this.

Gay mormon romance B-movie.

It's surprisingly alright? Some goofy moments that don't really land, for sure, but there's more here that does land than you'd expect. Did not expect this to be touching!

Also way less of a mormon movie than it looks like, like it's gay romance movie through and through. Mormonism is kinda just the vehicle to get there, but it is a big part of it. It is not pro mormon, but the writer/director being a gay ex-mormon adds a lot of detail.

Being in the UK, I have actually encountered American Mormon missionaries. Huge assholes who would just actively harass my friends and I walking through the streets of Dundee, while I was at uni.

I did actually go to a coffee shop meeting I was invited to on the street, purely because it sounded fun to learn about a evil cult direct from the evil cults mouth in a safe environment.

Was very confused why they only ordered cake, despite being at an expensive coffee shop they specifically invited me to. Later learnt they don't drink coffee.

They also kept trying to get me to take a copy of the mormon bible, and I don't remember what the excuse I was giving was, but it was actually because I didn't bring a bag with me, and I'm not getting seen walking about with the mormon bible.

For about three weeks after I kept getting texts from her asking if I was coming to church. Eventually they stopped.

Back to the movie, homophobic Joseph Gordon-Levvit is very funny conceptually. At one point he gets hit by a car off-screen. Should've stayed in the movie longer. Car didn't kill him or anything, he just kinda leaves after a bit.

Baby Mac from Always Sunny is also here as another one of the missionaries, but only in like 2 scenes. Also Tara from Buffy is a pretty big side character!

Honestly? You could watch this?

Had no idea what to expect going into this, but it's okay. Plot is more than a little convoluted, and in all honesty Jason feels entirely superfluous, but it's okay.

It's going for a swing plot-wise - which I can respect - but ultimately does not stick the landing. Definitely knows how to have fun, though; this isn't gritty revival territory yet.

So, in a method I'm not sure is ever actually communicated, Elm Street has somehow managed to entirely memory hole Freddy, aside from the police/mental hospital. We also suddenly make up that Freddy needs to be in the public conscious in order for him to hurt people with his powers, so to restore that he resurrects Jason and gets him to go to Elm Street and start killing, which will somehow make people scared of Freddy (instead of Jason, who is doing the killing), restoring his power, even though he's been memory-hole so no one knows who he is. Oh and Jason actually killing people is revealed to be detrimental to him being able to restore his power, and I don't fucking know man.

This line out of nowhere garnered the biggest laugh of either series.

"Just spit-balling here guys, what if they had elemental weaknesses?"

Not-Ella Purnell over here really does not have a good time in this. I'm pretty sure she has more screams than lines? They also really shoe-horn her into the final girl role despite not really trying to depict her with those tropes.

We do have some trademark early 2000s bad CGI blood, but some of the effects and kills are actually pretty good. The duality of the 2000s at play.

Ginger Snaps is here! I missed the opportunity when she gets thrown off a balcony in a dream to say "she Ginger Snapped" and I will never live that down.

The fight at the end feels like when cartoon characters fight in a big dust cloud. Like this isn't going anywhere. Where could it even go? It's unkillable dream guy vs unkillable zombie guy. Freddy is probably more powerful, but like, they're both unkillable. This can't go anywhere. And it kinda doesn't?

I have no idea why all the user reviews are as dire as they are. It's on par with one of the middle of the road NoES films, meaning it's batting with the best of the Ft13th films.

Definitely don't skip this if you watch both series.

OKAY, RIGHT OFF THE BAT - I DIDN'T KNOW. If you don't know what that means, I'll get to it.

Ehhhh, I mean it's kinda okay? It's like a more conservative Dead Poets Society. Not in a chuddy way, but like it's very "stiff upper lip" about stuff you should really be taking more issue with.

So I'm watching this boat movie where these teens are learning to work together, etc., and then Jeff Bridges unveils the movie's catchphrase:

"Where we go one, we go all."

And instantly an alarm bell goes off.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

This is the fucking QAnon movie.

And after watching the fucking QAnon movie, I do not understand at all why QAnon latched onto this? I'm fairly convinced it's just because "where we go one, we go all" is a good cult catchphrase and that's it.

Though very funny how it's about an incompetent leader that gets his followers killed, and moral is to just stand by him anyway. It's not entirely impossible that this is an on-purpose 4D chess joke, as it's not like it's unusual for 4chan-originating conspiracy theories to have a joke edge to them - but who knows. It's very white, I guess? Could not tell any of these kids apart. Had to fully go by behavioural clues. Also very close to gay.

Also this whole time I thought the QAnon movie was Master and Commander (2003), so apologies to that film.

We got a Lynch link: Balthazar Getty. Kinda looks like Jason Segel in SLC Punk! (1998) in this.

It tries to do the "captain, my captain" ending, but there just hasn't really been any focus on Jeff Bridges inspiring these kids, so it's trying to get payoff for something it didn't build up.

Very skippable movie. Maybe your dad would like it. Hopefully not for bad reasons.

Yes, that happens in the film.

Nowhere near as crazy as it was made out to be, but there's a couple fun crazy scenes. Maybe it's real crazy if you were previously Amish and this is like the second film you watched, but idk man there's not much that shocks me anymore.

100% the single most Italian movie ever made, though. Like every element of this is blindingly Italian.

Bit like Misery. At least as far as I know about Misery. I have not seen Misery.

Fully assuming this is like the one not crazy Fulci.

Skip.

Yeah I got Hellraiser'd.

By that I mean: it's a film that's entirely sold as being entirely focused on the big thing everyone knows, and then when you watch it, it's actually an entirely different film, and the big thing everyone knows is actually a fairly minor part of it.

Though speaking of, they are putting me in the death box that kills you instantly soon.

The issue's much worse here, however. Like, you couldn't have Hellraiser (1987) without the Cenobites, but honest to god you could have Beetlejuice without Beetlejuice. He feels pretty superflous, and doesn't show up too often.

In general, there's too many conflicts, leading it to feel very unfocused as we just keep jumping between different conflicts that are all pretty easy to resolve?

Like everyone knows "aw you say his name three times and that summons him!" but you can also just say his name three more times and it dispels him.

So what this actually is, is a friendly ghost movie, where the tryhard goth kid befriends the ghosts and tries to help them, etc.

I always get confused between Geena Davis and Gina Gershon. I view them as like a 2 stage Pokemon evolution line.

So what did I think of it? It's okay. I like some of the effects. Will probably check out the sequel at some point. Not in any rush to, though.

Was very careful not to say Beetlejuice a third time- OH FUCK

Some of the highest highs and lowest lows of any B-movie I've watched.

Genuinely complete nonsense plot. Plot beats are introduced and never followed up on, it's very confusing why we're even all here at the same time in the first place, and there is no conclusion whatsoever. It feels like an actual fever dream, like I think I might have seen this in my head the first time I had COVID.

Some of the practical effects are insanely good, like genuinely better than some Hollywood productions of the era.

At the same time, this is at the cost of most of the movie being wandering around while nothing happens.

But then every now and again, something like this happens:

…or this:

Yes, both of those clips are of the reaper puppet. Big fan of that reaper puppet.

I almost choked laughing at the farting mud monsters. Whatever you're picturing when you hear that, I assure you it's way dumber and more literal. They just keep overlaying these repeating fart sounds. This scene lasts like three minutes, and there is never a break in the fucking fart sounds.

Apparently this did have a super messy production, which is what lead to this being such a mess. Very interested in watching the documentary that was made.

It's kinda hard to recommend this, as while the highs are very high, the lows are VERY low. God, those highs, though. Must watch for genre freaks only.

Scam movie. I actually like this a little more than the previous one, but has a lot of core issues that really sink it.

So what's the one thing you'd want in a movie called "Bride of Frankenstein"? The Bride to actually be in the movie, right? Well fuck you! She only appears in like the last two minutes!

We also have a bizarre lack of Doctor Frankenstein? Like he's barely in this for no real reason. Instead, we add a 2nd evil doctor who kinda just becomes the main doctor. Why?

Also with this 2nd doctor we reveal he has a sequence of 7 tiny people, which is one of the craziest things I've seen a movie suddenly bring up, spend like 5 minutes, and just never brings up again. This is a detail I would try to gaslight someone with, but no, it's in the movie. Here is a picture.

So it's a movie with no Bride and no Doctor, but what it actually is is more of a character study on the Monster - or at least as much of a character study as was possible in the 30s. This is played somewhat more closely to the book than the first one, but it's still a very different take.

I really like the stretch where the Monster is hanging out with the old blind man. Much like the similar passage in the book, it's definitely the best part of this.

So, as you probably know, "Frankenstein" is used interchangeably between the Doctor and the Monster, despite only the Doctor ever being called Frankenstein. I think this movie specifically is to blame for that? Like, it's called "Bride of Frankenstein", with the focal point being the Bride (who is basically not in the movie) who is to be made FOR the Monster. Frankenstein the Doctor has very little to do with this.

Also, for some reason people pretend this is a queer movie? Like, what the fuck are you on about? Even the reputation of the Bride being this diva figure is nonsense - she doesn't have any lines! She literally just screams and runs around, and then the movie ends! She's not in the movie! The movie called Bride of Frankenstein doesn't even really have the Bride in it!

I don't don't recommend this, but it requires you've seen the first, which I don't recommend, so I guess don't watch this.

It's good! Solid, simple superhero movie. Not quite the Spider-Man 2 (2004) it's sold as, but it's a solid thumbs up in a genre that, quite frankly, does not deserve any thumbs at this point.

It does the thing all good comic book movies do in that it completely skips over showing the origin. Unless it's a particularly convoluted origin, you do not need to show it. People understand what a superhero is. Skip it and get to the meat of the characters.

In another breath of fresh air, the expanded universe elements feel very natural and not just like an IP orgy. A problem a lot of super hero media has is that outside of IP orgy, they tend to be a bit too insular. Like, we know there's other fuckers running about, why can't they help with this big thing? And here they do!

Never heard of Mister Terrific before but this guy is sick as hell. This movie should win some kind of award for managing to make Five Years Time go hard; of all songs.

I am absolutely shocked that something this blatantly anti-Israel managed to get made. This is, of course, very simply the correct moral standpoint to have. There is not a hell hot enough for Benjamin Netanyahu.

I hear a lot of people talk about the tone of this one as if it's super whimsical or something, but I don't really see it? Very possible I'm just too checked out of superhero movies to see the difference.

Apparently this is also a standout Superman film in that Superman is saving people? What the fuck were they doing before this???

I do have an issue with how clumsily they convey and under-explore one of the main plot beats, but things could be much worse.

Tentatively looking forward to Supergirl (2026).

It's passable. Very much in the camp of "bad script, but great atmosphere/visuals/practical effects".

It's kinda like a post-apocalyptic Terminator with a little bit of Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) thrown in there. Just a little bit, though - don't get your hopes up.

And while there's like a million "Terminator but with no budget B-movies", this one actually has some money in it! There's some great outdoor sets (that, of course, do not get used when the robot's running about), and there are cameos by both Lemmy and Iggy Pop (the latter being VO only) where they both play their own respective music.

Unfortunately, as was often the case, this money did come from Harvey Weinstein. There is also seemingly a Weinstein self-insert pervert character? Thankfully, he does get killed in a very satisfying way.

Big Jinzo vibes from this Terminator. Ain't nobody activating or resolving the effects of trap cards on the field in this movie. They actually beat him at the end by using a trap in the GY.

Really suffers from a lack of main protagonist to get attached to. We open on power glove protagonist man, but then he disappears from the movie as GF (who isn't given enough introduction) is suddenly the main protagonist for the rest of the movie.

Also at one point there's sex scene with power glove guy wearing the power glove (I think it's surgically attached), and it is so fucking funny. You cannot convey sensuality when someone is wearing a power glove, like it's just too funny.

There's some cool stuff in this for sure, but ultimately did feel very let down.

Skip.

Probably the best movie adaptation you could hope to make.

So this is a film I've known about for many many years, with the one and only thing I've known about it was people joking "oh they refer to guns as swords", and that was never enough to actually hook me.

But recently, I saw an actual clip of what the dialogue and costuming was like, and had to watch this as soon as I possibly could.

That scene was the introduction of the Montague/Capulet boys. It's like the first scene, and honestly maybe the best.

The contrast between the Shakespearean dialogue and the manic 90s film-making works so fucking well. This would not be nearly as good without either of these elements.

Honestly the only real issues I have with this all stem from issues with the source material. Romeo and Juliet themselves are kinda boring, and Juliet is like barely in it.

There's no way you could, but this should just be the Montague/Capulet boys feuding. They're easily the best part in both enjoyment and drama. Very early on we realised "…fuck whenever it's focused on Romeo and Juliet it's gonna suck, isn't it" and yeah that was correct.

Also, this might be the best use of Paul Rudd in any movie. Genuinely perfect casting.

Easy recommend.

I gotta be perfectly honest here: this is absolutely gonna piss off at least one middle aged man, but I enjoyed this WAY more than Conan the Barbarian (1982). This is SUCH a fun B-movie. What a delight.

First off, this poster is like 60% a lie. It's very much a swords & sorcery film, but there are no oiled up muscle heads.

We very much expected this to be 0 budget poster-scam affair, but there's actually decent B-movie level production value here. We have a large variety of pretty nice sets, and we even have a fair bit of horse riding!

This has hands down got to be the best title card drop of all time. I cannot describe the cheer this got.

Right, what is it with pervert B-movies and doing a way better job of showing makeup transformations than actual dedicated makeup transformation movies? Like it genuinely took us a few scenes for us to realise this was the same person. And this was someone I've seen in several other movies!

Hands down recommendation for genre fans. Would probably be a good entry level B-movie, too.

Rest of the series sounds pretty dire, though. Might watch 1, but we don't have any confidence in it.

It's not quite the exact same movie as 1 as everyone says it is, but it is ultimately just a weaker version of the same movie.

There's not much to say on it, in fact? I quite liked it early on, but man does it haemorrhage all energy in the back half.

Really weird mismatched energy with half of the cast being the appropriate level of pulpy panic for the energy of RotLD, but the rest are just real wet fish. Because some of the cast return from 1, I thought it was just the returning cast from 1 getting it right, but GF is new, and she's great!

Also, as I'm legally obligated to bring up Twin Peaks links, Bobby's here! He doesn't suck, but he's not very good in this!

Probably don't watch this.

Very excited for 3, as it is absolutely a different movie this time, and a Brian Yuzna film, no less!

Childhood classic that I had fond memories of, but I'd only ever seen it when I was too young to actually process what I was watching.

And man, what the fuck was kid me on, this is abhorrent. Exceptionally rare case where the reputation this has is pitch perfect to how it actually is.

It is so sleepy and dull. One of the longest two hours of my life.

Weirdly no weight to the inciting event? We accidentally chuck the power macguffin out into space(?), everyone is going to fucking die, and we just kinda shrug and send exactly one person (Supergirl™) to hopefully find it in time.

And you know what she does? Immediately ditches trying to find it to enrol at a boarding school for most of the film. Why? There's no relation to the plot, and we never establish that this is any particular desire for the character - even though you could very easily throw something in. But no, for seemingly no reason whatsoever, a huge chunk of this takes place in this completely pointless school. The macguffin isn't even here.

Where it is, is in position of the villain, who is unfortunately juuust slightly past the line of being too unlikable to be the diva she otherwise should be. Also when she gets the orb she immediately kicks out her right hand gay for zero reason. Why did she do this? Most of the conflict in the movie stems from this, too.

I thought the love interest would be a complete wet fish, but for the stretch he's mind controlled, he's great! Real funny performance. Still a pedo, though. Every straight man in this is a pedo.

Energy absolutely falls through the floor when we reach big bosses lair and are immediately sent to the shadow realm for like 20 minutes. And if there's one thing this thing did not fucking need, it was for the energy to dip even lower.

Hard avoid. Hard, hard avoid.

Man, this right after Supergirl (1984)…

I think I hate movies now?

Like, obviously the Clint Eastwood orangutan movie was too good to be true. There is no way we live in a world where the Clint Eastwood orangutan movie isn't extremely disappointing.

There are no stakes, tension, or even really goals? Just a series of scenes happening with the same emotional flat note. At several points, we asked: "…wait what genre is this exactly?" and that genre is "movie".

In fact, the monkey is entirely superfluous. Like there being a monkey in almost every scene straight up does not effect the movie in any way. Why is there a monkey here? Is he just there to trick us into watching this? To punish us for our sins?

Really the only time the monkey ever comes up is when Clint Eastwood storms into the hotel room, going "I'm SO mad that my monkey isn't getting any; quick let's sneak into a zoo so my orangutan can fuck" and then we just do that for a couple minutes. It doesn't even go anywhere; we just move on. Not sure why that scene was left in the cut, honestly.

So the whole thing is him actively stalking this woman who very obviously skipped town on him after he love bombed her, giving her several thousand dollars after like two dates.

The one saving grace was that we were surprised with a Twin Peaks link: Hank Worden's in this! Apparently he was a western mainstay, so makes sense him showing up in a random Clint Eastwood film, I guess.

Right, what the fuck is going on with the mixing during this song? Like am I crazy or is that not that guy's vocal track?

Do not get tricked like we did into watching this. Fuck no am I checking out the sequel. It's very rare I feel like watching a movie was a waste of time, but I certainly felt that here.

Definitely the weakest of the series thus far, but before the energy drops off a cliff it is deliciously late 90s, which is an itch the previous two couldn't scratch.

Ironically, it has the opposite problem 2 had, where here we're a little too focused in on the spooky house. Need a B plot in there, or something.

This has got to be the recurring horror villain with the least presence. I don't even remember where she came from. I think she was just one of the kids in 1? Got promoted to Freddy somehow? It actually might be same actor? Could not tell you. Absolutely do not care enough to look it up. You do it.

Not really much else to say on this one. It's not awful, but don't watch it.

Okay experimental film. Actually, probably not experimental enough to be an experimental film, but it's certainly taking a big artistic swing. And even if it doesn't really all come together by the end, I can respect it going for the swing.

It's a film that's playing around with the artifice of storytelling in a very blunt and direct way, but - to be honest - it doesn't really tie that into the psychokinetic killer tire that well. Like at all. Movie kinda entirely fails on that front, but I had a decent time with it if you're willing to meet it on it's terms.

Now, it does open with starting directly down the camera and telling you the film's entire thesis up-front. While this really sucks in the moment, it does work to establish the expectations and tone of the movie. If they'd have left the "NOTHING IS REAL" spiel until right at the end, it would've been unforgivably wanky; but because we lead with it, you get over it by the time it starts really playing around with it.

I'll be real; I didn't consider that the killer tire would be killing people by psychic mind explosion. I thought it would just, like, roll over them or something. Like tires do. I guess that was pretty small-minded of me.

While I love the poster, it is pretty misleading. It doesn't reflect the tone of the film at all, and it's just a regular small car tire instead of a big one. Probably why I thought it would be rolling over people.

While it's pretty much impossible to recommend this to anyone ever, I liked it a lot more than the other film by the director I've seen: Wrong (2012), which I found a bit try-hard epic lol random. This absolutely did not have that tone, which is very unexpected from a 2010 film about a killer tire.

Speaking of the director, you might be familiar with some of his other work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmsbP13xu6k

It's been real hit and miss with ol' Gregg Araki, but I quite liked this!

It's an apocalypse movie but the apocalypse is happening entirely in the background, with the focus of this being a "shitty day in the life of" typecast bisexual cuckold James Duval.

While the set design is nowhere near the highs of The Doom Generation (1995), it does a much better job of communicating it's thesis of Gen X malaise.

Somehow not the only 90s movie I've seen that has a plot beat where random drag queens suddenly show up and steal a character's car?

Also not the only 90s indie film I've encountered featuring a cameo by one of the Butthole Surfers.

Easy recommend.

It's okay? Very over-hyped.

Weirdly low on the comedy for a Mel Brooks movie? It's like it actually wanted to be a throwback classic monster movie - where it actually does really well with a lot of it's dialogue, and Gene Wilder's performance - but then it remembers it's meant to be a slide whistle comedy and it trips up on itself.

Even weirder is that Frankenstein (1931) actually ended up being a much funnier film.

Kinda runs out of steam when Frankenstein starts cutting about, also.

Most characters have an analogous equivalent in the 30s 'stein flicks, but then we add a bimbo OC to the main mix who has nothing to do? I mean I've only seen the first two, so maybe it's not an OC - maybe 3 adds like a transatlantic accent bimbo character or something.

Bizarrely horny for a PG? Lots of Carry-on style dialogue, and there are also THREE sex scenes - two of them being very explicit missionary scenes. Who did they bribe on the ratings board for this? This is absolutely not appropriate for children in any way.

I actually have a specific young childhood memory of refusing to watch this with my parents as I thought it would be scary. I guess that ended up being the correct call! I should not have been watching it.

Somehow directly in the middle of being unwatchable B-trash and fun campy B horror comedy. Definitely one of those where nothing really happens for all of it, but there's a lot of fun highlight moments.

Right, gotta get it out the way: the title is a lie; there straight up is no teenage exorcist. That is not an element of this movie in any arguable way.

One of, if not the most 80s feeling 90s film I've ever seen. Like we were both SHOCKED that this sad '91 and not '86 or something. Wild stuff.

It actually doesn't actually share THAT much with The Exorcist (1973). Like there's a couple of similar bits, and the possessed makeup is very much styled like The Exorcist, but this is not an Exorcist rip-off with no budget.

For how little of an impact Eddie Deezen has on the events, it's bizarre how late they introduce him. Like, it's at the point where we're entering the 3rd act, and all hope is lost, so we add to the mix… this useless dweeb? Huh? You gotta front-load your useless dweebs, man.

Very funny how Michael Berryman-heavy every poster is, given he appears in this for like 1 minute total.

Passable, but hard to recommend to genre fans.

Amazing premise, but execution is a little too studio-stale, and ends up a pretty mediocre time.

It needed to be more zany, which means it would actually probably be a lot better if it was made today. Get someone like Tim Robinson in there.

Not sure I like the optics of "black character where the joke is they overreact and claim everything is racist". Also not sure on the optics of "wide-eyed ingenue who instantly starts sleeping with everyone to further her career". Not great optics here.

Our legally obligated Twin Peaks link this time is Heather Graham. I also forget Heather Graham was in Twin Peaks.

While there's some funny scenes with him, they really should not have included "guy who looks like star and turns out he's star's brother". It saps away at the strength of the core premise if you can have a stand-in.

Oh, and It's also Eddie Murphy again. What is it with him and appearing as multiple characters in different costumes? It's gotta be a fetish thing.

Very skippable, but do learn the premise, as it's a great comparison to throw out in hypothetical bits.

If you want to see an actually good Eddie Murphy movie about B-movie production, check out Dolemite Is My Name (2019).

A movie that asks "what if you could kill people with your autism?"

It's alright! Definitely not in the upper eschelon of Cronenberg, but I see why people like it. I think I liked it slightly more than The Fly (1986)?

Now, I've beat around the bush, but, uhhhh, this might accidentally be an anti-vax movie? I don't know enough about the history of vaccine conspiracies to know if that was even a thing at this point, but it's a very unfortunate way in which this has aged.

In general, this does a great job of building tension within a scene, but honestly a pretty poor job of building scale and escalation across the whole movie.

The lead guy is an absolute wet fish, and really leads to this feeling like a cheaply localised Japanese PS2 game. This holds it back somewhat, but it does very much add low budget charm

I wish Michael Ironside is in it a little more, as he's great whenever he's on screen.

The sound design in this is insanely good. It's a little weird with just how much better the sound design is here versus later, more fully fleshed-out Cronenberg films.

I will say I'm dissapointed at the lack of head explosions. This is known as THE head explosion film, and while the one head explosion is great, it's only one head explosion. Also didn't realise it happens within the first few minutes of the movie, so really not a spoiler.

Now, I shouldn't be, but because it is me, I am really looking forward to the dumpy straight-to-home-release decade-later sequels.

Twinsies! A movie about ignoring flags.

I quite liked this! Very grounded, non-melodramatic thriller. Like, even when people start getting killed, it doesn't getting anywhere near as blockbuster thriller-y than you'd expect a 90s movie to. In fact, it feels almost 70s in how low to the ground this is.

Early on I thought "wait a minute… is this just 3 Women (1977)?" but it does go in a very different direction.

Our legally obligated Twin Peaks link is Frances Bay, who appears so frequently she almost doesn't count. But I would never not count even the most tertiary link.

Minor reoccurring character Renée Estevez also appears in a jumpscare during the montage of potential roommates.

Not much really to say on this. It's simple and well-executed. Easy recommend.

It's good!

Like everyone, I was fairly sure this was going to bomb, but no: it's on par with the originals! I'd say this is definitely in the top 2, in fact.

It's a liiiiitle bit too low energy for the joke-a-minute style, but like, everyone's old, so that's fair enough. And it is thematically relevant that everyone's old - this is a legacy sequel that is mostly about nostalgia and the world having changed. Like a LOT of jokes are about 20 years old cultural references. There is a scene that is just Liam Neeson listing off memorable Buffy episodes.

There is one r slur which we could've done without. Like it's relevant to the villains thesis, and it's very much a "this is a word we can't say anymore" moment, but there's plenty of ways of communicating this without dropping epic slurs that are currently being re-normalised.

Big fan of the running joke where they keep getting handed fresh coffees.

This is unrelated to the film, but when I walked into the cinema to see this, they were playing the JP Digimon Adventure OP over the speakers. I thought I was having heat stroke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32JTFI0alPk

Very middle of the road forgettable 70s crime B-movie. The titular "Mr. No Legs" is in it, but not much. Whenever he gets an action scene are the clear highlights of the movie, but for some reason we make him a side villain instead of protagonist.

We end on a bizarrely long car chase following a character we barely know. Not Mr. No Legs - of course it wouldn't be him.

We had fun with it, for sure, but can't really recommend.

Childhood classic I'm not sure I ever fully watched? I think I was scared of it or something? I don't remember what, but I was scared of everything as a kid, so it checks out.

It's alright. Like, yeah, I get there's an undercurrent of critiquing how pop culture aimed at kids whitewashes colonial violence, but it's an UNDER undercurrent. There is water at the bottom of the ocean.

Very sleepy. It really feels like Joe Dante is held back by having to make this be appropriate for kids.

Also they pull some gratingly cringe "i'm not like the other girls" shit with Kirsten Dunst.

A lot of legit good jokes scattered throughout, but yeah, you can skip this honestly.

Even though it's a film I do like, I thought I'd be more receptive to it now, but no - my opinion on it is the exact same as when I first watched it at like 16 or so.

The plot is an absolute mess to the point where it doesn't really make much sense what is happening when and for what reason, BUT almost every single song is good enough to save it.

It feels like half the plot revolves around Eddie, but we never really find out what his deal was? Like you can piece together, "oh I guess he used half the brain to make Rocky", but like, that's it? There are TWO whole songs dedicated to this fucker.

On that note, what is even the plan with keeping Brad and Janet captive? Is it just to like Stockholm Syndrome them into his circle? We need to be more clear on stuff like this.

Ending also kinda just happens all of a sudden for no reason. Why could they not do this earlier?

Energy drops a lot in the back half, too.

To be honest, I think if there was like two fewer good songs on here, people wouldn't really like this that much. And if there was no queer element, I think this would probably be forgotten outside of dedicated, like, musical theatre fans.

See the sequel, Shock Treatment (1981), for an example of this.

That being said, very easy recommend if you haven't seen it.

The best song is clearly Dammit Janet, and I will fight you on that. I remember Time Warp hitting with a lot more energy the first time I watched it.

Also shout out Susan Sarandon. Just like, generally.

Ehhhh. I mean I get what it's going for, but it's just way too unfocused and a little too tame. It's missing that bite that the other Scorsese "white boy crashout" movies have.

Protagonist is just kind of an annoying dick, also. But not too much of a dick where you actively want harm to come to him, like he just kinda sucks.

Not much to say on this one, honestly.

Weird that both the mom and dad from Home Alone (1990) are in this separately.

Another exciting episode of "I've been tricked into watching this thing as people say it's like Twin Peaks". Is it like Twin Peaks? Of course not! They never are! There's a couple eccentric morally grey pulp Americana folk, and that's about it!

Film itself is okay. I like what it's going for - and what it's going for feels almost 80s for a 50s film - but it kinda just doesn't go anywhere, and takes an excruciatingly long time to not go anywhere.

It's just way too ahead of it's time for it's own good. Like if the plot was exactly the same, and we used this as a vehicle to explore these characters, that'd be the ideal form of it. As it stands, this is a 50s film. There's a very low ceiling to what this can actually achieve.

And while it's not like Twin Peaks, it does have a Twin Peaks link! Royal Dano is in this! I've also just found out that he's in greatest movie of all time Ghoulies II (1987)! I don't know how the fuck I missed that!

It's decent, but very unsure of what it wants to be, offering a smorgasbord of tone without ever landing on anything.

Like it's a zombie buddy cop B-movie, but it's really not that goofy? Like we have a lot of actually well-written thematically relevant emotional meat with a very good performance from Treat Williams.

But then out of nowhere we have a Dead Alive (1992) style hyper gory butcher shop scene - which, obviously whips - but it's a whiplash of a tonal jump that we never return to after this scene.

Also, in an absolutely baffling choice, we just don't resolve the main hook? Like, we set up, "right he's a zombie now, and he has 12 hours to solve his own murder before he expires", and we just never go back to him expiring? I'm pretty sure there's something in the Geneva convention about that.

With a bit more focus and budget, this would absolutely be a beloved cult movie. As it stands, however, it's in that awkward valley of being a low budget B-movie that's not really a fun hangout movie (apart from the butcher shop scene).

Very likeable, but kind of missing a plot? There's no character arc? Like she starts off a good person and almost all of her actions are for others. There's no conflict here. It's kinda just nothing happening for the whole movie, and then right at the end we suddenly decide to be a stepcest movie?

And like, we're going real out of our way to be a stepcest movie. Like Paul Rudd could very easily not be related and still fill the exact same function. We just REALLY wanted to be a stepcest film.

And it feels real weird. Like, weirder than The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), despite it being a much more distant step-sibling upbringing. Not sure why this is.

Our Lynch link this time is Dan Hedaya. I've been completely forgetting him up to this point, and he's in quite a few things I've seen.

We also have this line!

It's okay? I like a lot of the concepts here, but ultimately commits the unforgivable sin of just kinda being dull.

This is known as a child terrifier, and as someone who watched it as a kid, I turned it off pretty early on; not because it was scary - but because it was really dull.

We make the really weird decision to not include any of the original party members, instead having these sad existential functional equivalents. What's even the point of Wizard of Oz without the characters? These new guys all suck. Tik-Tok is alright, though. Actually, I'll take Tik-Tok over Tin Man. I'm glad he's barely in this.

The poster is a straight up lie, btw. These cunts do not appear outside of the ending celebration.

Right, I get that it's a younger kid in the books, but it's weird going to a younger actor for a darker sequel. She seems oddly non-plussed by anything bad happening? There's a lot of being carried away by a villain while an ally is unable to help, as she just goes "aw no worries mate".

Also there's exactly one line where she tries to do a Judy Garland impression and then she does not try again.

Our Twin Peaks link is Piper Laurie, playing Aunt Em. Very on brand for her to play someone who'd give a kid electric shock therapy.

Skip this.

It's okay? It's kinda not really a monstrous menstruation movie, despite being the poster child of the subgenre.

There's really not much "coming of age" stuff past the opening, and the psychic powers are basically unused until the end. If anything, it's kinda more of a school shooter movie?

Regardless, my main issue with it is that Carrie doesn't have much of a voice. Like the meat here lies in what she's thinking and feeling, and we're just never really clued into that.

The other issue is there is way too much fucking nudity. Now, I am not anti nudity or sex in film in any stretch, but man this shit is being real creepy with high schoolers. It's the music that sends it over the edge.

John Travolta is very distracting in this. Every time you see him, you go "hey, there's John Travolta!"

His girlfriend (played by Nancy Allen) looks so god damn much like Sydney Sweeney, I had to pause the movie to look up if they were related. They are not. Just one of those things, I guess. And as far as I'm away Nancy Allen hasn't done any weird nazi shit.

Getting to our Twin Peaks link, fucking Piper Laurie is in this! It's an accidental Piper Laurie double bill! I had no idea she was in this - you'd think that'd be more common knowledge? At the very least, it's very weird that specifically I did not know this. I could tell you like 80% of Sheryl Lee's filmography off the dome but I didn't know Piper Laurie was in fucking Carrie.

I guess "maybe clairvoyant mom" is also a TP link?

And slightly more obscure, but Sissy Spacek was in The Straight Story (1999), so we got a dual link on our hands.

I gotta be honest, climax is really not that crazy. Maybe if this is like the first film you saw after they stopped doing The Hays Code it'd be pretty crazy, but like it's extremely standard horror stuff.

I can't believe I'm saying this given this film's reputation, but I think it's just kind of a worse Ginger Snaps (2000)?

So far I'm 0 for 2 on De Palma.

There's a '99 different director sequel with the dumbest name you could pick and I am very much interested in it.

Surprisingly passable! Did not expect that! If you told me going in that "this is alright actually", I would not believe you!

All the action and effects are pretty solid, which is absolutely the one thing you want from a different director sequel to Scanners (1981). There's also a lot more people using psychic powers to fuck people up! This is what we want!

The main villain scanner is absolutely killing it. This is an all timer B-movie performance. We quickly looked into the rest of Raoul Trujillo's filmography, but sadly this seems to be his biggest role.

The main main villain, however, is not a scanner. He looks like Spitting Image Ringo whenever he wears his little sunglasses.

Much like the first, the pool of villain scanners is much smaller than initially lead on. Like the new order of scanners that's supposed to take over the world is seemingly just one single scanner.

We introduce the protagonist's sister in the back half, and these siblings are a little, uhh, sensual? There's a lot of gently touching each other's face by the fire, and a lot of their dialogue is "brother, be gentle when you enter… my mind…"

I mean they are from rural Canada, I guess. I don't know enough about regions of Canada to know which are stereotypically incestuous. I will strive to better myself in future.

I think I recommend this? It's a harder sell than Scanners 1, for sure, but if you liked that one and don't mind some cheesy low budget Canadian schlock, definitely give this a watch. No idea why this seems to be so hated.

About as shit as I expected but way more confusing?

So this is a romcom where a magic crab gives Sarah Michelle Geller unconscious fart witch powers that drugs the people who eat her cooking. We never really fully explain this, and we never say that this power to drug people is bad or should not be used in any way. Cool.

I knew about the people getting drugged with fart witch powers going in, but I did not anticipate how extreme their reactions would be, like everyone is tweaking the fuck out eating this food.

Now, I always tend to hate the main male love interest in romcoms, but holy shit this one takes the cake. The only thing that makes sense to me is that wires got crossed when writing this, and they accidentally wrote the leading man as the man who sucks who you're with at first before leaving him for the main guy. Like he is comically an asshole.

Avoid.

So horrific that it actually wraps around to being interesting. You tweak a couple of little things very slightly and this is a Criterion drama about a father who becomes obsessed with controlling his teenage daughter's dating life as he battles intrusive incestuous thoughts. This is not an exaggeration.

There's no less than THREE separate times where the dad watches his daughter walk down the stairs or on the beach in slow motion as lolita-y music plays. THREEEEEE!! What the fuck are we doing!????

We have the obligatory montage of calling suitors, and this is a comedic amount of boys she's dating. Also for some reason like 70% of them are mega dweebs? Like you'd think they'd play it up and have her date evil dangerous types, but no, it's like overwhelmingly dweebos.

Because of course there's one, our Twin Peaks link this time is Dana Ashbrook, playing one of the main boyfriends. We're also pretty close to another similarity with Twin Peaks, but that's getting into spoilers for that.

I really should say to avoid this, but again, so horrific it wraps round to interesting.

It'll never hit the highs of the first time you watch the first half of it, but I have much less issue with where it goes in the second half on re-watch. When I first watched it, I was disappointed by where it goes being a lot less interesting than where it starts, but on re-watch now knowing where it goes, it doesn't really have that problem, like I can see a consistent vision.

There's a weird mix of very of-the-time conservative moral panic over sex/violence in media alongside the very right-now trend of people frying their brains on The Content™ then committing political violence. Though, maybe that's just on the mind because of That Thing That Happened that I DEFINITELY feel REAL BAD about.

I mean I didn't live those times, so I don't know if any of that was in the air, but it's probably just an accidental coincidence that's lead to this aspect of it ageing very well. Maybe it's meant to be MK Ultra. Probably that, actually.

Also I don't get why people seemingly have a hard time working out what the film's deal is? Like it's pretty straight forward commentary? Is it kind of like the David Lynch effect where people go into it overthinking weirdness in the delivery to the point that they can't see simple and straightforward right in front of them?

Probably the most consistently Cronenberg Cronenberg?

We're now calling future film plans "which tape we sticking in our tussy's next week?"

The most 2009 gamer movie you could ever hope to make. I mean that a little bit in a good way, but overwhelmingly in a bad way.

While I'd describe Crank 1 as "occasionally a little racist", I would describe Crank 2 as just being racist. LOTTA "epic asian slightly mispronouncing english words" and they love throwing out "slur used against Mexicans". 2009 gamer-ass movie.

We replace his heart being the bus from Speed (1994) with a new fake heart where he needs to electrocute himself, which is just a much less interesting concept. Like instead of constantly having to have these crazy scenes to keep his heart rate up, we instead just take little breaks every now and again for him to electrocute himself. Also we include skin on skin contact in that (which definitely would not generate enough), for the sole sole purpose of having another epic public sex scene. 2009 gamer-ass movie.

I guess we're also less homophobic, but we're trading that in for some ableism. As someone who has (in all actually pretty mild) motor tourettes, seeing media portrayals like this as a kid at the time made me hide even more of myself from the world.

Also we straight up just hit credits before resolving the main plot? We do that in mid credit snippets? What are we doing?

It still has the trademark unhinged editing, but I can't really recommend "Crank but worse".

Who could've seen Al Pacino going undercover in the gay S&M scene being so fucking dull? Nothing happens in this movie. It's just him walking around looking and feeling confused and then going back home to his girlfriend. You're undercover, stop doing that.

We thought Pacino might've been wrestling with his sexuality given that he's thrust into this world and doesn't seem to hate it, but this ultimately goes nowhere, and might actually be a very regressive "all this gay shit is infecting me", but it also might not. It's really hard to tell what this movie thinks.

Regardless, it's really missing Pacino actually having a sexual encounter.

Not much to say on this. Skip.

Also, what the fuck was that post-ending? Did Pacino go gay crazy? What is happening?

The male loneliness epidemic version of Single White Female (1992)? Very much another movie about ignoring flags.

Right, Jim Carrey is juuuust annoying enough to ruin this. I think it's the silly voice he's putting on that tips it over the edge.

Okay, I was getting this confused with something else. I have no idea what it was I thought this was, but I swore this was about a guy getting zapped and having lightning powers. That is not this movie.

I don't really know what else there is to say about this. It's okay, but too annoying to it's own detriment.

An experimental comedy in that there are no jokes in it. I think I hate Mel Brooks.

There are Hitchcock references. Some I recognised; some I didn't. None of them are funny. Very few of them are even attempting to be funny.

Not as painful of a watch as other misses I've had recently, but I cannot think of anything to say about this.

FINALLY - an Invasion of the Bodysnatchers remake that's extremely dull and is completely unable to build tension. This is what we wanted.

It weirdly feels very ahead of it's time for 90s, but in like a very negative way. This is spiritually a 2000s or even 2010s bomb.

No one emotes, meaning there's no difference in performance (and no tension) when they do the "we have to pretend to be one of them" bit, and also just generally we struggle to build tension when there's no feeling of panic.

The protagonist sucks AND she has fuck all to do. I don't think there's a single action she gets to take in the movie. We did way more with the little brother, and really this probably would've been better if he was the protagonist, and we played it a little more like Parents (1989).

This movie SPAMS the Donald Sutherland emote like every 5 minutes. That moment works in the '78 movie so well because it's a big unexpected final moment. You cannot possibly hope to capture the same effect by just constantly throwing it out throughout the movie.

There isn't really any social commentary or any messaging to extract from this that you couldn't take from the earlier movie adaptations.

I'll be honest, I straight up do not remember how this ends. I just watched this. Could not tell you.

I swear I've heard Meg Tilly's monologue sampled in some internet song somewhere.

While, yes, this is a cheap, dumpy comedy, it's juuuust likeable enough to redeem it.

Should you watch this? No. But it's likeable enough.

One of the most convoluted premises for a comedy I've come across yet. Nephew in gambling debt to the mob needs his rich uncle with one foot in the grave to die so he can inherit the money to pay off his debts. So, the plan is, hire some incompetent live-in carers, and hope he dies that way. Even though he still just tries to inject him with shit anyway?

So The Fat Boys are the incompetent carers (just fired from a nursing home for eating 16 chocolate cakes), but they're not local, no, we need to fly them out to the mansion. I'm not even sure why gambling nephew was in this particular nursing home a plane ride away to begin with?

My only familiarity with The Fat Boys is the A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 (1988) credits song. I love this song. Freddy raps in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XKsTbuUOo

Maybe the most "a 14 year old boy wrote this" a movie has ever been. Super secret agents (most of which are women with very large fake breasts) fight a professional wrestler turned crime lord who runs a video piracy rung - though his real crime is cultural appropriation.

For a 96 min, this feels like a 2h30 epic, but honestly not even in a particularly negative way? Very little happens plot wise, so I'm not sure why it feels like this. Maybe it's all the different plots we're jumping between?

Early on, I thought we might've had another Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987) on our hands, and while it doesn't reach those same highs, this is a good time. I'm only just finding out as I write this that it's the same director.

Every scene is just this.

One of the agents is a very tall woman; like, consistently a head higher than everyone. It got me thinking about how you don't really see tall women in media. Or, at least, when you do, they're never presented as tall. Aside from Tall Girl (2019), of course.

Also one of the sex scenes has background music that is essentially just Under the Sea, which got the biggest laugh out of the whole film. I would post a clip if it was not, you know, a very explicit sex scene.

Really strange that one of the male leads in this looks fucking EXACTLY like that one especially evil Fox News guy. Also a guy who looks identical to the also evil Gavin Newsom. He even dresses exactly like him.

Definite recommend for genre fans, unless you are particularly bothered by, uhh, let's say "90s cosmetic surgery". I was getting a little close to grossed out, in parts, honestly.

Sam Raimi with Cohen brothers dysphoria. Three fellas stumble on a bunch of unmarked money in a crashed plane in the woods and it's all fine! Nothing bad happens!

It's alright. Picks up a lot in the back half, but then starts to dip a little at the end. If you've seen Adaptation (2002) it kinda turns into the end of that for a bit?

Like, this doesn't suck by any stretch, but this is not the masterpiece hidden gem every review claims this is.

Right, so I watched this at home, and my back was turned during the start of the opening credits as I was sorting food. My mom walks past and goes, "oh, Jennifer Jason Leigh, you don't see her stuff anymore" and I didn't think much of it at the time. So I'm watching the movie, and I'm thinking "she looks a bit different… I'm pretty sure this isn't afforded to actresses, but is it that she's put on weight for the role as she's pregnant in this or something? Like it sounds like her - that's her…"

Bridget Fonda. It was Bridget Fonda the whole time. Actually Single White Female (1992)'d.

very important edit:

Lynch Link. 3rd fella was in Mulholland Drive (2001). Thank you.

Yes, the guitar is in the movie.

One of the strangest slashers I've seen, in that absolutely nothing happens for the first 50 minutes, and then out of nowhere the killer just apparates into the movie and starts killing people. There is no set up or payoff to this character that the film revolves around.

And this isn't a normal slasher, either, like he's jumping through dreams and dancing around with full musical numbers. And it's great! But, like, where the fuck's the rest of the movie??

Some insane reaching in the user reviews for this arguing there is depth in this. And like, I can kinda see the start of some meat, but we aren't really going anywhere with anything so it's hard to really say that that's what it's doing. Real Rorschach test of a slasher.

Weirdly 90s feeling for an 80s slasher. It's post boom, I guess.

Fuck it, I'll watch 3 at some point. I'm in.

It's alright, but I was lead to believe that this was subversive, and it is absolutely not.

People put way too much focus on them not having sex at the end, but that was never really the goal - it was to generally "get the girl", which they do, and the love interests are just trophies without really any characterisation. They only really even talk about sex at the start.

This isn't to mention McLovin, who is just lying about his identity to sleep with someone, and is never really punished for this.

Also, irregardless of knowing that Jonah Hill kinda sucks, holy fucking hell he almost single-handedly tanks this movie early on. He is reprehensible and insufferable, and he never really grows, he just says less as the film goes on.

It's also too long at almost 2h. I assumed this was some director's cut that completely replaced the theatrical cut, like always, but no! It was too long on the first go! Very unusual for a comedy.

While I liked McLovin hanging out with the cops, you really could've (and probably should've) cut most of those scenes. This should not be 2 hours.

I will say it handles Cera and Hill's friendship very well, especially towards the end. It's very sweet.

Not sure I like how it goes about resolving things. You can't really have everything just sort itself out and be fine in the end, like that's not a satisfying way to write your way out of conflict.

Scam movie. Allegedly a weird little creature movie, but where the fuck are they?

It's like Gremlins but there's only a handful of them that only attack like 4 people, and all the mechanics are a bit inconsistent with how they're set up. They let you live out your fantasy, which may or may not be a thing you knew about already, and may or may not change your behaviour completely. And they do this by conjuring physical things in the world that are real, and these are all to set up ways to kill you. It's convoluted, and really takes the focus away from the weird little creatures in the weird little creature movie.

The creature puppets actually look decent, but they're almost always utilised very poorly, which makes them look shit. It's a very fine art to make little creature puppets actually look good, and this movie is a great case study on how you can fail at that even with nice looking puppets.

Here's a clip. Enjoy.

Don't watch this.

MUCH better than the 1st. I thought the 1st had a solid foundation, but was killed by a real mess of a script that prevented it from shining.

We don't have a mess of a script this time around, so everything works out fine.

We actually make good on having contrast between the Addams and the normies, and we even manage weirdo contrast with villain Joan Cusack (who is absoultely killing it).

I still think the Addams come off as insufferable try-hards in this, btw.

Also weirdly adult for a family comedy?

Honestly just skip the '91 movie and just watch this.

I get why this is hated, but really it's okay.

Would otherwise be pretty unwatchable, but it's carried real hard by a real nice low fantasy atmosphere.

This was a core childhood movie, but it's one of those childhood movies where I'd only ever seen it when I was too young to comprehend movies.

It's real quaint and low to the ground as fantasy goes. You could not get way with your plot hook being a clairvoyant pig these days without surrounding it with quirky, quippy jabs. No one talks about the Marvel movieification of pig magic.

Speaking of this pig, it being central to the plot, and it being animated way too cutsey for just some pig raised some eyebrows. I thought, "this isn't my first rodeo - this pig is going to turn into woman, and probably be the love interest. It's too weird to have just some random pig be magic, it's gonna be like a cursed princess in hiding, or something".

Cut forward to where we get separated from the pig, and then - would you know it - we suddenly meet a mysterious woman who says she's a princess. And all her dialogue is like "yes, I was brought here to use my magic abilities, just like your… pig…?" so I'm feeling pretty smug. Her magical abilities literally never come up, by the way. Also she has a magic orb following her, that immediately disappears to chase some rats, and then we just never see it again for the rest of the movie.

So now we're trying to find this pig that definitely isn't this woman (who looks and sounds like a Zelda CDI character by the way - no one else does). We're following these tracks in the forest, that are definitely going to suddenly end because this pig turned into this woman.

These lead to a whirlpool, which absolutely turned this pig into this woman. We go through the whirlpool, and end up in a fairy cave. One of the faries goes "oh no yeah, I've seen this pig you're on about, it's just down this hallway" and it's gonna be empty at the end, because this pig turned into this woman.

So we get to the end of the hallway, and the fucking pig is there.

And not only is the fucking pig there, we immediately turn around and leave just the pig there with the faries. The whole movie up until this point has revolved around this fucking pig, and we're just leaving it here.

We also never at any point go into what this woman's deal is? Who is this princess? Why did she have an orb for two seconds?

So the villain has a little goblin sidekick, and I'm hearing speak, and I'm thinking "wait a minute… I know this voice…" Turns out it's Phil Fondacaro, from greatest film of all time Ghoulies II (1987)! I'm amazed I've managed to find a core childhood link to Ghoulies II, like this shit was pre-destined.

He's also really good at voice work! Surprised he didn't do more of it, really. Probably ableism. Safe bet.

You could watch this, but not by much.

Surprisingly alright! I think it's safe to say supernatural slashers are whole-heartedly my jam.

Weird amount of Twin Peaks similarities. It's very dreamy, a lot of visions of the killer, and the protagonist is named Laura. Do with that what you will.

Despite what the poster would have you believe, this is very much not a pervert movie. Apart from one scene that I don't know if they realised came across as repressed sapphic as it does. There being a Jim Wynorski sequel that is absolutely a pervert movie does not help this argument.

Probably the biggest thing this gets wrong is the killer has absolutely no sauce. He's The Slumber Party Massacre (1982) levels of "just some guy". I'd say this is a running issue with "X Massacre" slashers, but I've seen Slumber Party Massacre II (1987), which is some of the most sauce.

Probably don't watch this.

THE CHANCES OF ANYTHING COMING FROM TEAMS, ARE A MILLION TO ONE, THEY SAID.

This shit rules, man.

Not only is it an insanely dumb experimental premise, it's ideologically rotten. This is a movie where big tech saves the day from the evil gubermint doing tinfoil hat population control with big data. We never at any point talk about big tech using big data for evil; no, no - it's only exclusively the government who uses big data to make your life worse. Big tech is your friend.

There is a critical plot beat where the protagonist has to go through the menus to buy an item on Amazon so he can have it delivered with their epic drone feature.

So, the aliens are invading to steal our most precious resource: big data. But wait! It gets dumber! They aren't reading the data, they eat it! It's food!

It does stick to it's gimmick of "all taking place on a screen" in an effective way, but everything they're doing with it is unbelievably dumb. There are several times where Ice Cube right clicks on a drone, and then he clicks on a menu option titled "Commandeer drone".

And while he's absolutely phoning it in, Ice Cube is so fucking funny in this. The whole thing is him clicking buttons on the computer, treated like movie with actual action happening.

Whenever we show news stations, we have a montage of a couple, but they always start with Fox News. Curious. Also Tucker Carlson and Joe Roegan are presented as respectable journalists. Wonderful.

It's not all right wing, though, we can lib out a little too. Chuck Schumer is presented as a politician who took a stand, which might be the least believable thing in this entire movie.

Highly recommend if you can watch this in a group. Not only is it a big laugh, but there's so much shit constantly thrown at you on screen that you need more eyes on it just to catch it all.

PRAY FOR A MAN IN THE MIDDLE

ONE THAT TALKS LIKE DOLITTLE

Look, what do you want me to say. Obviously this is boring as fuck. It's a 2h30 family musical from the 60s. Of course this is going to suck.

And - because of course they do - all of the songs (bar one) suck. It's rare I'm begging them to not sing in a musical, but the start of every song was met with "not again…"

Honestly does pick up a little when they get to the island, but that's 2 hours into a 2h30 movie.

Don't watch this.

I vow I will NEVER watch another Dolittle movie again. You can count on that.

DO YOU HAVE ANOTHER OPINION

Compared to the last one, it's actually pretty decent! Even just the change of starting him off not liking animals alone completely changes the game, adding conflict and a character arc where previously there was none at all.

I had actually seen this once as a kid, but I don't have any memory of this. I didn't even remember that the animals talk.

I do like the change of him actually having a unique ability of being able to talk to animals, instead of just a parrot told him how to do it like in the 60s one. And I do like that the trauma of losing his childhood pet because of that led him to bury this ability, but it's real hard to believe that he never encountered hearing another animal again until present day. Like, even if you avoid animals wherever possible, there's pigeons and shit. Folk walking their dogs. You're gonna encounter animals.

Honestly the only thing this really gets wrong is we have a French alcoholic circus monkey and we barely use it.

As with all these Hitchcocks, I was real anxious going in, but no, this is definitely one of the better ones!

It was definitely not intentional, but Cary Grant is extremely funny in this. He feels like Leslie Nielsen in The Naked Gun. I'm now wondering if his performance in that was based on Cary Grant? I can't find anything from a quick search, but it's very possible.

I do think it suffers from giving away it's mystery way too early. It's like 20 minutes in, and we just cut to a guy who explains everything going on. Like you're actually doing a good job at building tension and mystery, why throw that away?

Not sure what else to say on this.

GOT BOMBED GOT FROZEN

GOT FINALLY OFF TO FINALLY DOZIN'

Didn't start out too bad, but yeah it's shit. Real hard to say whether this or the 60s one is worse. On the one hand, this is a movie about a vet that can talk to animals where that doesn't affect the movie in any way, but on the other hand, the 60s one is 2h30 while this one's a tight 90, so who's to say?

Also has the exact same issue the 60s one does where they take way too long to get to the island. At least in that one they actually stay on the island for the rest of the movie; here we spend the whole movie getting to the island and then we immediatly leave.

Right, for some reason, RDJ is Welsh in this? Why is RDJ Welsh? This has to be the first time I've ever seen a lead character have a Welsh accent. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing a movie where any character has a Welsh accent. Crazy that Dolittle (2020) might be the first.

Absolutely the most annoying the animals have been in any of these. I actively wanted these CGI animals to die. They don't even do anything in the plot? They purely exist to sit at the side and quip when anything happens. You could take the animals out of the guy who talks to animals movie and nothing changes. What is the fucking point.

The climax of this movie is Welsh RDJ pulling pieces of armor out of a dragons ass while CGI John Cena goes "oooh, that's gotta hurt!" Fuck off.

Surprised at how good this was!

Was sold to me as a queer slasher B-movie, and while there's elements both, it kinda isn't any of these? There are queer characters, but they're side character, instead with the focus on how homophobia hurts everyone - even the straights. And while there is a killer who kills people, this isn't paced like a slasher, and the focus is not on kills happening.

Had the wrong read on this going in. I knew there was the possessive aunt, but I thought it was the nephew killing people, and her going "oh no one is taking away my baby", etc. Turns out, it's her killing people, and she is incestuously obsessed with the nephew, actively trying to prevent him from moving away, etc.

I do really like how we never hard specify his sexuality. He's almost certainly just straight, but like we never explicitly state that he is absolutely straight and not anything else. Strengthen's what the film's going for with how homophobia hurts everyone.

Bill Paxton is briefly in this! He's the first instance of it, so he kinda functions as the omen of homophobia.

Phenomenal kill in the opening scene. Just beautiful stuff.

Highly recommended.

Expected this to be hyper 90s horror slop, and while it was definitely hyper 90s, I actually kinda like this more than the original? I mean, I didn't really like the original all that much, so not a particularly high bar, but was unexpected nonetheless.

Honestly the biggest issue I had with this was that the protagonist isn't weird enough.

Might as well get it out the way now: the big climax at the end is straight up just better. It's more shocking, and the kills are better. Some of them are definitely more intentionally goofy, but I don't think that's a negative.

Bizarrely, we do pull a midichlorians and explain where the Carrie's (plural) powers come from? You don't need to do that? This also never comes up again, so I'm not sure why we even did this?

Speaking of things I'm not sure why we did: the mom plotline! We break her out of Arkham Asylum (yes, they really call it that), and then all that happens is she shows up at the end, and then runs away. Why did we bother including the mom at all after the start? She has no impact on anything?

I was shocked to learn this wasn't Canadian. I think it's because it's a similar tone to Ginger Snaps (2000)?

Weird amount of American Pie (1999) links, also. Was very happy whenever "guy who bangs Stiffler's mom" pops up.

Shockingly, this is a recommend.

Pretty decent werewolf film that every now and again decides to be blindingly 80s.

Like this is a film where a town gets whipped up into a frenzied mob after a kid is brutally murdered that also has Gary Busey building Corey Haim an epic chopper wheelchair with a painted logo on the back, and he's flying down the road as synth rock plays.

I like how much focus there is on showing how the panic affects the town. It'd be all too easy to brush over this, and this is one of those small touches that really elevates this.

Sadly it does give away too early who the werewolf is. The actual proper reveal shot would've hit a lot harder if we hadn't just casually dropped who it was like 20 minutes ago.

Twin Peaks link: Everett McGill is in this! He's a main character! He tries to run over a kid in a wheelchair at one point! Also he says "Marty" exactly the same way he says "Muad'Dib".

Easy Halloween season recommendation.

I had unreasonably high expectations for this. Yeah, it sucks. Absolutely fucking with the soundtrack, though.

If more things happened, would be amazing late 90s schlock. As it stands, there's so little happening that it genuinely starts to feel like you're watching deleted scenes as the movie goes on.

Even if this just had more locations, it'd be great, but no, we're all just stuck in this fucking castle for the whole movie as an invisible monster kills people every so often.

Going into this, being a 99 release, we had but one burning question: is grendel going to be a puppet or CGI? Turns out, a secret worse third thing: a puppet that is constantly obscured by warp blur and CGI purple miasma. The puppet looks good, too! Why the fuck are we hiding it like this!

Could not get over the Chinese takeaway trays with chicken nuggets. These should not be in frame. This might actually have been craft services.

Here's a scene where they play the same shot three times in a row.

Avoid.

What a delightful movie.

A horror movie that loves horror movies more than any movie I've seen. Scream (1996) wishes it was Popcorn.

Slasher that takes place during a B-movie festival. We've got 50s B-movies, experimental films by death cults, two women with the same bangs for some reason, and even a villain who's whole thing is practical effects!

Cannot recommend this enough for the Halloween season.

LE FREAK, C'EST CHIC

Yes, you see the Castle Freak's dick and balls in this. Well, maybe just balls. He ain't doing too good dick-wise.

Was worried this one might suck, so demoted it from the big Halloween movie, but I quite liked this! Definitely doesn't have the energy you'd want from a Halloween movie, as it's very melancholic gothic horror, so I still think it was a good call to demote it.

Great gothic horror family dynamic. Guilt-ridden dad who sees his dead son in the monster, the strain that has on the relationship with his wife, who wants to leave him, and the daughter who was blinded by the accident that killed the son and cannot see the monster right in front of her. Fantastic stuff.

Man, this Freak is killing it. Great design, great practical effects, and it is an absolute joy whenever he's on screen. Also tonally lands on a wonderfully complex mix of being tragic and sympathetic while also being just an abhorrent horrid little guy. This is by no means a kill-heavy movie, but what few kills there are are all great.

Combs is crazier in this than From Beyond (1986) - a movie where he plays a crazy guy.

Huge laugh when his wife (Crampton) goes "YOU WERE FIRED FROM THE UNIVERSITY FOR BEING POLITICALLY INCORRECT". Nothing chudd-y in the movie, by the way.

I wish Crampton had a little more to do, but not every movie can be From Beyond (though they should aim to be).

Not super Halloween-y, but highly reccomended to all Freak fans out there.

It's the one where the monsters are real!

Despite it subverting the formula, really this is still just a big premium Scooby-Doo episode, but it's a decent one. It's real slow in the first half, but picks up a lot in the back half.

It even still manages to have a big Scooby-Doo end twist despite the monsters being real the whole time, which was a surprise.

My only real connection to Scooby-Doo (aside from the Gunn movies) was that I watched What's New Scooby-Doo a fair bit as a kid, as it would be on CBBC every day right after I got home from school. I've seen a little bit of the 60s cartoon, but those Hanna-Barbera cartoons are really not my jam. I should watch those Twin Peaks crossover episodes.

The music in this kinda reminds me of What's New Scooby-Doo, for what it's worth.

Speaking of Gunn, Scooby-Doo (2002) is really just copying this. It even has Daphne doing martial arts! Surprisingly, I think there's actually more meta comments on the Scooby-Doo formula here than in there.

I will say that one does a much better job of having some conflict with the gang getting back together. Here we've split up, and then immediately phone each other up for another Scooby gang adventure like nothing happened.

Also Tara Strong jumpscare. Ruh-roh, Raggy, a rionist, etc.

The Halloween season is almost over, and I realised I hadn't watched some shit like "The Stuff", but to my surprise, it's actually pretty good? Surprising amount of thematic meat for what you would expect to be a dumpy B-movie, and it's consistently fun, to boot.

It's kinda like if The Blob was Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but the focus is mainly on like food regulations, advertising, and consumer culture. Lots of flashy fake ads for The Stuff, you love to see it.

We open on an old security guy who sees white goo bubbling in the snow, and then just IMMEDIATELY starts eating it. He also looks exactly like that old guy who was eating the paint thinking it was yogurt, so I guess this is just a type of guy.

Weirdly inconsistent effects? There's some great rubber masks, but then we have some REAL rough greenscreen every now and again. At the very least, the poor greenscreening adds charm.

Sadly it does dip a bit in final stretch. Gets little deus ex crackpot militia machina. Also Running Man (1987) style adorably naive ending where they get on the radio and tell people THE TRUTH (and it's a renowned guy everyone hates saying it, no less), and everyone just instantly believes and the day is saved.

Easy recommend.

What, I'm gonna watch Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998) and not watch the sequel with the Hex Girls? What am I, stupid?

It's alright. Hard to muster much more emotion on it than that, really.

Similar to Zombie Island, this is very much just a big premium Scooby-Doo episode, but instead of being a full subversion, we do the classic hoax before transitioning to supernatural. The former is definitely a lot more impactful, but you can really only pull a Zombie Island once - this you can do pretty much infinitely.

I'll be real, the Hex Girls songs are cringe. Real hard to pull off baby movie friendly goth, so can't really fault it too much, but wow did I want these songs to be over as soon as they began.

Very funny how completely off-brand the Hex Girls are, by the way, like these are characters from a different show. They look bizarre standing next to the Scooby gang. Also Jennifer Hale jumpscare.

Tim Curry's in this too! I actually didn't realise it was him until I saw the cast list afterwards.

There's a couple more of these, but not sure I'm too interested. Maybe next Halloween.

Harder sell than Zombie Island, but you could watch this.

Yeah, this is neat. Definitely the oldest film I've ever seen (and first silent film), and it's very watchable despite this (much more than most non-silent films from a couple decades later).

I haven't seen the Eggers film, but I have seen the 30s Dracula, and read the book. It's kinda crazy just how much this clears the 30s one.

And all the things they change add to this from the book are like unarguably improvements. Setting up that Nosferatu is moving into the abandoned house facing yours (instead of just somewhere in London), merging the boss and Renfield, Nosferatu's effect on the populace being interpreted as a plague, all straight improvements over the source material.

For all the improvements it makes, however, they both suffer from the exact same issue that Nosferatu is just kinda barely in it. And unlike the 30s movie, the vampire is great in this! But he's just sadly not in it much.

Also like the source material, his death at the end sucks. We literally never confront Nosferatu at any point, he just kills himself on accident? Everyone leaves the house, he starts suckin', and then he realises it's day and just fucking dies.

You could play this off as his downfall being that he's too obsessed with Mina (Ellen in this), but we never really do much with that. Almost certain this is the direction the Eggers film takes. Yes, I know how he dies in that one. I thought that was ridiculous when I heard it, but after watching this, it's really not that much of a stretch.

While the pacing isn't awful, yeah it's pretty off. We spend way too long getting to the castle, and way too long going from the castle to the city. Nosferatu is only in the city in the last 20 minutes of the film.

Will I watch more silent films? Probably. Not in any particular rush to. I don't know what the big recommended silent films even are, that's definitely a film blind spot I have.

Should you watch Nosferatu (1922)? Yes! Should you watch it on Halloween? No! You want something fun and flashy for Halloween!

You'd think given that like 80% of what I watch is low budget 80s/90s horror it'd be easy for me to pick Halloween films, but that actually makes it way harder, as I need find something big and special. Most of the time, 2-3 things big and special. Yes I have mine sorted.

Halloween movie 1 of 3.

Generation-wide childhood movie that everyone seems to have mostly memory-holed. Expect for one scene. Or at least, everyone I've spoke to about this film has remembered one scene.

It's alright, probably like this more than the 1st, even if there's less fun character moments. I actually really liked this early on, but as it goes on it does lose it's energy, even if all the classic monsters come to life is a fun premise.

For some reason we have a running plot where Shaggy & Scooby are told they're useless, even though aside from Velma they're the only ones who ever do anything? Fred and Daphne don't do shit in these.

When I watched 1, I said that the Velma and Shaggy performances were just impressions, but I'd like to rescind that. Velma is more amplified and focused on being a cartoon dweeb, and - while it is just a Shaggy impression - it is borderline perfect. Like he even walks like him.

I don't remember what the Daphne performance was like in 1, but here SMG is just doing Buffy. She even has a Buffy fight at one point. Though it's not like there's much characterisation to even go off, like Daphne has always kinda just been "woman".

As it's more Scooby-Doo than the 1st, I'd probably recommend this over it, and Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998) if you want to see it subverting the formula.

SCIENCE FICTION

DOUBLE FEATURE

Halloween movie 2 of 3.

Out of all the classic Universal horror movies I've seen, this is by far the most watchable, being completely carried by Claude Rains performance.

Definitely lulls in the middle, but man whenever the Invisible Man is causing havoc it is genuinely really fun. I knew going in that "this is a funny movie" and it certainly delivers. Unlike Frankenstein (1931), it all feels on purpose, too. And shockingly, it actually manages to balance this tone well, as the more comedic moments don't take away from The Invisible Man™ feeling intimidating.

Some surprisingly great effects - especially so for a 30s movie.

Check this out.

Rounding off the Halloween trilogy with a French brain-melter. I am yet to watch a French movie that wasn't completely insane.

Dare I say I kinda liked this? Like, it's a complete nonsense where nothing happens, but not only was I never bored, I was more engaged than with anything else I watched tonight.

So this is billed as Nazisploitation, but there kind of isn't any Nazi stuff in it? Like, the mutant guy on the poster is - by pure coincidence - wearing a Nazi uniform, and that is it. He cannot speak, he does not espouse Nazi ideology (or any other fascist worldviews), he is just Jason Voorhees if there was a scene where Jason Voorhees got kicked in the face by a horse for like five minutes straight. That is a scene in this.

And when we have a scene, we really have that scene. We will hold on a specific action happening so long that it gets to the point of being comedic. Like every scene is like this.

Speaking of the horse, there's old guy trying to shoot this horse for almost the entire movie. Like every couple of scenes we'll cut back to this guy just unloading shot after shot at this horse for minutes at a time and he never once hits it. And we never resolve this B-plot, either. We show one shot as if that was the one that finally got the horse, but then we immediately move on to wrapping up the mummy plot. At one point he even says "this horse is the key to everything" and we just never go into it.

I can actually recommend this if you're after a brain melter, but like, be well aware of what you're going into. This is nonsense that takes your whole brainpower to try and process what is happening on screen. It is borderline experimental.

Following Halloween with some bogansploitation.

It's alright!

Not exactly what I thought it would it would be, like I thought it would be a "stuck in a small rural town" movie, turns out it's a "kidnapped by a commune cult" movie. But, it's not him trying to escape the whole time, like he does acclimate, and the commune isn't entirely all evil and out to get him. Like they're mostly chill.

Also nowhere near as crazy as it seems to have garnered a reputation of being. If anything, this is played down a lot more than you'd expect a movie about a commune cult who kidnaps the protagonist to be. They're all pretty normal people - even the charismatic leader is just kind of a bloke.

It's not hard to see why this didn't do as well as Priscilla, but it isn't trying to be Priscilla. Constant comparisons to a very different movie with different aims and tone will kill most any movie if that's the narrative that takes hold. I think it also didn't help that they probably weren't sure how to market this, as you can probably tell from the awful poster.

For some reason most of the user reviews I've seen absolutely HATE this, and I really have no idea why? Like this is a pretty hard to hate movie.

A lot of reviews also said this was super problematic and offensive, which I don't know what they're referring to? And very frequently people say the lead woman looks like Sabrina Carpenter, which she doesn't in any way? What the fuck is going on?

Check this out maybe.

AKA Godzilla vs King Ghidorah AKA Godzilla 5

Man, I remember these Showa Godzilla movies being decent? Honestly not feeling them too much this time around.

For a movie called Ghidorah, Ghidorah is barely fucking in this? In fact, despite Godzilla not being in the title, they're in this way more than Ghidorah!

And even though Godzilla is in this a fair bunch, he kinda just throws rocks the whole time? Like I think he uses the breath exactly once at the start, and then never again?

I forgot how cracked Rodan was. Rodan is carrying this fight singlehandedly.

So the main plot revolves around a foreign princess who's being mind controlled by a friendly alien, does nothing other than warn people that the plot is going to happen, then gets shot and the alien leaves. Alright.

The Mothra twins are TV personalities now? They do one of their epic Mothra twin songs on this variety show, and then later in the movie we do another song with the exact same footage. Could not tell you if they were the same song or not.

Skipping a couple to a one I definitely remember liking, vs. Hedorah.

Very close to being very good. It's very different in both tone and scope compared to the first two, but it's very much in-line world-building-wise. Very.

Normally, a zombie movie having very few zombies in it is a death sentence, but this is the only one I've seen where this actually works in the films favour, helping it to feel a lot more personal.

I will say there's a lack of build up with zombie GF's transformation. She kinda just spends the whole movie slightly fucked up and then goes sicko mode over the course of like one minute. I have no idea how she's suddenly full of glass.

I guess I just add a definite content warning for self harm, there's a fair amount of self harm to distract from the urge to eat people.

Like 1, this is a pretty dark film. Unlike 1, there really isn't any comedy in this, it's all played pretty straight outside of some of the lab stuff that's a little campy, but only a little.

And while the previous two used the military's ties to "gas that makes you a zombie" as campy comedy, this film really leans into the idea of the military using this to perform horrific experiments in the pursuit of bio weapons.

Also some amazing practical effects, but that's to be expected from Yuzna.

Check this out maybe. You do not need to have seen either of the first two, but definitely watch the first one.

It's nice.

I'm honestly not really sure what to say about it? It's a fun time, and a very well executed representation of the series, but there kind of just isn't anything interesting to pick apart here. It's nice.

I'd somehow seen 2 and 3 a lot as a kid, but I only saw this for the first time a couple years ago. Not sure how that happened.

We popped off when we had the flashback of pre-mutation Splinter doing martial arts in his little cage.

A gnome-based buddy cop movie.

Really confusing mix of world-class puppet work used for an absolutely revolting looking creature. Why does he have human teeth?

This thing flows really strangely. We were genuinely struggling to follow some of the plot points early on, and there's often scenes that will just start out of nowhere with the Gnome doing something, and then nothing really happens before cutting away. A lot of scenes with this gnome functionally in a K-hole.

Anthony Michael Hall is protagonist cop man, and he is such a poor fit as cop man that it's yet another strange layer in how this actually got released. This is one of the most obviously should've been cancelled mid-production films I've seen.

The gnome is a huge pervert, which was very surprising for a PG. Several scenes where he ogles a woman, going "ooOOOooOOOhhh… giant pookas…."

He also has the power to make people fall asleep, which is never properly introduced, and is never really used? Why not.

Robert Z'Dar is in this and he does not play the character named Zadar. I realise that might not read that crazy, but audibly it's crazy.

Impossible to say whether B-movie fans should watch this or not.

AKA Bakshi's LOTR

It's very clumsy and very flawed, but man, there's so much soul here.

I fucking love the harsh contrast mixed media style they use for the villains (and occasionally heroes - as I said - very clumsy).

I really want to try making something in that style, but I'm not sure how you'd do that without filming footage of people in costumes, and that is out of scope for me. Maybe I could try throwing stock 3D assets together, and then heavily editing renders, but it's hard to say without experimenting.

The big elephant in the room here is that we just don't really have an ending. EVERY plotline is unresolved. We win the battle of Helm's Deep, and then we immediately have narration saying "…and that was it - we drove away the evil from Middle Earth!"

The last we see of Merry and Pippin are when they've just met Treebeard, and Frodo, Sam and Gollum are right about to enter Sheolob's cave.

Speaking of Sam, why did they do him like that? It's already an issue that Frodo, Merry and Pippin all use the exact same character sheet sans hair colour, and then we have Sam. No one is writing fan faction about this Sam.

The rotoscoping is a real mixed bag. There's enough skill in the animation work to convey emotions a lot better than most animated films, but on the other hand, a lot of this movie ends up looking like Smiling Friends.

Definitely check this out.

AKA Mutronics

Annoyingly, doesn't seem to be a decent poster for this one.

It feels like this was a movie entirely made to appeal to me specifically.

This is one of those American live action anime adaptations, which is normally a guaranteed bomb that everyone hates, but this one actually kinda pulls it off? Tonally it really feels like an OVA, to the point where I never realised that this was only a PG-13. Like it really FEELS like an edgy hyper violent anime despite really not being that violent.

Fantastic practical effects, as you'd expect from a Screaming Mad George joint. Also produced by Brian Yuzna, because as we've established, this was made for me specifically.

Some S tier goons on display here. They're all fun and charismatic, they all transform into basically just Gremlins - one of them even raps! AS the Gremlin!

Goon ringleader Michael Berryman even has a cute little relationship with one of the other goons! This is what we're here for!

We've also got a moustached Mark Hamil in a supporting role. Not sure where else to put this. Turns into a slug at one point. Still has the moustache.

Minor reoccurring character Linnea Quigley shows up in one scene, seemingly playing herself? Very fun scene.

Big fan of this trope that would take too long to describe. Again, this was made specifically for me. Only thing this is missing is a Twin Peaks link.

Check this out maybe. Maybe I'll watch this sequel, but it's seemingly a much lower budget movie that's 2 hours of running around in the woods.

So, this is SOV, which is normally Real Freak Shit Only, but this is seemingly beloved, so was interested in how it is. Turns out it's a real Marmite B-movie, and yeah I hate this. Overly self-aware "let's make it shit on purpose" energy, chock full of try hard epic funny line reads and saying movie references for the sake of having a reference.

One of those films where you check the runtime, and wow! 30 minutes have passed already!

And then you check again, later, expecting there to only be 20 minutes left… and only 15 minutes has passed.

And then you leave it a significant amount of time, and SURELY it's almost at the end now… and only 10 minutes have passed…

Plot is complete nonsense. It was dizzyingly confusing when it would attempt simple things like "introducing a new character". We'd maybe go into a TV show for a bit, but it's hard to tell, as everything is shot in this one house with the same inconsistently stylised lighting, so there's nothing to actually separate these bits out.

Speaking of TV, every so often we'll cut to a news reporter, who you'd expect to be giving background information to enhance the world-building, but no, they're just saying random news stories that have zero relevance to anything that happens in the movie. At one point they start laughing about Traci Lords?

And, right, I know I say this a lot, and I do not mean it to be a stand-in for "weird", but this is yet another B-movie that kinda feels like Inland Empire (2006). Very specifically the bit where Laura Dern is just stuck at that house looking confused and forlorn. Add some completely static spider puppets and you're basically at Things.

Hard avoid. It's not fun.

There's a false idea that all slasher boom slashers were purely just cynical cash grabs, but yeah that 1000% applies here. Fuck all happens until the last 30 minutes, it's utterly sauce-less, and would be entirely forgotten if not for the trivia of "hey did you know Leslie Nielsen was in a slasher?"

And while he's almost exclusively first billed, he isn't really in it much at all?

I guessed from pretty much the instant you first see him that he would be the twist killer instead of the red herring, and even disappears towards the end as everyone goes "hey, where's Leslie Nielsen?"

So, cut to the end when the killer is revealed, and it's not him? Where the fuck did he go?

The usual issue I have with slashers where no one knows what's happening for way too long might be the worst it's ever been here. As I've already said, nothing happens until the last 30 minutes, but after that no one knows anything is up until THE LAST FIVE MINUTES. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

All the kills are really bad - like peak censorship meddling Friday the 13th levels of bad kills, but it's 1980 on the dot, we aren't censoring shit yet.

Has that "early 80s so it's still 70s" energy real bad. There is disco music for the entire final third.

Hard avoid. I only watched this in preparation for the unrelated-except-by-name sequel that very much looks like my kinda shit.

Wow! Very surprised at how good this ended up being!

Definitely one of the biggest glow ups I've seen in a movie sequel, despite the only similarities between them being the name, both revolving around a prom, and them both being very close to other, bigger slashers of the time.

While the original was just exceptionally dull Hallowen (1978) with a dash of the ugly extremely-70s-despite-early-80s sheen of early Friday the 13th, the sequel is very Nightmare on Elm Street, with a little bit of Carrie (1976) and The Exorcist (1973) thrown in there.

And despite feeling very Nightmare on Elm Street, it's using it in a very inspired, creative ways, instead of just feeling like a cynical bandwagon. A lot of real neat waking nightmare sequences.

Was a real rollercoaster with the lead. We were pretty underwhelmed with her performance at the start, not having much presence and kinda looking like an 8 year old child - which is very strange for a high school senior. But, then we get into the possession part of the movie, and she's suddenly really good! Also starts looking a little Natasha Lyonne? I'm sure the 50s ghost isn't as big on AI, though.

Michael Ironside is in this, meaning we get to play my favourite game: "will he have hair in this?"

And the answer is: "mostly".

I will say Ironside doesn't exactly fit the character. This is meant to be a dweeb racked with guilt, and I just don't really buy Ironside as dweeb.

Highly recommended to fans of supernatural slashers. I will be checking out the sequel at some point. Do not for any reason watch Prom Night (1980).

CW: sudden kinda loud noise

Also all on YT! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz2d7we3mV0

Holy SHIT that was racist.

So this is a "prince and the pauper" type story, except it's against the prince's will, and the pauper is like following a checklist of racial stereotypes. Like it's to the point where it actively harms Murphy's usual likeability.

It keeps getting worse, too! We end up on Aykroyd in just straight up blackface! For several minutes! He's doing a voice and everything! It takes a lot to for a film to physically make me jaw drop, but this did it.

And I keep seeing people go "oh, well, y'know, it was the 80s." The fuck do you mean it was the 80s? You know how much blackface I see in all the dodgy 80s movies I watch? None!

And we're not just racist, no, we're dropping f-slurs like crazy. I know Eddie Murphy has disavowed homophobic comments since, but fucking hell man, it is BAD here.

Very funny how fast they both progress. Eddie Murphy is in that office for like 2 hours and he's the smartest money guy who's ever lived getting front page in the Financial Times. Dan Aykroyd is poor for 3 days and goes to shoot up the office party dressed as Santa.

Losing my mind reading the reviews for this. Dog, we GOTTA stop pretending stories are progressive solely because they include a rich villain. This does not make it "left wing" to go "that rich person is being mean", are you kidding me? We literally save the day by illegally manipulating the stock market for our own gain instead of the villains. Our plan was the exact same as the villains.

Now, I am not bothered at all by gratuitous nudity, but Jamie Lee Curtis' ONLY function in this is to show boob. Like she has nothing to do, doesn't effect the movie in any way other than give Akroyd a place to crash before an obligatory romance we didn't establish, and every 5 minutes they're fucking out again.

Definitely one of those cases where this being presented as a real movie and not pervert trash makes the same material a lot worse. But y'know, it was the 80s - they were doing blackface and everything back then.

Was completely lost during the trading pit stretch, but not sure how you give enough context cleanly.

Hard avoid.

Saw this poster and I had to.

It's okay! Very over-hated, for sure. One of those where I fully get why you wouldn't like it, but also I don't get why you would HATE it this strongly.

I will say I was promised that this was crazy/annoying, and it just kinda wasn't?

Strange lack of character exploration in this film about a thing happening to a character. Like it's JUST plot beats and the occasional jokes to the point where it feels like it's missing half the movie.

Might be the first misogynistic and homophobic trans movie? I mean, somewhat light phobia, all things considered - but it is what it is.

After the transformation starts, we INSTANTLY timeskip, robbing us of the "oh fuck what's going on I'm different now". We also have not yet established what the mechanics of switching are, like we don't know if it's The Substance (2024) rules or not, so we have a 5 minute stretch where it's like she's just picked all of this up real quick, and is instantly just living her best life with no friction or confusion whatsoever.

Turns out, not only is it The Substance rules, but it makes a lot more sense than The Substance, because they very much are both one that switches, instead of two separate people that turn on and off.

So, because it's The Substance rules, and we're changing gender, we have a bunch of behavioural changes which is implying "men are mean and women are nice", but then she just starts being evil kinda out of nowhere?

Also real unsavoury minor plotline where Harvey Fierstein is attracted to Ms. Hyde despite being gay, chocking it up to progress in his conversion therapy. Again, first homophobic trans movie.

This might be the best Stephen Tobolowsky movie - he is something else in this. If you ever wanted to see Stephen Tobolowsky do foot stuff, then boy do I have the movie for you.

Also features Jeremy Piven, that you guy see and spend the next five minutes snapping your fingers trying to remember who he is. Real sex pest in this.

So, Lysette Anthony plays functional terf GF (British, so it's to be expected) and she looks fucking EXACTLY like Hilary Clinton. Now, Sabrina Carpenter also looks like Hilary Clinton, but interestingly, Anthony does not look like Carpenter.

Sean Young plays Ms Hyde. Don't worry, it's not bad like that other time.

You could watch this?

A little over-hated, but boy yeah this falls apart in the back half.

A movie that dares to ask "what if we went all-in on Jessica Rabbit?"

I've always known about this, but always put it off as I'd always heard it sucked. But the first half has a lot to really like. Sure, it's no Roger Rabbit, but what is?

I mean the one thing that would kill an RR-like for good would be not enough and/or poor quality animation, but there's a lot (at least until the back half) and it looks good! Not in a wide appealing way, mind, this is still Ralph Bakshi. It's aggressively cartoony in a way that squeaky clean Roger Rabbit is not afforded.

Unexpectedly a lot closer to Monkeybone than Roger Rabbit? No John Turturro in this one, though, sadly.

Cool World is a terrible name. It's Toon World. You pay 1000 LP to activate it, and it has no effect.

The other main issue I hear about this is that it is allegedly "not horny enough". This is a flat out lie. The plot quite literally revolves around fucking Jessica Rabbit.

So the basic premise is Brad Pitt is a soldier returning home, and then he immediately gets into a motorcycle accident and almost dies. So when the paramedics revive him - for a completely unrelated reason - he gets sucked into Toon World. I guess it did do that in the anime, like they gave it an effect there.

So after Brad Pitt is sucked into Toon World, we immediately timeskip to him being a private eye, robbing the film of the fish out of water moments of a guy interacting with wacky cartoons for the first time. This is half the appeal of "normal character gets put in crazy world" stories. After the timeskip this is just normal to him and everyone around him.

Whenever we're in Toon World there is constant annoying shit popping up on screen. This is by no means a negative for me.

And boy whenever we're focusing on the humans in Toon World these are some cheap, nasty looking sets. I get the vision of what they're going for, but man it makes the whole thing look like cheap shit - which it very much is not.

Now: the music. I like it personally, but it does not fit the movie in the slightest.

Before playing this clip, imagine in your head what the soundtrack to a "cartoon world" movie would sound like.

It's potentially very interesting to have this alternate dimension where a cartoonist is influenced by the cartoons to bring the world to life, but we never really explore this. We just kinda plop it on the table and move on.

And then we get to the back half, where it turns out if a human and a toon bang (which they set up early on is illegal, which does feels very, uhh, charged) then it turns the toon into a human, and the human gets, like, Mickey Mouse lightning powers (I think?) and humans can just travel freely at will back to Human World, which has been Jessica Rabbit's goal.

But, the complication here is that if you're a toon that's transformed into a human through whoopie, then you occasionally flicker back into a toon. But not the same toon, no that would make too much sense, so she starts like, turning into a clown? I'm pretty sure this was done because the clown has larger proportions than toon Kim Basinger, so it's easier to animate over real Kim Basinger, but it looks bizarre. Consistency is a pretty consistent issue I've noticed in Bakshi films.

There's a cure, however: there's this spire macguffin with no context as to what it looks like, what it does, or why it's there, and if a human-ed toon touches it, they become human forever. So Jessica Rabbit's entire motivation was to be real in the real world, but then the second we touch the macguffin - which we've been told will make her real forever - it just turns her back into a toon and she's fine with it?

Also Brad Pitt just straight up fucking dies at the end for real. And then like 10 minutes later, as we're crying over his dead body, we go "oh wait there's this mechanic we've never brought up before where if a toon killed him he comes back as a toon" and boy does Toon Brad Pitt look chopped as hell. And I mean, he can attack directly now if Toon World is on the field, but he has summoning sickness?

Genuinely, if you like Roger Rabbit-likes, you WILL get something out of Cool World. Just, mind the back half.

Might do Heavy Traffic (1973) next.

So this was one of those beloved childhood movies that I've not seen since being a small child. And while it is very likeable, this is real rough at like, being an actual story where things happen.

Like the WHOLE movie is just fucking around doing random bits that don't advance any sort of plot or convey any character growth whatsoever. And then the entire plot happens in like 5 minutes at the end, in sheer coincidence - completely unrelated to anything we've been doing the entire movie.

And right, I know this is a baby movie from the 60s, but there's a real undercurrent of "aww pull your bootstraps up and put a bit of effort in and you can have anything" while also actively hand waving any of the opportunities or connections you've been afforded.

I started off really liking Merlin, but the further this goes on the more it becomes clear what an insufferable elitist crank he is. Like this guy sucks.

Show this to like a small child maybe.

IT'S Y2K SCHWARZENEGGER CONSTANTINE

So this sucks, but man this is a banger of a hangout movie.

Right, WHAT is Arnold's job in this. We open on him about to kill himself, drinking a "unrefridgerated takeaway leftovers and food off the floor" smoothie, then I think he's a private security guard, but then he's like accessing police records??

By the halfway point we find out that he used to be a cop (past tense), but then he's just taking shit from the police armoury and they're fine with it?

The audio mixing in this was driving me crazy. WHY is all the music mixed in so quietly? There's like a minute long shot of a guy walking down the street as Rob Zombie - Superbeast plays at like 15% volume.

At one point there's a really neat gross out body horror sex scene that is then completely ruined by faintly mixing in Limp Fucking Bizkit of all thigns. Of ALL things.

Somehow the 2nd movie I've seen this week where the plot revolves around Gabriel Byrne fucking. It's never really clear what exactly will happen if he does, but we've established it will end the world. Big fan of the scene where he kills a guy by pissing oil on this car and then throwing a match at him.

I managed to perfectly nail an Arnold impression while watching this, and I've never been able to do it again since.

It sucks, but very funny hangout flick.

Childhood movie I remember being okay; and yeah, it's okay. I think I watched this one more than 2 as a kid, though not sure why. I think I just found the big city intimidating, or something.

Maybe the most early 2000s 90s movie there is? Was shocked to see this was '97, and not like, 2003.

Not much to say about this, other than it's extremely okay. I honestly have no idea why it's hated so much. It's no Home Alone 1 or 2, but what is?

Baby ScarJo is in this! The siblings have nothing to do other than pull faces, but it's interesting that she's here, I guess.

Turns out, Lenny Von Dohlen is in this, meaning I have a core childhood Twin Peaks link!

It doesn't suck, but you should probably skip this.

As eugenics movies go, this is a very nice time. But, like, WOW is it eugenics-y. Like there's not a way you could tweak things without it still being eugenics-y.

Dare I say this might be the only good Arnold performance? Like he actually works well as a male ingenue. Has been the only time I've seen him and not thought "how did he have a career where he has to say lines?" There is no way his ego would allow anything like this again, though. Maybe Junior (1994), if you squint.

Also these scientists never face any punishment or repercussions other than one of them getting slapped? It's almost like we're not anti eugenics, or something.

No less than THREE Lynch links in this one. Heather Graham, José Ferrer, and Frances Bay. We're eating good.

Easy recommend, horrific worldviews aside.

Yes, the ghost gives him head in this one.

Had seen this a couple times as a kid (was scared of it), but not since actually regularly watching movies.

Might be first and last horror comedy with a budget?

Like, this really shouldn't work; it's strange that all the elements here came together fine. Like, this should be a no budget freako movie I somewhat like, but no, it's huge and everyone loves it.

The only real thing I have issue with is the environmental regulations villain. Reagan's America, baby!

Only learnt on this watch that Stay Puft is not a real brand; always thought it was!

Check this one out maybe. Idk, it's a little obscure.

Slime-based movie.

It's a very pleasant time, but yeah, this is no Ghostbusters 1.

While there are more ghosts in this one than 1, the main issue with 2 is that there is way too much focus on this fucking slime. Everything is this slime. They barely even use the proton packs.

Also really unclear what the link (if there is one) between the slime and the ghosts is? Sometimes when there's slime some ghosts pop up?

Another big issue this has is that it's much too low energy for much too long. I actually really like all the character exploration they're doing, but we don't have a big opening like 1, so the whole first act feels very sleepy. There isn't a ghost until the 30 minute mark.

It's also just… not that funny? Like there aren't really that many jokes, this time around. Ghostbusters 1 is absolutely a horror comedy, but I don't think you can even call this one that.

Kinda has that ultra successful 80s family movie sequel issue of being more kiddy than the 1st, but it's not by much. It's mainly just less sexual content. No ghost head in this one.

Doesn't reach the highs of Ghostbusters 1, but it's still a good time. Really want to replay that third person shooter now.

It's alright? Fun first half, but kinda loses energy in the back half.

Tries to do too many things and ends up not giving any of them time to cook.

Like we have the opening where the husband dies from curse, so I think "ah, okay, this is a grief movie with a supernatural vehicle; got it."

But then we move on from this real quickly, and it becomes "oh shit we killed Bulgarian BF, we need to make him into a zombie", but nothing really happens with that until way later? And then we focus entirely on very boring cop man as it becomes a cop-based movie?

Also, extremely funny to go "I'm going to wish for a man with traits that are not possible, so I don't end up with someone who will die from curse. I'm wishing for a man with heterochromia - a medical condition we know and understand."

We also don't commit to him actually having heterochromia? Like not to folded arms rantsona ding, but this fucker does not have heterochromia outside of the one scene where we highlight him supposedly having this thing that he does not have. I actually thought it was Kidman casting a spell to turn him into her dream man to throw off the investigation, but no, it was pre-destined - he allegedly had this thing he does not have the entire time.

Really not a fan of them undoing the curse at the end. You can't do "oh I can never know love without them dying, but I'll always have my sister/family" if you turn around at the end and go "yay curse over, i can have a man again, yippee!"

They also just pull it being fixed out of thin air, like why did it even end?

Also I feel like I'm being gaslit reading user reviews: this is not a queer movie. This is a very straight movie. I know there is a strong link between witches and queer women, but a movie being witch-based does not automatically make it queer. You have to actually be queer to do that.

No Lynch link this time. I thought the mom in this was the mom in Wild at Heart (1990), but I keep confusing Dianne West with Diane Ladd.

Probably the weakest Yuzna I've seen, but there's still some neat stuff in here.

Not sure why this is even part of the series? There's a very loose, entirely cuttable Christmas background, and the only actual link to the previous movies is Clint Howard watching a couple seconds of 3.

So what this actually is is a witch movie. A bug witch movie. A grossout bug witch movie.

It's technically more sapphic than Practical Magic (1998), but this is limited by feeling nowhere near feminine enough than you'd expect that to be? If you're after lesbian witch cult, this won't disappoint, but don't expect it to be too lesbian.

Also every like 3rd review mentions this having an incest angle to it, but I honestly didn't pick up on it. At this point I think I might be incest blind.

While the practical bug effects are all great, I do feel like Screaming Mad George wasn't given enough opportunity to cook. Like it's all just kinda big cockroaches; couple grubs here and there. There's somewhat of a body horror element here, but it's ultimately pretty light. Probably constrained by budget.

If you ever wanted to see Clint Howard fuck, then boy do I have the movie for you.

Check this out for Yuzna completionists. Don't treat this as part of the series.

Now, I'm sure this not being killer-Santa-based was just a one off, and that 5 will be playing all the old hits.

A movie that dares to ask: "what if Fred Olen Ray had a budget?"

Mostly really like this, but the things I don't like come real close to sinking it.

Right, as a Gen Z Brit, I have no context for Tales from the Crypt. I've always vaguely known what it is, like it's a horror anthology show with the quippy guy. All the examples I know with a quippy guy are for kids, though, and unless they decided to go all out for just the movies it's probably not for kids. There is a LOT of nudity here.

It's fun, the atmosphere is great, the practical effects are all great, I really like the contrast between the squeaky clean moralistic televangelist church and the grimey vampire brothel who are secretly conspiring together (there's a lot of meat here a more serious story could really dig into), but one the thing that really brings it down is the protagonist. Good grief is this guy annoying. You can't take a sleazy quippy side character and make them the protagonist, it sucks. You need to microdose this type of character.

I thought at first the protagonist was punk Corey Feldman, and this was the best movie ever, but turns out it was just the prologue. Feldman isn't in this much, but he's great in this.

May or may not have a gross age gap love interest? Like, there's definitely somewhat of an age gap, but it's really unclear on how old Eleniak is? She lives with her brother (no parents the picture), and they argue like teens, but she also has a big job doing advertising at the scam church where she wears a suit? These are very conflicting trait flags.

Also uses the term "gaslighting" at one point, which shocked me that that phrase goes back at least twenty years. Apparently this phrase goes back to the 50s!

To go back to the church, I really didn't like how we suddenly decide to redeem the evil scam church guy at the end for no reason. At the very least, you need to tie this into a character arc or something.

Big fan of the vampires making the same stock sounds as the demons in Doom.

Greatest film ever Ghoulies II (1987) link: Phil Fondacaro is in this!

Check this out if this kinda thing is your jam.

Right, I did NOT expect this to be like this. One of the few animated films I've seen that feels like what watching Felix the Cat: The Movie (1988) as a kid felt like.

So I thought this would be a comfy 80s rock opera musical, but turns out it's an gross, grimy, acid sc-fi 80s rock opera with very few songs.

This is a very rare case for me with movies, but it had the kind of constant noise that triggers sensory issues for me. The film never takes a break; the second one character stops blaring on another one instantly starts. The pacing is violent.

I can't even make out any of the lyrics to the songs, it's just CONSTANT blurry noise. With a cleaner mix I think I might really like the songs, though. Wish there was more of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m20Nl4iTaPI

It's definitely the kind of art style that has an appeal, but I don't what it is - it manages to pin point and press the exact buttons that make my skin crawl.

Technically a furry movie, I guess, but it might be the lightest on the furry scale I've seen. These are straight up just regular people but they have a little snouts and button nose.

I thought it might at least be loud and annoying enough for kids to maybe get something out of, but by the halfway mark there's suddenly a ton of breasts and explicit drug use.

Early on there was a sci-fi drug stand-in, and I thought "fair enough, it's 80s", but you hit the halfway mark then BAM these critters are suddenly snorting powders and popping pills. I don't think I've ever seen a movie be kid friendly in the first half only and then take a massive jump like this, like that is a new one for sure.

Bizarrely inconsistent animation. Every like 3rd side character is animated beautifully well, but the main two characters are animated like EbSynth? The male lead especially, like I don't think there's a single scene where he doesn't look extremely shit.

Protagonist is just kind of a huge dick, and also never really has a character arc? Like this is cartoon character arc 101 stuff, like what's going on.

Honestly I do not remember at all how I even came across this.

Might be one of those cases where I didn't really vibe with it but it's so out there and with such a cult following that I think I do recommend it? Like I fully get why people love this. There's a very good chance I watch this again in like 2 years and really like it, in fact.

Extremely 2000s core slasher.

Sadly disappointing. Starts off real stylish, with a lot of energy, but then very quickly just runs out of steam completely. Nothings starts happening until the last like 30 minutes.

I thought that because we have the framing of being in a game of werewolf that it would avoid the classic slasher issue of no one having any idea what's happening right until they die, but nope! Of course it still does this! We completely forget that we even did the whole werewolf thing until the very end!

We try and do a big epic The Usual Suspects (1995) twist ending, but like, the killer was extremely obvious the whole time. From word go there were only two candidates, and then we kept dropping hints that it was one of them, and it just was!

Might have watched a slightly censored version? Some of the subtitles were like, very slightly more explicit. Might be the only time this hasn't bothered me at all, like the lines are pretty much the same.

Kills all suck, yadda yadda.

Sadly wasted potential. I really like the idea of the game of werewolf having the characters distrust each other, and them playing around with making up a killer based on tropes that becomes real, but we pretty much drop these elements the second we're done establishing them.

Skip.

AKA the GARBAGE DAY movie

A hell of a lot of fun.

Goes for a lot more swings than you'd expect for a "we got banned, so let's quickly throw together a sequel that's 1/3rd recycled footage from the original". Do they land? Not really, but something of this calibre going for any swings at all feels special.

The recycled footage is also a lot easier to swallow given the 1st was banned for so long. As far as I can tell, it did eventually have a home release the year before this released, but I'm assuming this wasn't very accessible.

The original footage is less Christmas-y outside of the ending, but a good 3/5ths of this are Christmas-y, so it's enough.

Both this guy and his older brother are freakishly strong and can be triggered into going sicko mode. I think this family has like a latent Jason gene, or something.

Had a running bit where it's specifically lack of consent that triggers him.

Highly recommended; would make a solid entry-level B-movie, even. You do not need to have seen 1 - it's all in this. And 1 is still enjoyable to go back to even after seeing it all in 2!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78sWq2JCauU

AKA Baywatch S01E01

It was a TV movie; I'm counting it. I'm getting to 200 movies watched this year if it kills me.

Do I regret it? Yeah, this is a TV movie, like obviously this is boring slop. Don't watch this.

It got fun towards the end, though, so might as well get it out of the way: Twin Peaks link! Mädchen Amick is in this! You'd think I would have already know this, but only I found out yesterday!

And not only is she a main character this episode, this is another exciting entry in the crrrrAAAZY Mädchen Amick genre. Yes, that's a major spoiler, but this is the hook.

I'd read going in that she plays a "stalker", but that is vastly underselling it - she's running around with a knife towards the end. On the stalker scale this is the deep end.

I was confused at first because I thought she was playing like 15, despite very much looking like an adult, but no turns, out she was 19 playing 18. Extremely rare case of an 18 year old still being portrayed as a child - because they are! You're a child until you're like, 25?

It's still a little creepy with it, but such is the duality of man.

Even more crazy is the very first thing that happens in this is Hasselhoff getting body shamed by his peers. It's possible this was like a "YOU'RE WASHED UP, REAL LIFE ACTOR" joke that I don't have the cultural context for.

Skip. Or don't. You are in control of your own destiny.

Definitely let down, but at the same time, not at all surprised.

An avant-garde supernatural slasher about a ghost samurai in rural Wisconsin. And we never establish why there's a ghost samurai here, either!

Psychic Mom knows, though. Frequently she'll say "I can't tell you what's happening", which you'd reasonably expect to be a set up for an eventual reveal, but no, she just never tell us. We never find out.

So the basic plot is two siblings are visiting their parents for Christmas, and the son has brought his GF. She discovers a suit of samurai armour in a trunk in the guest bedroom (because where else are you storing your suit of samurai armour), and then sort of gets possessed? Like she just kinda has visions of what the samurai is doing.

Also, getting sort of possessed by the samurai makes you beat off? As every scene is very repetitive and lasts way too long, this goes on for like 5 straight minutes. Might be the longest masturbation scene I've seen in a movie?

Weirdly feels like an A24 film in a lot places? First I've seen a B-movie like that. I think the copy I have being in astonishingly good quality for the calibre of movie this is contributes a lot.

Last like 5 minutes are a lot of fun, but it's not really worth the journey to get there.

Very slightly Christmas-y, but you can entirely discard that.

Every like 5 reviews compares this to House (1977) but I don't know what they mean by that? This is not like House.

Real freaks only.

One of those childhood movies I only saw a couple times only as a kid, had no strong opinions of, and then later find out it's like a widely hated movie.

It doesn't deserve the hate, like it doesn't suck, but it's a mostly mediocre C-tier somewhat Christmas-y film.

Tries to do the "bad absentee dad" trope without actually showing him to be bad or absentee? What was it with kids movies around this time and being weirdly hostile to working parents long hours?

We gotta stop pretending the snowman in this is horrific. It is just a bloke. This is folded arms shouty youtuber trite.

I have a core memory of the scene where Keaton dies in this film, so imagine my surprise when we get to that scene and it just wasn't how I remembered it at all?

I remember the crash involving a tour bus/coach, inside of a tunnel with cave walls, lit with orange lights, transitioning away with a shot that pans up into a light blue sky.

Here is the exact scene as it appears in the film:

Henry Rollins is in this! Didn't recognise him at first; intially wrote it off as "hey that guy kinda looks like Henry Rollins", but then I looked it up, and - low and behold - it was Henry Rollins!

He's not in it much, but he's very funny in this. More importantly, however, is that means we have our Lynch link: he's also briefly in Lost Highway (1997).

It's not shit like it's reputation would have you believe, but like you still shouldn't watch this. If it had actually committed to being more Christmas-y, there'd be more incentive to actually watch it. As it stands, you could entirely cut Christmas from this film and nothing really changes.

Skip.

Boring ass scam movie.

Might be the most I've been scammed by a poster, in-fact. Weirdly, despite watching a lot of B-movies - a genre with a reputation for poster scamming - I only ever actually get scammed by big budget movies.

So, based on the poster, you'd expect this to be super computer-y, right? WRONG, motherfucker! It's actually like 80% a 30s period mystery by way of VR. And for a VR movie, we really do not make anywhere near enough of it to be worth being VR in the first place. There is almost zero world-fuckery going on, which is like the entire point of VR as a plot vehicle.

We do eventually do computer-y stuff, but it's only really in the last 30 minutes. What is it with all these recent films I've seen where The Thing only really happens in the last 30 mins?

And in these last 30 mins, the film descends into non-stop twists and turns, but man, I do not give a shit about any of these characters. Also the main twist is very dumb, and completely saps all stakes as it makes pretty much everything irrelevant. Always what you want in a mystery plot.

Honestly it kinda feels like a shit Dark City (1998) for most of it. Even opens with the exact same red herring!

At the very least, I liked that it had a The Cardigans song over the credits. Not Lovefool, but that would've been funny. Every film should end with Lovefool over the credits.

Do not watch this. Do listen to The Cardigans.

Always known about it, never seen it, thought this year would finally be the year.

Unusually difficult to pin down public opinion on this, but after watching it, I'm not sure why? It's a very nice time; couple hiccups here and there - but all checks out as a beloved movie to me.

Probably my biggest issue with this is Schwarzenegger is just a really bad pick for this role. You need more of everyday macho man, like a Bruce Willis. Schwarzenegger can never ever be a relatable figure.

This kid REALLY sucks. Like it was honestly at risk of killing the movie for me, but fortunately we do end up in a nice enough place to not sink it. He was fully justified at yelling at his kid in that scene, I don't know why we lingered on that being such an apparent bad move. No wonder he grew up to be Darth Vader.

Also MAN is Sinbad is really annoying fucking annoying in this. He keeps making these really tasteless edgelord jokes, too.

And it's not just Sinbad! Insanely racist joke towards the end from the other mascot actor.

Easy recommend, minus a couple blemishes.

Hell yeah, brother. This is the stuff.

Wanted anther spin at a VR movie after feeling so burnt by The Thirteenth Floor (1999), and while this isn't really a VR movie as it doesn't revolve around VR, there very much is VR in it. Absolutely blessed by some wonderful early CGI scenes in cyberspace.

As I was watching it, I thought "wow this is the best I've seen a movie nail pulp cyberpunk", and it turns out it's because William Gibson wrote it! The guy who invented pulp cyberpunk! We should start using "Gibsonian" to mean pulp cyberpunk like how people use "Lynchian" to mean weird.

Not that genres are rigid rules you should stick to, but man does a lot of media that claims to be cyberpunk have absolutely no punk in it. There's punk in this one for days! Famous punk Henry Rollins is in it! He keeps showing up in shit lately!

I never really got the whole "Keanu Reeves is a bad actor" thing, but uhh I get it a little now. He's probably miscast, honestly. He's a little young and twinkish to be this sleazy data smuggler type. I just don't buy him as a slick suit guy. And yes, I know he is now most known for being a slick suit guy in a series of slick suit guy movies, but that's Keanu 2, this is still very much Keanu 1.

This is a little off topic, but it got me thinking about how I don't believe that there is such a thing as a bad actor. I think there's only really ever miscast roles and misguided direction - there is a perfect slot for every human on earth somewhere.

That being said, I do very much think there are good actors; though I think it's a case of height and/or frequency of hitting that shit.

Big fan of the psi-dolphin and the ultra religious hitman.

Easy, easy, easy recommend. Unless you hate pulpy cyberpunk, I guess. Neuromancer (1984) might be the next book I read.

It's A Karate Christmas Miracle!

I knew this was going to be weird going in, but WOW this is weird.

So this is a Christmas spinoff sequel to Joker's Poltergeist (2015), a horrific exploitation movie about the real life Aurora theater shooting. A Christmas spinoff sequel to that. That is what we're dealing with. Different directors, too! Both by one time directors! Same producers.

The premise is that there's this kid who's dad went missing in a mass shooting. You know, that kind of tragedy where people can go missing. It's been a year, and he figures if he completes his big list of Christmas tasks, his dad who went missing during a mass shooting will come home.

And to get it out the way, it works. And not only does it work, he walks through the door the fucking FRAME he completes the last task. It's never clear where he even was? He might have been kidnapped by one of the mass shooting clowns? We're really not clear.

So you think this would focus on the kid going through this TODO list, right? But no, it focuses entirely on his mom teaming up with a psychic law professor to investigate where the dad went, and they never fucking find out a single god damn thing over the entire course of the film.

When we first see this law professor character, I would NEVER have guessed that this character would appear in more than one scene, but not only is she a main character, but she has psychic powers and the plot revolves around her. Even though this goes nowhere.

This might be the closest thing I've seen to Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), and that is by no means an exaggeration or joke. Both the plot and atmosphere are extremely like The Return.

While this should be a hard avoid, it's so out there and strange that I think I actually can recommend this as a brain melter.

Not sure if we'll watch Joker's Poltergeist (2015).

It's Krampus! Saw this once in like 2016? I think? Definitely liked it more then; it's ultimately a mixed bag, but it's interesting.

It really just needs to be more fun? We have a bunch of great creature segments, but for whatever reason we lump them all into a single 15 minute segment towards the end. This whole thing should've been them vs all the weird creatures - need to distribute them a little better. Kinda nothing happens in the entire 2nd 3rd of this, so would've been good to have a creature or two there.

When we have a practical creature, they're really fucking good, though. Jack in the Box worm is the clear best in show, and this is an absolute killer Krampus design.

We try to set up the asshole extended family to have fun targets to be picked off, but they're never really asshole-y enough, and then when bad things start happening they all come together and start getting on like instantly. That being said, if you pushed it further, it'd probably be real miserable to watch, so I'm not sure what the play is here.

Ominous German grandma should become a fixture of the standard family dynamic in media.

Sadly we're at the point where we've forgotten how to light night scenes, so there's some real ugly 2010s colours going on throughout.

Easy recommend if you're after something simliar to Gremlins (1984) but darker and not as good as Gremlins.

It's Scrooged! Saw this once as a teen, and don't remember having much of an opinion on it then, but I really like this on revisit!

I don't know if you could do this with anyone other than Bill Murray? Like it's really insanely hard to nail that perfect valley of huge evil asshole but still likeable enough to not make the movie miserable and annoying but not too likeable to downplay him being a huge evil asshole. Apparently it is too much for some, though.

I don't get why the show airing on Christmas Eve is a meant to be a source of conflict that shows Murray as evil? like this is clearly something family's would watch together as a Christmas activity?

Look, idk man, Ghost of Christmas Present was kinda doing something for me. Also Ghost of Christmas Future design WHIPS. You cannot go wrong with a television skeleton.

They go a bit too far with Goldthwait. Starts off sympathetic enough, but then by the end he's going to shoot up the office, and this is a bit much without enough focus on his character.

I think everyone had their own main Christmas Carol variant as a kid. Mine was some Disney Mickey Mouse one as part of like a multi segment VHS where they'd cut back to like a gala but it was all Mickey Mouse characters there? I think Chip and Dale were running around a Christmas tree at some point?

Easy, easy, recommend. Scrooged, that is - no idea if that Disney one would hold up on revisit.

It's Elf! Mostly a very nice time, but a couple blemishes here and there.

Right, is Zooey Deschanel a pedo in this? Like Will Ferrell is a child. You cannot tell me he is not a child in this movie. Arguably more fucked up is that she's blonde in this, like that is wrong on a cosmic level.

We try and do "asshole dad who works too much", but he kinda isn't really an asshole past his introduction scene, and he only works too much because he fucked up and let standards slip. Like it's mostly Will Ferrell actively fucking things up.

Did not remember the Peter Dinklage stretch. This is bad. Some real classic 2000s ableism right here on like every axis.

Also forgot the cops are portrayed as the fucking Nazgul in this; would not think this had the stones.

Might be the most recent film to enter the Christmas canon? I really can't think of anything past 2003. No, The Polar Express (2004) doesn't count, be so fucking for real right now.

Yeah, every impression you have of this is fully on the money.

Extremely annoying, extremely wrongheaded, and chock full of scummy advertising.

We GOTTA retire Jack Black, like it's time to pack it in.

So this is a Genie movie. They make a cute little joke about it where Jack Black goes "oh, they stole that from me", but it doesn't change that this is straight up just a genie movie. He gets three wishes, then Jack Black gets his soul after the 3rd wish.

Outside of the initial premise and ending, this really isn't at all Christmas-y? How do you fuck that up? Santa is in the name of the movie.

For a kids movie, what the fuck is going on with these jokes, man? There's a whole slew of really tasteless cancer jokes, there's a bestiality joke at one point, and there's pedophile jokes? In a movie for kids?

At 1:10 into a 1:45 they drop that he has a younger brother who died recently? How the fuck did that not come up earlier? That should be the bedrock of the drama here, but it isn't even a factor here.

And then in the last 15 minutes we reveal Satan wasn't actually Satan, but he's a lower Satan in the Satan hierarchy. That's literally the entire premise of the movie out the fucking window?

Almost every review was horrified at the ending, and man I could not fucking wait. With the Satan rugpull at the end, I thought that was it, and felt left down.

…but then it happened, and it was a jaw drop moment.

Excited for this to enter the Christmas canon!

What is there to say about Home Alone? Nothing, so I won't say anything.

Look, some of these are gonna be phoned in.

I could play the hits if you want - it is Christmas, after all.

The kid psycho! Joe Pesci & friend dead! The house big!

COME MY LADY

COME-COME, MY LADY

YOU'RE MY BUTTERFLY, SUGAR BABY

Extremely pleasantly surprised by this! Between this and How I Got Into College (1989), I'm developing a real soft spot for "trouble in applying to higher education" movies.

Given both Jack Black and Catherine O'Hara showed up in the Christmas films I watched this year, why not follow them up with something that stars both of them? And man, it is so refreshing to see Jack Black in something where he isn't trying to sing annoying fucking songs every 5 seconds.

I remember as a kid my parents had this on DVD, and always thought this looked like it'd be a lot more serious/fucked up than what turned out to just be a 2000s teen comedy. I had a similar experience with being scared of the DVD cover of Son of the Mask (2005). I have no memory of every watching any amount of Son of the Mask as a kid.

Might be the only film to nail "comedy that gets sappy and real at the end"?

Lynch link! Jane Adams is briefly in this!

Easy recommend if Jimmy Eat World - The Middle playing during the emotional swell will do something for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FEDrU85FLE

Sort-of New Years scam? Watched this as a New Years B-movie but it's really not a factor in this. Was almost certain this didn't mention New Years at all, but Ctrl+F'd "new years" in the sub file and got two hits at the start, so fuck it, I guess it did count.

One of those that, if you tweaked a couple things, it'd be genuinely really good, but as it stands, kinda ends up complete guff.

It's sort of a The Shining (1980) ripoff, but it's different enough to not feel overly derivative. A couple and a 2nd woman the guy is trying to cheat with get stuck in an old lodge, there's a witch who lives there, you know the drill. Also this is sold as a wendigo movie, but really it's sort of entirely a witch movie? The wendigo is just like a zombie guy who's kept in the basement. He is an extremely minor aspect of the movie, so of course it was the main thing we talked about.

Kept having a running bit where Wendigo's are only vulnerable right when the year changes, and there was something about like Live Aid but for Wendigos.

Everyone in this movie looks like someone. Main woman looks like Lara Flynn Boyle; main guy looks like Glen Powell; other woman looks like Susan Sarandon; witch looks like someone I can't put my finger on.

Wendigo? More like a shapeshifter movie.

We open on a title card describing wendigos, meaning this is an exciting example of Chekov's Wendigo.

Genre freaks only.

Garage witch supernatural rape revenge movie.

This is gonna sound insane, but probably the cosiest a rape revenge movie could be? Like it really, REALLY should not be, like sexual assault aside she is blackmailed and threatened by every single man in this at every point, but idk it's kinda hitting a nice lo-fi Nightmare on Elm Street beat. Lots of dreamy colourful lighting, and there's even a framed actors headshot at one point!

Right, so there's no fucking necromancer in this? It's called necromancer. There's only a demon.

Twin Peaks link! Russ Tamblyn is in this, playing a 70s outfitted version of the exact same character, creeping on young women and everything. Also Letterboxd incorrectly lists a second TP link, Ed Wright (the old guy from the bank), but he isn't actually in this.

Might be one of the all time worst movie BFs? Like I don't think they have a single interaction where he isn't completely horrible to her.

Impossible to recommend as a fun hang B-movie, but it's a good comfy B-horror. Somehow.

Final movie of the year!

It really was a The Long Walk™.

See, this is a very relatable movie because in times of anguish I'm also thinking about Judy Greer.

I quite liked this! It's simple and straightforward to a fault, but it commits so wholeheartedly to it's premise that it sticks the landing. This is a movie where people walk in a straight line. There is nothing else in the movie outside of a couple brief flashback scenes. Just walking and talking.

The whole "male machismo trauma bonding" of it all really makes this feel like a war movie, despite having no war.

Right, no real shitters worked on this. What do you mean "most guys only shit once a week", that's crazy? My IBS ass would for sure would be the guy who dies immediately from shitting.

Speaking of deaths, you'd think they all be guys getting tired, but most of them are guys snapping and then trying to run down the armed guards after saying something ominous. It honestly tilts a lot of what should be sad moments into kinda funny moments.

The sudden steep hill scene is very effectively tense. At one point we see one of the guys with a completely broken ankle, so you think "oh okay, that guy's dead now" but like halfway through the next day we cut back to broken ankle guy? How the fuck did he clear the hill that killed half of them?

I like the ending, but my only gripe with it is it'd be nice to see the immediate aftermath. We don't need to see in the future, but like we set up "something will immediately happen if this do this" and then it just ends quietly and alone, despite there being a crowd there?

Recommended if it sounds interesting to you.

why would you show up fat and wearing jeans, etc, etc