Category Archives: Doc’s Movie Reviews

Smile 2

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The original movie Smile was a surprising hit a couple of years ago. With it making a lot of money, you knew that there would be a sequel. This weekend brought us Smile 2.

Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is a hugely loved pop star who was preparing to make a return tour after being involved in a tragic accident the year before. When she was trying to get pain killers from her drug dealer friend, he brutally killed himself in front of her, transferring the parasitic demon to her. This demon goes into the victim’s head and slowly drives them crazy.

Naomi Scott does a fantastic job in this lead role. She carries so much of the movie on her shoulders, with so much fear and confusion and anger. She is easily the strength of the film.

The film keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, filled with anxiety as you want Skye to get through the problem. There may be too many jump scares in the film, but a lot of them are effective.

The film does feel too long at 2 hours and seven minutes. I think it could easily have shaved off 15-20 minutes of playtime and it would have helped the movie. However, the finish of the film was just horrifying. I really thought the final shot of the film worked very well.

Smile 2 was a worthy sequel to the huge hit. Is it better than the original, I’m going to say no, but this is very solid. Naomi Scott does tremendous work and the effects are great. The film will keep you thinking.

3.75 stars

We Live in Time

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I do love Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield so I had planned on seeing this movie after seeing a trailer for it. However, the title was not recognizable so as I was looking at the Cinemark movie list this week, I almost missed it. I saw the title and thought, “What is that?”

After seeing the movie poster, I realized that this was the Pugh-Garfield film, and I knew I wanted to go to it.

According to IMDB, “Almut (Florence Pugh) and Tobias (Andrew Garfield) are brought together in a surprise encounter that changes their lives. Through snapshots of their life together — falling for each other, building a home, becoming a family — a difficult truth is revealed that rocks its foundation. As they embark on a path challenged by the limits of time, they learn to cherish each moment of the unconventional route their love story has taken, in filmmaker John Crowley’s decade-spanning, deeply moving romance.”

Starting off, the film’s narrative structure is told in a non-linear manner. It was as if time is not a line, but a flat plane. The film leapt around from all parts of this relationship, from where they meet to where they are giving birth. It did make following the story a little challenging for awhile until Florence Pugh cut her hair (thanks, Florence!)

The chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh was absolutely off the chart and this is the main reason this movie worked as well as it did. Both showed their acting chops in these roles and I loved them together. Every scene with them in it was wonderful.

The story was very emotional at several times and it worked well. The melodrama of the film was over-the-top at times, but it worked because of Garfield and Pugh. Perhaps the time jump storytelling technique kept the emotion in check.

This was a solid film with great performances.

4 stars

I Was a Teenage Zombie (1987)

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The October 9 of 13

I found this on HBO Max and, because of that, I mistakenly believed, this movie would be a good one to include for The October 13, or at least was a real movie. It was five minutes into it when I discovered that this was the most amateurish, ridiculously bad film I have seen in a long time.

When the sound quality of a film does not reach the quality level of Birdemic: Shock and Terror, you know there is something wrong.

According to IMDB, “Six high school buddies accidentally kill a drug pusher and dump his body in toxic waters. When the pusher returns as a zombie and goes on a killing spree, their only recourse is to dump the body of one of their own recently dead, and have him return as a “good” zombie to face off with the “bad” one.“

I have seen this referred to as a cult classic, but if this is a classic in any form, I have to question the choices of the viewer. I know film is subjective, but I don’t think anything should be that subjective.

The budget of this movie must have been $25 dollars and a box of donuts.

I take that back, they did have some real music involved in the film, with a soundtrack involving real bands and musicians. At times the music was played so you could not hear what was being said. Best part of the film.

I seen better acting on SNL, you know when the host clearly has not learned any lines and is just reading off the cue cards off screen.

How bad was the dialogue? I don’t know, you could barely hear it.

This was not fun. There was a time or two where I laughed at the movie. Not because it was funny, but because it was so embarrassing that the only thing you could do was laugh.

The zombie make-up was more like blackface. Or eventually green face.

Then there was a zombie rape scene. I’m not kidding. Offensive as it could be.

The quality of the movies in this year’s October 13 has been really down. With Piranha, Sorry About the Demon, and this film, I really need to find a good film for #10.

Piranha (1978)

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The October 8 of 13

Piranha, a movie directed by Joe Dante, was a film that I never had any interest in seeing. Those type of B-movies were never in my taste. However, for the October 13, I decided to watch the original Piranha on Prime to see if it was more enjoyable than I thought.

It was pretty much what I expected.

According to IMDB, “An insurance investigator and her local guide search the Lost River Lake area to find too missing teenagers. When stumbling on an abandoned military facility, they release by accident in the river some flesh-eating piranhas that were bred to use in the Vietnam war. The piranhas are heading straight to a nearby summer resort’s lake and its guests.“

A Jaws rip-off, Piranha is a low-budget film that had some terrible special effects and the story about as simple as you could get. The acting was not very good either, especially with the secondary characters. The dialogue was atrocious for most of the film.

I have seen reviews of Piranha saying that it is a parody of Jaws or that the film was tongue-in-cheek humor. I didn’t think much of any of this film was funny, and the time when the film tried to add humor, it fell flat.

I can see why this may have become a cult classic, because there is so much awful about this that you can look at it an laugh… not with it but at it.

This would be a perfect film for Rifftrax Live as there is so much comedy to mine around what is on this screen. It was actually worse than I had thought and proved that I was right for avoiding it all these years.

Psycho II (1983)

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The October 7 of 13

One of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock films of all time was 1960’s Psycho. Twenty three years later, there was a sequel to the film featuring the return of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates.

Of course, I have been watching Bates Motel for the last several months, which is not necessarily canon in the Psycho universe. It gave me the opportunity to start to love the character of Norma Bates. So with this October 13, I thought it would be a good thing to watch the sequel to Psycho.

While this is nowhere near the level of the iconic original, Psycho II was not bad. Anthony Perkins was wonderful in his return to the role of Norman Bates. You could never be sure whether or not Norman had actually regained his sanity. I wasn’t sure until the very end, which was nice.

The story had an impressive twist to start off that I did not see coming. I am not sure it worked all the way through, but when we found out the surprise, it worked for most of the middle of the story.

It did feel like it went a little too long and I am not sure I loved the resolution of the film… at least part of it. No spoilers from me, but I did like the very end of the film… just not what led to it.

This was better than I expected it to be, but if you were to only watch one Psycho movie, make it the original Hitchcock classic.

Messiah of Evil (1974)

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The October 6 of 13

This supernatural horror film from 1973 is the next film in the October 13. Messiah of Evil is a wild film, nightmarish-like with zombies and a “Dark Stranger.”

According to IMDB, “After losing contact with her artist father, Arletty (Marianna Hill) travels to the west coast. Though she doesn’t find him, she meets Thom (Michael Greer), an odd wealthy man who’s travelling with 2 lovers, Toni (Joy Bang) and Laura (Anitra Ford), to meet her father. She reads his diary and realizes there’s something strange with the residents of this California town.“

I will say that the story of the film is convoluted and fairly messy, but that seems to work with the tone that the film is setting. The dreamlike state of the film adds to the overall confusion of the situation and it helps keep the audience off-balance.

The “Dark Stranger” is an intriguing concept that the film does not go into much specifics about. This feels like it could have been an opening chapter of a film franchise. The whole Dark Stranger idea feels very Stephen King-esce. I would have liked more about that character.

The film took definite inspiration from the other zombie films of the time, specifically those by George Romero.

Sorry About the Demon (2022)

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The October 5 of 13

So, this one was a horror comedy. I found it on Shudder, as most of the list for this The October 13 is this year. I found it to be really silly.

After dealing with a bad break-up, Will (Jon Michael Simpson) rented a house from a family. What Will did not know was the family, the Sellers, had rented him the house because they had made a deal with the demon that was in the house, Deomonous (voiced by Tony Vespe), to possess him and take his soul to Hell instead of their daughter Grace (Presley Allard).

This movie was funny at times. At least I chuckled here and there. Otherwise it was fairly messy with the plot and just silly as it can be. It was absolutely corny and silly. I am not sure if this was intended to be a parody or if it is just meant to be a horror/comedy. Either way, the film was not the worst thing I ever saw. I did not like the way it started, as it seemed fairly stupid to me. However, Jon Michael Simpson had a charm about him that made me want to keep watching, even though I wanted to stop watching at first.

Overall, it was not the worst film I have seen. It is not great, but if you are in the right mood, this could be a fun family horror/comedy for Halloween.

Saturday Night

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Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!!!!

Jason Reitman directed this biopic of the 90-minutes before the debut of Saturday Night Live (called NBC’s Saturday Night) and the chaos that was ensuing.

Of course, as with most biopics, not everything is exactly as it happened as many details are switched or moved around for dramatic purposes.

The film follows Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), the producer of SNL, as he moved around the studio putting out fires (both figuratively and literally), managing talent, and desperately trying to get the show ready to go at 11:30.

This is a fun film with a frantic pace leading up to the debut. It was very possible that the show was never going to happen as there was a reel of a Johnny Carson repeat waiting to roll if the show was unable to overcome the myriad of troubles.

The cast is the strongest part of the show. Gabriel LaBelle does a great job as the eyes of the audience. Corey Michael Smith is fantastic as Chevy Chase. Dylan O’Brien loses himself in the role of Dan Aykroyd. Matt Wood was very entertaining as John Belushi. Lamorne Morris was great as Garrett Morris. Rachel Sennott had a strong performance as Lorne’s wife, Rosie. Several of the cast did not have the amount of screen time as it seemed as if they deserved, in particularly the women SNL cast members.

While we see a lot of Lorne, there is an issue with the rest of the cast. If you are not aware of who these people are, there is not a lot of time spent with them. The film seems to depend on the audience knowing who Chevy Chase, John Belushi, George Carlin, Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner are coming into the film. If the viewer does not know much about SNL, they do not go into detail about these people. It does work at one level, but I did have knowledge going in.

The film depends on its energy and the nostalgia of the audience to craft together a hectic ninety minutes prior to the debut of Saturday Night. There are some very funny moments and some amazing character bits for these people whom we know as celebrities. Roles for Willem Dafoe and J.K. Simmons are exceptional and the whole cast’s performance was well done. This is a film that fans of SNL will truly appreciate.

4 stars

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

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EYG Hall of Famer Christopher Reeve, who sprang to fame playing Superman in several movies int he late 70s and early 80s, gets the biographical documentary treatment going into depth about his life, his family and the horrific tragedy that changed his perspective for the remainder of his life.

The doc interviews Reeve’s children and his ex-wife, revealing the deep relationship that Reeve had and how his time as Superman affected his career and how people’s POV changed him.

There are some amazingly personal scenes and imagery of Christopher Reeve struggling post-accident that was difficult to watch at times. The emotions were in full example and heartstrings were pulled as the story moved from pre-accident to post-accident. There were plenty of times that I teared up watching the powerfully poignant moments.

Some of the toughest scenes for me was the parts including Robin Williams. Williams and Reeve were roommates during their time at Julliard, forming a lifetime friendship. The relationship had several vital moments and it nearly broke me when it was said that had Christopher hadn’t died, Robin would be alive today. Heart-breaking.

Directors Peter Ettedgui and Ian Bonhôte painted a moving portrait of the actor and how he was able to overcome his adversity to help many individuals with their own handicaps.

4.6 stars

The Pool (2018)

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The October 4 of 13

The October 13 continued today as I pulled a film from Amazon Prime to watch. It was the Thai thriller called The Pool.

According to IMDB, “Day, an insecure art director of a commercial production company is left alone to clear up a 6-meter deep deserted pool after the shooting. He falls asleep on an inflatable raft due to an unbearable fatigue. When he wakes up again the water level has sunk so low that he cannot climb out of the pool on his own. He screams for help but the only thing that hears him is some creature from a nearby crocodile farm.“

Starting off, I have an illogical fear of alligators and crocodiles. It makes no sense, but they give me a lot of stress and anxiety. I always joke that I am never going to Florida because of the killer alligators like I saw in Crawl. It is a joke, but that movie absolutely scared me. So seeing this man vs. crocodile survival tale, I was ready to be unsettled.

I will say that there were some good moments of anxiety in the film. Day, played by Theeradej Wongpuapan, and his girlfriend Koi, played by Ratnamon Ratchiratham, made an attractive couple stalked by this angry and hungry crocodile.

However, at the end of the day, it was hard to get past one simple fact. These two are dumb as shit.

I understand some things need to be exaggerated for tension, but when characters continually do the stupidest things during a film, it just pushes the level of believability. I found myself yelling at the computer screen over and over, wanting Day to do something smart once. There were so many opportunities to do something else and he constantly chose the wrong one. It was frustrating.

Then the CGI on the crocodile was at times wonky. That can be forgiven because of budgets, but when it is combined with the dumb characters, that makes a tough combination.

And for the dog lovers out there, there is a scene with a dog that is perhaps the single most horrific scene I have ever watched anywhere. The imagery of the scene will disturbing even if you are not a big dog fan, like me, and for the dog lovers out there, you will not be prepared for the shocking moment.

I had seen this receive 97% on Rotten Tomatoes so I was hopeful this would be a hidden gem. However, looking closer, the audience score is at 53%, and I can see why that is. This had some positives, but the stupid decisions, the CGI, the crocodile, and the horrific scene near the end dropped this one down for me.

Hell House LLC (2015)

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The October 3 of 13

I watched the most recent Hell House movie, called Hell House LLC: Origins- The Carmichael Manor for this year’s June Swoon. I had no idea that this was the fourth film in a franchise. So I figured the first film of the franchise would be a good film to use for The October 13.

This was filmed in a documentary style of a supposed incident at a haunted house called Hell House opening during the Halloween season where fifteen people died in, what authorities were calling an “unknown malfunction.” The documentarian, Diane Graves (Alice Bahlke), found the sole survivor of the crew from the haunted house, Sara (Ryan Jennifer Jones), and Sara gave her several recording made by the others at the Hell House.

At this point, the movie became a combination of documentary and found footage film, and it was absolutely insane.

The footage was remarkably creepy as it showed so many frightening moments inside the Abaddon Hotel, which was deserted and had signs that there may have been a Satanic cult here at one point in its history.

As the crew worked to get their haunted house constructed inside the Abaddon Hotel, strange things began to happen, especially with some of the clown mannequins.

Some of the stuff they got on film was frustrating at times because it never seemed to matter to Hell House CEO Alex (Danny Bellini) even when his crew was clearly suffering the effects of the hotel. There was a mystery reason that Alex was so determined to stay and, though referenced, it was never revealed. I have seen speculation that it was a financial reason and I have also seen that the answer might come in the actual sequel to this. Maybe that one has to go on a watch list too.

I found this really intense and I enjoyed this whole film. The found footage was fun and filled with anxiety. Those clowns were absolutely creepy and the little things made this all the better. This was a wonderful film for The October 13.

Speak No Evil (2022)

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The October 2 of 13

Recently, I went to see the new movie starring James McAvoy called Speak No Evil without the knowledge that there had been a Dutch version of the film just a couple of years before it. When I discovered that, I placed the original version on the list to watch for The October 13.

Man, I feel like I have been kicked in the gut.

The first two acts of the new movie was very similar, if not a shot for shot replay of the Dutch film. However, the third act took a drastic turn and ended up in one of the darkest endings I have ever seen for any movie. Legitimately, I feel a little sick to my stomach after this one got over.

According to Wikipedia, ” The film centers on Bjørn (Morten Burian) and Louise (Sidsel Siem Koch), a Danish couple who are invited by Patrick (Fedja van Huêt) and Karin (Karina Smulders), a Dutch couple, to their country house for a weekend holiday.”

It is difficult to not compare the two movies since I saw them so close to each other, and since I saw the 2024 American version first, it feels as if that is the original to me. I know this Dutch version is the first one, but it is bouncing around in my head in the other order. Fedja van Huêt plays the role that James McAvoy would play in the American version. I think I enjoyed both performances. McAvoy’s was a touch more unbalanced while Fedja van Huêt was a touch more sinister.

That third act though. Holy cow. I can’t describe it sufficiently to make it clear how disturbing it is without spoiling, so let’s just say that this is completely different from the American version.

This is one of those movies that will stick with me for a long time. I do expect that I will never want to watch this again because of the way it kicked me in the gut. If I had watched this before the American version, I cannot imagine wanting to go see the remake.

First time I have given something two ratings…

The Day of the Dead (1985)

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October 1 of 13

The first film of the October 13 this year was one of the all-time classics among the zombie genre, written and directed by the father of the zombie movie, George R. Romero. It was the third film in his zombie trilogy, The Day of the Dead.

To be honest, I thought that I had seen parts of this movie before, but after watching it this morning, I realized that I had never seen it at all. None of the film was recognizable for me.

The film follows a group of survivors, a combination of military and scientists, who have taken up refuge in a deserted missile silo to avoid the Living Dead. Meanwhile, one scientist tried to discover a way to domesticate the Dead.

The military men, in particular, were such horrendous people that it was clear that they were being set up to become zombie chow, and have the audience happy at their fate. There were very few of the survivors that were easy to root for.

Sarah (Lori Cardille) was one of the scientists who seemed to have the best head on her shoulders. John (Terry Alexander) was the helicopter pilot.

The worst of the military men was Captain Henry Rhodes (Joseph Pilato) and Private Walter Steel (Gary Howard Klar), both men were abusive and power mad. They were the characters in a slasher film that you want to see killed. And this film did not let us down. Rhodes’s death specifically was horrific.

We also came as close as we were going to get to a thinking zombie with Bub (Sherman Howard) who was being trained by scientist Dr. Matthew Logan (Richard Liberty).

There was a lot of screaming in the film, but I think that was meant to show the negatives of the humans, how the humans may actually be the monsters in this monster story.

One of the funniest part of the movie was seeing the oncoming zombie horde with the collection of zombie types in the mass. There was a zombie cowboy, a zombie football player, a zombie clown… makes one wonder why this group of one time people were together at all.

The Day of the Dead is a solid film with some amazing zombie gore, particularly for the time frame. I was very pleased with the kills of the film as the deaths of these unlikable humans were satisfactory.

Joker: Folie à Deux

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I appreciate those films that take a big swing. However, big swings lead to big misses, and that is what Joker: Folie à Deux is… one big musical miss.

Joker: Folie à Deux picked up after the end of Todd Phillip’s Joker, with Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) in Arkham awaiting his trial for the multiple murders that he committed at the end of the previous film. With a swelling support from the streets of Gotham, Arthur met his soul mate Lee (Lady Ga Ga) who encouraged him to embrace the Joker side of his personality.

Let me kick off with the positives. Joaquin Phoenix does an excellent job as Arthur Fleck and he has great chemistry with Lady Ga Ga. Both actors are very good here, even if some of the storytelling pieces of the film did not do them any services.

There are some great shots in the film. There is one in particular where Lady Ga Ga had drawn a smile on the glass with lipstick. There are several shots like this. Anytime we see Arthur and Lee dancing, the shots are impeccable.

Unfortunately, that is about where it ends for positives. I was actually fairly bored through the first hour or so of the movie. The music was more of a distraction than it was an effective piece for the narrative storytelling. The songs were fine, but none of them felt as if they needed to be in the movie.

There are some things that I cannot mention without spoiling what happened. Let me just say that the ending of the film took away from the first film and did nothing to advance the character of Arthur Fleck.

In fact, it feels as if Todd Phillips wanted to rebut the last movie with something else. I mean, it did win an Oscar. I am sure this was not just a way to stick it to the fans, but I can understand someone who may think so.

Overall, this was a bad movie with some great performances. Joker: Folie à Deux just does not reach the levels of the first one, and I did not even love the first one.

2 stars

Monster Summer

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Monster Summer has a feel to it like this is an 80s film, a mixture of Monster Squad, Hocus Pocus and The Sandlot, but without taking any of the good parts.

From IMDB, “When a mysterious force begins to disrupt their big summer fun, Noah and his friends team up with a retired police detective to embark on a monstrous adventure to save their island.“

I had heard almost nothing about this movie. and you can see why. Mel Gibson appears in the film as former detective Gene, who is almost a recluse. Gibson did not feel like he fit in this type of a role.

The main protagonist of the film is Noah, played by Mason Thames. Thames starred in The Black Phone, but I spent the entire movie trying to place him. I swear he looked like he has so many traits of Omri Katz, the star of Eerie, Indiana and Hocus Pocus, that I kept thinking that he could be Katz’s son. It was distracting, even though Thames was fine in the role.

The writing of this movie was really weak. It had several moments that were just too hokey or poorly executed that even a few of the moments that were not bad were overshadowed by the poor parts.

I tend to like these kind of kids adventure films, but this just did not do enough well to recommend this film. Mason Thames is likable enough, but there is just not enough around him to make this worthwhile, even during spooky movie season.

2.4 stars