Tag Archives: horror

The X-Files S5 E3

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“Unusual Suspects”

I started this episode on Tuesday night. However, we had a horrible storm go through my city, knocking out my internet access (and the power for a time). I was about halfway through the episode when the internet went down. With the normally busy Wednesday, I did not get back to this episode until tonight when I was able to finish it up on Hulu.

“Unusual Suspects” was a back story of the Lone Gunmen, how they came to be together and how they ended up meeting Mulder.

This was also a crossover episode with NBC’s series Homicide: Life on the Street with a guest appearance from Richard Belzer as Detective John Munch.

The idea for the Lone Gunmen focused episode came about when David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson needed time to finish the X-Files movie.

X made a “return” in this flashback episode, as one of the men behind the problem at the center of this episode, which helped cement the paranoia of the trio.

However, I am not sure why X allowed the Lone Gunmen to live at the end of the episode after they saw as much as they saw. I can understand why he let Mulder live, but why them?

This episode was fine, but it does suffer from the same issue as many of these kind of shows, that place secondary characters in their own lead episodes. Much like the Miss Dipesto episodes of Moonlighting, these episode was fine, but was missing something. In this episode, what was missing was Scully.

As I said, this episode was okay, but just not to the level I am used to for the X-Files.

Bates Motel S1 E1

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Spoilers

“First You Dream, Then You Die”

Whoa. I had forgotten how much I loved this series.

I needed a new series to rewatch and I came across Bates Motel on Amazon Prime. I used to love this show when it was on A & E, but rewatching this first episode reminded me how amazing this show was.

Norma Bates and her son Norman leave Arizona to get a new start six months after her husband died. They wind up at an iconic house and motel from the movie, Psycho.

The idea of having a show that took place as a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho was a great idea and the execution was even better.

Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga are absolutely brilliant as son and mother in this remarkable series. They both totally embody these characters and you just ache for them, especially knowing their ultimate fates.

The first episode pulled no punches either as there is a brutal scene where Norma is raped by the motel’s disgruntled former owner and an equally brutal scene where Norma stabbed said rapist to death with a butcher’s knife.

You can’t help but root for these people as Highmore and Farmiga are absolutely exceptional. You can see the mental illness that takes root inside Norman. Just a glance in his eyes tells so much about his lack of stability.

I loved the inclusion of Richard of LOST, Nestor Carbonell as Sheriff Alex Romero. He is an excellent actor and he brings Alex alive. He creates a totally different character than Richard of LOST and that is a tough thing to do. Admittedly, he does not appear to be that quick in the opener as he takes a pee beside the shower where the dead body of the rapist was hidden. That’s okay. Just prevents Norma from having to kill a couple of more.

This was a fantastic show and I am really looking forward to rewatching the entire run over the next few months.

An Afternoon with the X-Files

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S4 E21-24, S5 E1-2

SPOILERS

“Elegy”

“Demons”

“Gethsemane”

“Redux Part I & II”

With a lazy Sunday on record, I decided that I wanted to go ahead and finish the X-Files season four, knowing that there were three episodes remaining.

However, when I arrived at the season four finale I discovered that it was going to be a three part arc and it was Redux, which I remembered when it first aired as a very key episode. So with nothing else planned, I decided to go ahead and watch the five episode stretch for the day.

The first two episodes of the day, “Elegy” and “Demons,” were both solid episodes. “Demons” especially was a favorite episode as the inner mind of Mulder was explored and the memories of the incident with his sister was examined with a cool new twist.

Of course, the whole Samantha situation is redefined again during the Redux episodes as the Cigarette Smoking Man, in an attempt to tempt Mulder to the dark side, brought Mulder’s sister (or what he claimed was Samantha) to meet her brother. There have been several answers to what had happened to Mulder’s sister, so I remember not believing that this was her when I first saw the episode.

The reshaping of the concept of the series, with Mulder convinced that the government had been orchestrating a hoax with UFOs the whole time and had played Mulder and Scully for fools taking center stage.

Of course, it also saw the end of the Scully cancer storyline. The script does a fine job of keeping the reason Scully’s cancer went into remission debatable. There is the microchip that they reinserted in her neck, her faith returning, as well as the doctor trying to get her body to fight against the disease.

The whole Scully cancer arc was up and down. There were a bunch of episodes that basically ignored the fact, but the resolution of it was well done. The tension with Scully’s brother added some real anxiety to the scenes, especially those with him and Mulder.

CSM was shot and killed at the end of the episode, but it was not a satisfying moment for a couple of reasons. One, because it was not Mulder doing it. It was from a hitman. And two, because there was no body and he was clearly not dead. No body, no death.

Mulder calling out Blevins as the mole inside the FBI was a truly dramatic scene. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson both had some great scenes in these episodes, in particularly in “Demons” and in “Redux Part II”.

The Strangers Chapter 1

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This film was promoted, seemingly, as a prequel to the original The Strangers, which was a surprise classic. However, it does not feel like a prequel when you watch it. Worse yet, this feels like a terrible movie.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 takes all the worst parts of the horror/thriller movie genre and highlights them through a ninety minute film that felt considerably longer.

The worst parts of horror? Jump scares. There are plenty. Characters being stupid? Check. I do not know how many times one of the Strangers appeared directly behind the character, particularly Maya (Madelaine Petsch), and was not seen, and was gone when she turned back. That is a scene that is overused in horror films and had to have happened in this movie ten times at least.

There were several times that I had to laugh out loud at what was happening in the movie, and it was not a scene that was intended to be a laugh moment.

I honestly would say that there was not one moment in the film that was an original idea. I think every last bit was from films that were much better. Now I understand that there have been a lot of horror films and it might be getting difficult to find things that have not been done before. So I would guess that you should just write something clever or create some suspense instead of just relying on the tropes.

The following may be considered a spoiler….

By the way, the ending of the film was quite a cop out. TO BE CONTINUED? I mean, really? My guess is, after watching this thing, we won’t have to worry about a Chapter 2.

End of Spoiler

So far this year, there are four films that are in contention for the worst film of the year and I am not sure which one will take that ‘crown.’ The Strangers: Chapter 1 is not at that level, but it is not too far off either.

1.25 stars

Them: The Scare S2 E7, E8

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“One of Us Is Gonna Die Tonight”

“The Box”

This is what American Horror Story: Delicate wished it could be.

I was very disappointed with AHS this year as the classic horror anthology series just failed in this season. However, Them: The Scare was everything that AHS was not.

I had not seen the first season of Them, so some of the things that happened in the finale seemed a little confusing. I could only guess (and then confirmed after the show was done) that the photo and the woman giving baby Dawn and Edmond away had some tie to the first season (she did) and that the weird creature at the end also tied it to the first season (yup, it was something called Da Tap Dance Man).

So we have a connection between the first and second seasons, but the story of this season was all about family and the pain of being rejected and tossed away. The seventh episode does a tremendous job of laying out everything that we needed to know to understand what was happening and gave us a horrendous end for Athena Reeve (Pam Grier).

With the exception of the arrival of Da Tap Dance Man, there was plenty of satisfying moments in the finale. The confrontation between Dawn and Edmond was tense and powerful, showing how much love still existed between the twins, even if Dawn had forgotten about him. The scene of Edmond killing himself and giving himself over to the demon with the red hair was tough to watch. The shooting of McKinney was dramatic and pleasing to see the rotten racist get his comeuppance.

This was just so creepy. The imagery of the red-headed man will never allow me to look at Raggedy Andy the same way ever again.

There were several times that I found myself holding my breath from the tension of the situation. The performances were top notch and the tone was just so exceptional.

Them: The Scare was everything you would want in a horror anthology series, filled with thrills and anxiety and a story with themes of family, loss and rejection. I loved this show and I was happy I gave it a chance. Them: The Scare is on Amazon Prime.

The X-Files S4 E20

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“Small Potatoes”

Some of my favorite X-Files episodes are the ones that lean toward the comedic. Jose Chung’s From Outer Space, Humbug, Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, and War of Coprophages are so awesome to watch and David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson work extremely well within them.

So Small Potatoes goes on that list of great episodes.

Shape shifting Eddie Van Blundht is our villain of the episode as he fathered five children with tails with five different women. Thing was, the women did not know they were have sex with anyone except their husbands. One of the women thought she had sex with Luke Skywalker.

One of the best parts of this is that Mulder does not have a theory for a good chunk of the episode. Usually he comes up with his idea of what was going on immediately, sometimes even before the case started. They are quite a bit into the story and Mulder even admits that he does not have a theory of what was happening.

The show did seem to go out of the way to make Eddie a relatable character despite the fact that he is basically a rapist. Eddie was played by Darin Morgan, the former X-Files writer who penned Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose and Jose Chung’s from Outer Space. In fact, Vince Gilligan, who wrote this episode, said they wrote the character of Eddie specifically for Morgan.

One of the best scenes of the episode was at the end when Eddie had taken Mulder’s place and him going through Mulder’s office and trying to seduce Scully. This entire stretch of time when we see Mulder’s life and career through Eddie’s eyes deconstructed the Mulder character and provided a different aspect of it. It was just fantastic writing and showed our favorite conspiracy theorist in an entirely new light.

The X-Files S4 E14

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“Memento Mori”

I think I have said this before, but there has never been a villain/antagonist that I wanted to see get a bullet in the head more than the Cigarette Smoking Man.

That is intended as a huge compliment for actor William B. Davis, who plays CSM with such a smug, arrogant demeanor, manipulating the characters of The X-Files into the exact place that he wanted them. He maximized every second of screen time creating such a hateable character that called upon the worst possible instincts. His performance has always been exceptional, but his inclusion in this Scully cancer story makes him even more contestable.

Gillian Anderson won an Emmy for her work as Dana Scully for season four, and this was the main episode submitted to the panel. I can understand why because there was so much here for the actor to sink her teeth into, tearing down the character of Dana Scully before coming out the other side with the strength needed to move forward. The emotional scene between Scully and Mulder after Penny died was powerful and totally compelling.

The wild drama with the discovery of Scully harvested ova was exciting, keeping a balance between the emotional cancer story and the mythological X-Files aspect. The use of the Lone Gunmen in this episode was great, bringing the boys out of their usual locale and into the field.

This was another example of Skinner “taking the bullet” for Mulder and Scully, as he approached CSM for answers about Scully’s cancer, instead of allowing Mulder to do the same. Skinner truly was Mulder’s patron, as CSM referred to him during the episode.

This made Mulder’s reactions last episode standout all the more, as this feels like the relationship that has been built after nearly four seasons and last episode’s was an exception.

Abigail

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This movie was awesome, but I just can’t shake the feeling that it could have been so much better, perhaps even the best movie of the year, but it has to settle for awesomeness thanks to the trailers.

I went into the film wondering why the movie would reveal in the trailers that the little girl who had been kidnapped was, in truth, a vampire. I did not understand the idea behind it, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt, thinking that perhaps there was another, more dramatic reveal in the film that made it okay to give away this major plot point.

After seeing the movie, I am even more flummoxed about why the studio would give away what could have been a major twist in the story in the trailer.

The first part of the movie treated this like a kidnapping story and that the crew of hired thugs were to babysit the hostage in this old, spooky house. There were times in the early part of the film that tried to make the little girl, Abigail, into a victim and the film tried to pull on the heartstrings of the audience. The thing is, I knew the whole time that Abigail was a vampire.

It also tried to play a bit of a game of “who can you trust” by making it seem as if Frank, played by the amazing Dan Stevens, was behind the entire thing, and that would have been a cool twist, had I not known that the little girl was a vampire. All this early part of the movie would have worked so much more had they not spoiled that reveal in the trailer.

And the argument would be trying to get people into the theater, but I honestly think there could have been a way to weave together a trailer that painted this into a different picture, while protecting that one major concept. The reveal of Abigail as a vampire would have hit so much harder, been so much more impactful if I did not know it was coming.

After all of that, this movie still rocked really hard.

I was shocked to see at the film’s beginning that Alisha Weir played Abigail. Alisha Weir was the lead of one of my favorite movies of a couple years ago, Matilda the Musical. I absolutely loved her in that role and she is fabulous here too. She is an amazing young actor and she has a bright, bright future. In what could have been a one note role in Abigail, Weir brought so much emotion, vulnerability and power to her character while still being sinister and downright terrifying.

The rest of the ensemble cast was great too. Melissa Barrera was fantastic as the main protagonist, who was the character that the audience was intended to connect with and I certainly did. However, they still imbued her with plenty of mistakes and a back story that was filled with mistakes. She was a bad ass, but also a character with more regrets than happy memories.

Dan Stevens is always amazing, and this is no exception. This is a character that is anything but likable, but you still find yourself rooting for him even though. Dan Stevens does a tremendous job with this character that had surprising depth for this type of movie.

Kathryn Newton, William Catlett, Kevin Durand and the late Angus Cloud formed a ragtag bunch of lowlifes that mixed beautifully with the horror/comedy vibe of the film. Giancarlo Esposito had a small, but meaningful role as well.

As I mentioned, this was a horror/comedy film and I laughed out loud multiple times at some of the situations that these characters wound up in.

I might have legitimately given this movie 5 stars had the vampire twist been kept as a secret. I came out raving about this movie even without the surprise, but I can’t help but think it would have been so much more without the spoilers.

4.75 stars

The X-Files S4 E10

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“Paper Hearts”

This was one of the creepiest and most unsettling episodes of the X-Files and it was a story that kept the paranormal stuff basically in the background. A little dream stuff, but other than that, this could be a real story.

It was a story about a serial killer who was responsible for multiple little girls’ disappearances. Mulder had captured him years before, but when Mulder’s dreams lead him to a fourteen victim that he was not aware of, the case suddenly became mor personal for Mulder.

This was another story to make a twist connecting to the disappearance of Samantha Mulder. The killer, John Lee Roche, played by Tom Noonan, was playing a mind game with Mulder, potentially claiming that Samantha was one of two unnamed victims just discovered.

Tom Noonan does a spectacular job portraying Roche in an understated and dark character. He is not your stereotypical serial killer you see on TV program. David Duchovny does a great job playing off Noonan.

I rally liked this concept for what happened to Samantha. The show basically proved that Roche had not kidnapped and killed her, but they left enough of a doubt that it still could have been the truth. I like this a lot better than any of the other possible solutions for the Samantha Mulder mystery. I especially prefer it over the Mudler’s father chose to give up Samantha. I still wonder if they ever knew for certain what happened to her?

Really great episode.

The X-Files S4 E9

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“Terma”

This is the conclusion of the story that started in the previous episode, Tunguska,” with the term conclusion being a loose descriptor. It just seems that the overall message of the X-Files is that the bad guys are just so much smarter than Mulder or Scully because they just keep getting away with things.

The Smoking Man, Alex Krycek, even some retired KGB agent are always one, maybe two, steps ahead of Mulder and Scully and they just can never bring anyone to justice. The whole mythology of the series winds up being frustrating at times, not just for the characters on the show, but also for the audience.

The two part story was full of action and dramatic moments from the Russian gulag (that Mulder escapes really easily) to an oil refinery explosion in South Dakota, the action beats are exciting.

I’m not sure how the cliffhanger from last episode was resolved. Mulder had been exposed to the Black Oil (or as they started calling it this episode, “Black Cancer”). We see people who have had their arms amputated to stop the testing, but that does not happen with Mulder (sorry Krycek).

This episode really was not structurally well designed. There are just too many issues. It has its moments but not enough.

Immaculate

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Sydney Sweeney has now appeared in two of the worst movies of 2024. First, Madame Web and now this religious themed horror movie, Immaculate.

According to IMDB, “Cecilia (Sydney Sweeney), a woman of devout faith, is warmly welcomed to the picture-perfect Italian countryside where she is offered a new role at an illustrious convent. But it becomes clear to Cecilia that her new home harbors dark and horrifying secrets.“

I should not single out Sydney Sweeney, because there is no doubt that she is the absolutely best part of this fart of a movie. Her performance is savage, and she dominates her screen time.

The problem is that the film is just not very good.

The first hour of the movie was very dull and it spent the entire time throwing jump scares at the audience where the music suddenly spikes loudly, only to see nothing in particular. It was one of the most prolific uses of jump scares I have seen in quite awhile.

While the film’s premise had some promise, the film just goes off the rails in the third act, settling for shocking moments over any sort of storytelling. While I appreciate some of the swings it took in that final act, particularly right at the end, it depends on shock to create emotion in the audience, not anything to do with character or story elements.

Sydney Sweeney was really good in this. She gave it her all. The material was just not up to the quality of her performance.

1.3 stars

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2

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Last year, in my opinion, the worst movie of 2023 was Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. By far. Despite the negative word of mouth (and honestly, probably because of it), I saw that movie on streaming and hated it. There were several movies that I saw last year that, in my movie reviews, I said that this ‘new movie’ would be the worst movie I saw that year, except that I had seen Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey.

I was very surprised to see a sequel already to this horror schlock. What was even more odd was that I saw that it had 100% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time (6 reviews).

Admittedly, this sequel is better than the first one. Honestly, that bar was REALLY low.

Then, it kicked off with an opening between Rhys Frake-Waterfield, the director, and Scott Chambers, who had assumed the role of Christopher Robin. They spoke about their new Pooh cinematic universe that they are building including movies featuring horror-takes on Pinocchio, Peter Pan and Bambi, and then even a Poohniverse film where all the monsters assemble like the Avengers. I’m not making this up. The most unbelievable part was when they spoke to the director of the upcoming Bambi: The Reckoning, Dan Allen, who said if you liked movies like Jaws, Aliens and Jurassic Park, you will love Bambi: The Reckoning. What?

Then, Pooh 2 started with an animated intro which made me pause. I thought it was very well done, and I was intrigued with the set up coming out of the opening. Could this actually be a good film after the pile of crap that the first one was?

Short answer: No.

The very next scene was a kill scene with Pooh, his new cohort Owl and a reanimated Piglet, attacking and killing three of the worst female characters you will ever see in a movie. There was no rhyme or reason to it. It was just to have some kills, and I realized that my initial possible thoughts (dare I say, hopes) would go unfulfilled.

I am going to say this. I actually thought when the film focused on Christopher Robin in the first act of the film, it was decent. I liked the conflict of Christopher Robin being accused of being involved in the 100 Acre Wood Massacre (which was basically the first film). Chris had become a doctor and he was struggling not only with the events of the last movie, but also a trauma involving his brother when he was a young boy. All this piqued my interest.

Sadly, that entire storyline was interposed with some of the dumbest scenes of Pooh and Owl killing random people in graphic and gory fashion. Some of these kills were laugh out loud funny, and I did that several times. They took away most everything from those initial scenes with Chris.

By the end of the film, I hated the Christopher Robin story too because they had taken it in the most bizarre and stupidest path. Predictable too. I said several points during the film that were so obvious that it was shameful that they tried to pass them off as reveals.

There were several story elements that were brought up, but either never followed though with or tossed aside with a rampant abandon.

The film did look better. Frake-Waterfield and Chambers had said in their intro that the success of the first film allowed them to approach this one with a considerably larger budget and it did show in the look. However, just because something looked better, does not mean that is better.

Case in point, the film introduces Tigger late in the third act and does nothing with him. He is there for basically one slaughter scene and he was a tiger with long claws that killed people. No sign of “the tops are made of the rubber, the bottoms are made of the springs” that you might associate with Tigger. The film did nothing to establish that this was the Tigger we knew. It made him generic.

The relationship between Pooh and Chris took an even more messed up twist that was completely unnecessary and barely acknowledged.

Yes, this is better than last year’s film. I don’t think that this is an automatic, no-doubter for the worst movie of 2024. However, I am not saying that it won’t be the worst movie of 2024. It will be in the conversation.

1 star

Late Night with the Devil

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I remember hearing about this film last year from Kevin Smith on his Fatman Beyond podcast. Smith raved about this from his friend David Dastmalchian. So I was excited to see this when I saw it coming out at Cinemark.

I can honestly say that I have not been as shaken or unsettled as much from a horror movie is quite some time. The creativity and originality of this film is off the charts and it strung me along in a beautiful manner.

The film starts off in a style of a documentary where the topic was a late night talk show in 1977 that wound up going off the charts. The main part of the film featured the Halloween episode of the Night Owls late night talk show and footage from behind the scenes recorded that night, which presented a picture of a tense and nerve-wrecking situation.

David Dastmalchian played Jack Delroy, the late night talk show host who was struggling to try and become the leader in ratings for late night shows, but who was always coming up short to Johnny Carson. The first fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie set up the background, much like a documentary might, including giving us details on Jack’s wife Madeleine (Georgina Haig), who had died about a year before.

Jack and the producers of his sinking show were looking for a way to recover from the dwindling ratings since the tragic death, and they were looking for this Halloween episode to really pull in the viewers. They stacked it up with some amazing people.

First, was the psychic Christou (Fayssal Bazzi), who was clearly pulling the old tricks of a fraudulent psychic, saying names and looking for people who might fit into the category. However, there were a couple of things that happen that make us wonder exactly what was going on.

Then, he brought out Carmichael Haig (Ian Bliss), a skeptic who would punch holes in the seemingly paranormal moments. Carmichael was a real jerk about it too, being very condescending and arrogant.

Things really picked up when Dr. June Ross-Mitchell (Laura Gordon) and the young girl Lily (Ingrid Torelli) took the stage to talk about Lily’s demon residing inside of her.

From this point on, this film just took off, as you were never sure what was going on, what was real or what was about to happen. The ending sequence, which I will not spoil, was totally off the charts and absolutely stunning. I was completely floored by the third act of this movie, both in the story telling aspect and the way it made me unnerved.

David Dastmalchian is perfect in the role of Jack. You can suspect that there is more to Jack than what you see, but he is so likable that you really want to believe in him and root for him to make it back to the top. Ingrid Torelli is utterly creepy as Lily. Her looks, her voice, everything about Lily was distressing.

Jack’s sidekick (much like Jimmy Kimmel’s Guillermo or Carson’s Ed McMahon) was named Gus (Rhys Auteri) and you could tell that he was just not sure that they should be doing what they were doing. Gus spoke to Jack as the audience spoke, and he was rebuked over and again.

This movie has a definite retro feel to it, and you believe everything that happens. I really loved this movie. It built amazingly from the beginning until the ending sequence. I can see the end being something that some people will not like, but I was utterly engaged and shaken by it.

This is streaming on Shudder in April, and I would recommend everyone to search it out. It takes the old sub-genres of found footage and demonic possession and brings a new life to them. It is a really great film, one of the best of the year.

4.85 stars

Road House (1989)

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As I was going to Amazon Prime yesterday, I saw that the new Road House movie starring Jake Gyllenhaal was now available for streaming. With the schedule, I plan on watching that later this afternoon or evening, but I thought I should watch the original 1989 movie starring Patrick Swayze first. I have never seen Road House even though it has a large cult following. I have heard a wide variety of opinions on the film. Everything from it is a favorite movie of all time to it is one of the worst. I found it on Hulu/Max so I watched it this morning.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, “The Double Deuce is the meanest, loudest and rowdiest bar south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and Dalton (Patrick Swayze) has been hired to clean it up. He might not look like much, but the Ph.D.-educated bouncer proves he’s more than capable — busting the heads of troublemakers and turning the roadhouse into a jumping hot-spot. But Dalton’s romance with the gorgeous Dr. Clay (Kelly Lynch) puts him on the bad side of cutthroat local big shot Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara).”

Starting off, this is a silly, mostly stupid, film with poor dialogue and simplistic characters. It is not a very good film.

However, it is entertaining. It is one of those film that you need to approach knowing what kind of film it is and not to expect a lot. There is fun to be had in the mindless violence and one-note characters.

This is basically a 1980s-style Western, with two main characters, Dalton and Mason (Sam Elliott), who are the silent, gunslingers, who coming into the town to clean it up. They are Clint Eastwood-like characters coming face-to-face with the mustache-twirling villains. The story fits right into the genre of the Western, right down to the shootout in the finale.

I will say that the longer the film went, the more ridiculous it became. There is no attempt at realism and it felt much more a cartoon than anything else.

It was awesome to see the late Terry Funk in this film. Sure, he was not much of an actor, but he wasn’t supposed to be. As brutal henchman, he was right in his element.

The more I reflect back on this movie, I can see why people enjoy it, but it really is not a movie that I would recommend unless you are bored on a Saturday afternoon and looking for a really dumb film to pass the time.

Imaginary

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2024 must be the year of imaginary friends. The film IF with Ryan Reynolds is out later this year, and this weekend dropped the latest horror movie featuring the idea of the imaginary friend.

According to IMDB, “a woman returns to her childhood home to discover that the imaginary friend she left behind is very real and unhappy that she abandoned him.”

Here is the thing with Imaginary. I was fully engaged in the first 2/3rds if this movie. I was invested, surprisingly so. Then, in the third act of Imaginary, everything absolutely fell off the cliff. The last third of this movie absolutely crushed the enjoyment from the first part of the film and brought this rating way down.

So what went wrong in that third act? Without talking in spoilers, the problems are varied. The movie suddenly falls into exposition. It starts to explain things and doesn’t seem to stop. SO MUCH EXPLAINING!!!! And it was multiple scenes.

Not only are they over explaining things, they are explaining things that we just saw happen, as if we were not smart enough to understand what had just happened. There was one scene in particular where once the action ended, the characters told us what we had just seen. I do not like to think the movie thinks I am too dumb to understand what I am watching. This sure as hell is not Dune 2.

The third act became ridiculous. The story was convoluted and then everything had to be explained. Things happened that did not make sense. The special effects were okay, except for the look of the bear. The monstrous bear known as Chauncey looked like a fraud Bigfoot on a poor video recording.

The acting was, at best, passable, but the writing was extremely weak and the dialogue felt wooden in a lot of times.

They used a bunch of jump scares in the film because they could not really create the type of horror that built on it normally.

I was enjoying the first two acts, despite the fact that it was a little slower. But that third act just drove the film into the ground. I went from being invested to laughing at the scenes. It has been a long time since a movie took this hard of a turn into badness for me.

1.5 stars