Tag Archives: horror

The X-Files S11 E4

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“The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”

The fourth episode of season eleven of The X-Files brought another excellent, comedic show that loosed its venom on itself.

What I mean is that this is clearly a parody of the X-Files as a TV program, poking fun at a lot of the tropes of the series.

Our new informant was named Reggie and the episode featured the Mandela Effect (or as Reggie would put it, the Mengele Effect). According to Wikipedia, the Mandela Effect is when “specific false memories can sometimes be shared by a large group of people.”

Besides the parody of the show, the episode also had some pointed comments about both the use of disinformation and Donald Trump. One of the conspiratorial characters, Dr. They, told Mulder that the days of hiding the truth were gone because the truth can be told and nobody will believe it.

There was an alien that Mulder, Scully and Reggie (who claimed that he had been their partner on the X-Files for years- which included a theme song for the show including his picture) met at the end. This alien spoke lines directly from Trump, talking about building a beautiful wall (invisible), around the galaxy because earth was not sending its best people into space. The Trump effect was in full swing with this episode.

There were clips from previous episodes of The X-Files with Reggie superimposed in them to illustrate his point. Episodes included “Home,” “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” and “Small Potatoes” to name a few.

The whole parallel universe argument that Mulder was making was really funny, as was Mulder’s own frustration on how silly the parallel universe argument was. When Mulder threw his pencil across the room in a fit of frustration, it was just hilarious.

The X-Files could do silly as well as any show and this was a very good example of that.

What We Do in the Shadows Season Two

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I decided that, since the show What We Do in the Shadow had ten episodes each around 24 minutes, it would be a good idea to go ahead and binge these seasons instead of spreading it out. I will be finishing the X-Files soon and my goal is to run through this total series before school starts again.

So I started the season two this morning and went through it. I think the second season was tremendous, and I think I liked it even more than I did season one.

There were some awesome guest stars/cameos during the season. This included an amazing performance from Mark Hammil, plus Benedict Wong, Haley Joel Osment, Craig Robinson, Greta Lee, James Frain, and Lucy Punch.

Some of the fish out of water things that the show threw Laszlo, Nadja and Nandor into some of the oddest situations. They had to attend a “Superb Owl” party at a neighbor’s house which was actually a Super Bowl party. They had to figure out their own laundry after Guillermo left them. The email curse, which everyone knows is BS, caused them massive concern. Colin Robinson’ promotion which led to his great power.

The show brought us a zombie (Haley Joel Osment who is killed by Guillermo accidentally), witches, ghosts (in a very clever episode), Black Peter- a talking goat and, of course, other vampires. There were vampire slayers too, or at least, a group of vampire slayer-wannabees, who get crushed by a house of vampires.

The story of Guillermo being a descendent of Van Helsing is a major driving force of story this year, as is Guillermo’s desire to be appreciated by his master. We see how vital Guillermo is to this group, even if they still do not necessarily see it. Even when Guillermo saved them from the Vampire Council by killing all of them, all Nandor could think of what his laundry.

Mark Hamill’s appearance as Jim the Vampire was so great and led to a solo story for Laszlo, who ran away from Jim the Vampire and hid out in Pennsylvania as a bartender named Jackie Daytona. Laszlo is able to hide his identity by having a toothpick in his mouth. This was a hilarious episode and one of the standout episodes of the season.

This was a great way to watch this season and I will continue to pick days to binge the remainder of the seasons of this show over the next six weeks or so before school. I have seasons 3 – 6 remaining, each season (except 6) have ten episodes.

Until Dawn

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June 26

I have been waiting for this movie to drop price on Fandango at Home before I purchased it. Then, just before the June Swoon is getting read to conclude (four days remaining) Until Dawn went on sale.

After watching it, Until Dawn was not on sale enough.

Based on a 2015 video game, Until Dawn is a survival horror film with a million jump scares and a bunch of horror tropes and cliches.

According to IMDB, “One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the night again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.“

I couldn’t care any less about these characters. Because I couldn’t care less about them, I was bored as the jeopardy surrounded them. The film was chocked full of jump scares but none of them were anything but your typical jump scare. There as little thought behind them.

The concept itself had some possibility, but it also removed most of the drama, since we knew they would basically return at the end of the night. How did this work? No idea.

And the biggest crime here is that the killings were so dull, I am having trouble remembering any of them. Maybe the film just never grabbed my attention.

I did not like this one and I am glad I did not go to the theater to see it.

2 stars

28 Years Later

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I recently rewatched 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, the two other films in this franchise in preparation for this new film, 28 Years Later, which reunited Danny Boyle as director and Alex Garland as a writer (they worked together on 28 Days Later). After watching 28 Years Later, I realized that I really did not need to do that homework.

28 Years Later does pick up the story of the Rage Virus, with England now being a fully isolated and quarantined. It started off with an action set featuring boy named Jimmy. After we see this, the film is set in a village on the island of Lindisfarne, where we meet Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his sickly wife Isla (Jodie Comer). They have a son named Spike (Alfie Williams) and Jamie is preparing to take Spike to the mainland on his first infected kill, a right of passage for the young boy.

The father-son had some harrowing adventures on the mainland and had to struggle to avoid an Alpha infected (zombie?) to make their way home.

Spike is very concerned with his mother’s mysterious illness and he takes her on a journey to the mainland in search of help for her.

This movie feel like two parts. The first part is the father-son adventure of Jamie and Spike and the second part is Spike’s adventure with his mom. Spike is 100% the main character and Aaron Taylor-Johnson disappears in the second part of the movie. Alfie Williams does an exceptional job as the main protagonist and we see Spike mature throughout the movie as he faces more and more dangers in the world. Alfie Williams has to carry way more of this film on his back than I ever thought possible and the young actor does a remarkable job of it.

Ralph Fiennes showed up eventually in a great role, but what would you expect? Ralph Fiennes is one of our greatest working actors.

The film has an old timey feel to it, which I believe is in the manner in which Danny Boyle shot the film. It was reported that he shot much of the film using iPhones and you could see the way that made the film appear. However, this film had several strange and experimental type shots that did not work as well for me. There were many film footage spliced in with the movie, which, at times, felt out of place. In particular, shots of a group of, what seemed to be knights shooting arrows in medieval times were used and I did not like that. They also inserted several flashes of infected just out of nowhere, in an attempt to make the shot feel more dreamlike. Many of these interludes felt out of place for me as well.

Without spoiling it, I was not a fan of the ending of the movie. I had not known that there was a sequel to this movie already done filming. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is scheduled to come out January 2026 and the ending of this movie is so much of a set up for the next movie that it is kind of irritating.

This is very much a different film than either of the first two that I think there may be some viewers who find it annoying and not what they were after. I did feel the length of the film at times and the distinctly different parts of the film did feel weird. You could almost call this an artistic vision of a zombie movie and not be too far off.

There were a lot of tense moments, but, if I am being sincere, I felt more tense watching the trailers for this movie than I did during the actual film. There were some solid emotional moments and there were some frightening scenes too, but those trailers were really good and built up a tone that the film did not sustain throughout.

Overall, I liked this movie a lot, even if I had some questions about some choices made, both in the story and in the presentation. Alfie Williams is a star in the making and he stands out here among some great actors.

3.9 stars

The Surrender

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June 20

So I did a second Shudder movie this morning for the June Swoon. It seemed like a good double feature with In a Violent Nature, and the fact that I am going to 28 Years Later this afternoon. The Surrender fit nicely into the schedule.

According to IMDB, “When the family patriarch dies, a grieving mother and daughter risk their lives to perform a brutal resurrection ritual and bring him back from the dead.“

Colby Minifie (who plays Ashley on The Boys) starred as Megan, whose mother Barbara (Kate Burton) was helping her ailing husband Robert (Vaughn Armstrong). Robert was stricken with cancer and was in terrible shape, in pain and agony.

Colby Minifie and Kate Burton did a tremendous job together in this film, which was, at times, very difficult to watch. Their performances stood out among the best parts of the film.

In fact, I would say the first two acts of this movie were excellent. There was deep issues between the mother and daughter and the grief over what was happening to Robert, as well as his ultimate fate, were creating high levels of stress and anxiety.

However, the third act of this movie really went off the rails. The first two acts dealt with the difficulty of caring for a loved one who was desperately sick and dying and another act handled the relationship between the family members. However, it is when the supernatural things start to happen that the film ceases to work. The character development that was alive in the first two acts of the film really take a back seat to the body horror or scary circumstances that are nowhere near as intense.

With the arrival of The Man (Neil Sandilands), the film still is working because of the uncertainty and the mysterious nature of everything that he is doing with the grieving wife and daughter. After that, things just get weird and there are no explanations for what happened or why things went as they did.

This started strong but ended with a very disappointing result. I still was impressed with Colby Minifie and Kate Burton and their work in their roles. I just wish they would have been given something better to wrap the story up with.

2.6 stars

In a Violent Nature

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June 20

In a Violent Nature is a film that I have had on my queue on Amazon Prime for quite a while. I remember seeing it playing at Cinemark, but never getting around to go to it. I also had it on a list of possible horror movies for last year’s October 13 watch, but it did not make the cut. I finally watched the slasher film for the June Swoon, and I tell you what, I was entertained.

According to IMDB, “When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 70-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it.“

This movie was really brutal and bloody, with Johnny, played by Ry Barrett, marching through the woods in pursuit of these dumb individuals who took the locket. He found some horrific brutality to murder them as he tried to reclaim his property.

I mean… all he wanted was his locket back. These kids were basically grave robbers. You can’t blame poor Johnny for wanting to bend someone’s head through their torso.

The film is intentionally trying to keep you uneasy as much of the dialogue from the kids were off screen, and we spent most of the film from Johnny’s POV. That meant there was a ton of trudging through the woods. That is obviously meant to be unsettling as was most of the sound design of the picture. You get to a point where you are desperate for some of the sound cues to end.

The film’s pacing is very slow, again on purpose. It really does take the subgenre of slasher films in a direction that it has not gone before. I can see people not being a fan of this because of the pacing and the feel that the creators of the film were going for. Still, I found it to be entertaining and one of the better, more original slasher films we have had in awhile. In a Violent Nature was worth the long wait to finally see it.

The X-Files S9 E17, E18, E19, E20

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The final season of The X-Files in its original run was season nine. The show returned for two shortened seasons after that, but this was the final four episodes of The X-Files

“Release”

The show is clearly beginning to wrap things up for the original run and one of the dangling mysteries of the last few years was what had actually happened to Agent Doggett’s son. Well, this episode provided some closure to that story as we get the man who had killed him and the reason why the boy was killed. The only piece of the story that was left dangling was the fate of Brad Follmer, as played by Cary Elwes. We learn that Brad has been taking money from the mob and he wound up shooting the actual killer at the end. We never see Elwes again in the series so it is unclear what exactly happened to him.

“Sunshine Days”

Here’s the story, of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls…..

Yeah, this was a weird episode. Of course, Ben Linus was here. That always throws me off somewhat. Michael Emerson is an awesome actor, but he will always be Ben Linus to me. Then, the fascination with the Brady Bunch was a strange choice, right down to naming Emerson’s character Oliver Martin, in reference to Cousin Oliver.

The overall story of this episode was flat and I did not find it very compelling. I did like seeing Ben Linus again.

“The Truth Part 1 and Part 2”

This was the two part series finale, again of the original run of X-Files episodes and saw the return of David Duchovny as Fox Mulder. Duchovny had been gone the entire season and had agreed to return for this final wrap up.

The military had decided to put Mulder on trial for the murder of Knowle Rohrer, the “super soldier” who had been running around, surviving death several times over the last few seasons of the show. Of course, this was all part of the government conspiracy that the show had been investigating for the last nine seasons.

The military trial of Mulder was a sham, of course, as one of the men who sat in judgment was one of the aliens, The Toothpick Man (Alan Dale, also a LOST alum, playing Charles Widmore). These two episodes featured the return of multiple characters from the nine years, including  Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden), Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka) and Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens), all of whom testified in the trial. We also had a group of ghosts appear to Mulder in visions such as Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea) and X (Steven Williams) as well as the Lone Gunmen.

Of course, the final return was that of the “Wise Man” who Mulder and Scully go to for answers at the end, and it turned out to be the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) himself. Seeing that rotten bastard again did not make things great and neither did seeing him burned to death as I know he returned in the later seasons of the show. I have no idea how he survived this time, but seeing him alive really was a smack to the face.

They dropped a date: December 22, 2012, which is supposedly the date of the alien invasion.

I do not know what was to become of Doggett and Reyes as they drove off into the distance. Reyes has never won my favor in this series, but her final repose after testifying just about won me over. Another plot line that was never dealt with was the supposed feelings that Doggett had for Reyes. A few episodes again, there was a huge deal about how much they loved each other, but it was never mentioned again.

Deputy Director Alvin Kersh was also a bizarre character, as he seemed to be leading the trial against Mulder, going as far as suppressing evidence that proved Mulder innocent. Kersh looked to be fully opposed t Mulder, though he does help Mulder and Scully escape from captivity when Skinner and Doggett break him out. This is yet another character that is unclear of his motives and weakens the story.

Mulder and Scully end up together, snuggling on a bed somewhere, still holding out hope.

I am not sure how I feel about the conclusion of the show. This finale did not really wrap anything up and only served to leave plenty of things dangling or unanswered. Every question does not have to be answered in a finale for me, but it felt as if they brought up a major storyline in the last episode. I know it is dealt with in the future episodes, but we did not know that at the time.

Season ten only has six episodes to it and it will be next.

Fear Street: Prom Queen

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June 13

In honor of Friday the 13th, I figured the second part of the June Swoon I would watch a good slasher film. Unfortunately, instead I watched Fear Street: Prom Queen.

I really enjoyed the previous installments of the Fear Street films. They came out in 2021, released once a week on Netflix. Based on R.L. Stein books, the Fear Street films were based in 1994, 1978 and 1666. They were connected and was a lot of fun.

It only made sense that they would return to the series. Prom Queen was lacking a lot of what made the first three films so great… namely a story, any interesting characters and fun.

According to IMDB, “Welcome back to Shadyside. In this next installment of the blood-soaked Fear Street franchise, prom season at Shadyside High is underway and the school’s wolfpack of It Girls is busy with its usual sweet and vicious campaigns for the crown. But when a gutsy outsider is unexpectedly nominated to the court, and the other girls start mysteriously disappearing, the class of ’88 is suddenly in for one hell of a prom night.”

This was such a dumb movie. I mean, dumb even for a slasher movie. The story made no sense. The motives of the killer made no sense. The kills were uninspired and boring. It just had a whole list of horror/slasher tropes that were not fun at all.

The writing was so bad. The acting was over the top. What a waste of time.

I was sorry to see this because I really enjoyed the Fear Street films form 2021, but this was nowhere close to a worthy successor to those three movies. This felt like a high school production.

I wonder if I would have considered this so badly if it did not have the Fear Street name attached to it? The memory of the great movies that preceded this may have not allowed this one a fair shot. On the other hand, this was aggressively bad and if a better movie was made, perhaps it would have benefited from the previous films. Either way, don’t bother with this one.

1.2 stars

28 Weeks Later (2007)

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Preparing for 20 Years Later which will be released later in the month of June, I wanted to rewatch the first two films of the franchise. I was up to 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later.

28 Weeks Later was different than the first film, but it was still very intense and anxiety-filled. The second film listed Danny Boyle and Alex Garland as producers, but the direction was done by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.

Then, 28 Days Later featured a cast with not very many big stars, where as 28 Weeks Later would be considered an all-star cast. The cast of 28 Weeks Later included Jeremy Renner, Idris Elba, Robert Carlyle, Harold Perrineau, Rose Byrne, Imogene Poots, Catherine McCormack, Amanda Walker, and Mackintosh Muggleton.

According to IMDB, “Almost six months after London was decimated by the unstoppable Rage Virus in 28 Days Later (2002), the U.S. Army has restored peace and repopulated the quarantined city. However, the deadly epidemic reawakens when an unsuspecting carrier of the highly transmittable pathogen enters the dead capital with the first wave of returning refugees. This time, the horrible virus is more dangerous than ever. Has the next nightmare begun?“

This was a solid sequel to the first film and this brought a serious vibe to it. The desperate struggle to survive was even more in effect here as our protagonists faced so many more obstacles than just the return of the “Rage” virus. The military brought yet another level of threat to our characters.

Robert Carlyle, who played Rumpelstiltskin in Once Upon A Time, is amazing in this film. He kicked things off making a choice that gives us a glance at his character, but you can understand where he was coming from. It did not make him look any better even if you do understand. I loved Jeremy Renner in this movie, even if I had a hard time thinking about him as anyone other than Hawkeye.

There were some scenes that really stretched credibility here. These scenes add tension to the story, even if they are unbelievably unlikely to actually happen.

I do believe the first film was a tighter story and the second one is a little messier. Some of the scenes of the infected attacking others remind me of scenes when Killer Bob would attack someone on Twin Peaks Still, the shots did feel more artistic than just gory.

I do not expect any connection between these two films and 28 Years Later, outside of the “Rage” virus because of the length of time. I am still pleased that I was able to watch these two films before 28 Years Later comes out.

The X-Files S9 E12, E13, E14, E15, E16

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I watched a series of X-Files episodes during the ninth season this afternoon. I’m hoping to wrap up the rewatch of the X-Files this summer, and this was a big step in that direction.

“Underneath”

I found this episode was similar to many other episodes this season. I realized this watching this episode. This season, Doggett, Reyes and Scully rarely actually investigated an X-Files. The cases that they were investigating coincidentally become X-Files, but they were not brought in because of their expertise in the X-Files. This episode did have a neat story about a serial killer who had a different personality.

“Improbable”

And as soon as I was coming up with my theory about cases not being X-Files, episode 13 had Scully come into the X-Files office and Monica laid out the case on the overhead projector just like Mulder used to do. Burt Reynolds guest starred in this episode as, I guess, God. I found this to be a silly episode involving some numerology. This serial killer was killing people based on this numerology, though that was never really explained.

“Scary Monsters”

I think this was my favorite of the run of episodes, although there were plenty of weirdness and silliness here too. A boy who can project some kind of images, making people believe they were seeing or feeling things that they were not. Agent Leyla Harrison returned from an episode from a previous season trying to recruit Scully first and then Doggett and Reyes to look at a case that she claimed was an X-File. Scully’s end of the case was particularly enjoyable as she was given the comedic aspects of the episode, including an autopsy that she wound up performing on a cat. There were a bunch of allusions made by Agent Harrison to previous X-Files episodes, which were fun little tidbits.

“Jump the Shark”

This felt like a final wrap up of the Lone Gunmen spin-off series that lasted 13-episodes on FOX. The show brought back former Man in Black, Morris Fletcher, played by Michael McKeon, from episode “Dreamland” from season six. This led to the Lone Gunmen sacrificing their lives to prevent a release of a virus. I remember being shocked and angry when the Lone Gunmen died in this episode.

I do hate the term “Jump the Shark” which this episode was named after. The term is based after a Happy Days episode where the Fonz legitimately jumped a shark on water skis. The term has come to mean when a TV show has peaked and is in decline. The reason I hated the term was that people started to use it any time that they did not like something that was on a show. It was one of the first comments that would lead to such a negative discourse on the internet.

If this would be the end of the Lone Gunman, there should have been more Scully in the episode. She only had a small bit at the funeral at the end. She said how important they were to her, and I would have liked to have seen more of that during this episode.

“William”

This episode was directed by David Duchovny and dealt with the baby of Scully, William. There was a burnt man who was captured and Doggett believed that this was Mulder. The show made it seem like this burnt man was Mulder, but Scully never believed that was the truth. It turned out that it was Jeffrey Spender, Mulder’s half-brother and the son of Cigarette Smoking Man who was supposedly killed by CSM. That was a good twist. It was all about getting to William and make him human. That was a bizarre storyline element that did not make much sense.

However, I do think that the idea that Scully put William up for adoption to keep him safe from the aliens and anyone else makes a lot of sense and it put a period on the William story for now. I know William returns later in the newer seasons, but this worked well for this season.

Death of a Unicorn

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June 9

Death of a Unicorn was in theaters earlier this year and it was one that I wanted to go to see. I never got around to seeing it. Anytime I had a chance, there were other films that were ahead of it and it never fit into my schedule. Then, a rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes kept me away from it. With the June Swoon 4 adding a film a day from 2025, this worked out well to finally see it off Fandango at Home.

According to IMDB, “A father and daughter accidentally hit and kill a unicorn while en route to a weekend retreat, where his billionaire boss seeks to exploit the creature’s miraculous curative properties.“

Surprisingly, I found Death of a Unicorn to be a fairly entertaining movie, featuring unicorns in manners that you do not usually see them. Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega are wonderful together as father and daughter and they give us a pair to root for among the group of generally unlikable people.

The talented cast included Richard E. Grant, Tea Leoni, Will Poulter, Steve Park, Sunita Mani, Anthony Carrigan and Jessica Hynes.

The film has a message of greed and selfishness, hidden behind the guise of helpfulness. You could easily make an allegory of this movie and the pharmaceutical industry. It also does a good job of taking what is usually seen as a magical creature and turning them into a fearful force.

Admittedly, some of the characters were lacking much depth and the CGI had some moments that were not outstanding. Still, I found most of the drawbacks to the film to be less important and not take away from the overall presentation.

I thought this was much better than I expected and I was pleased with the opportunity to have watched this.

3.75 stars

The X-Files S9 E11

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“Audrey Pauley”

This was a strange episode.

Monica gets involved in a car crash where a drunk driver hit her and she is taken t the hospital. There it appears that she is brain dead, though her body is still functioning. John refuses to accept the evidence before his eyes, despite the fact that everyone, including Scully, does not believe him. Monica is actually in a deserted hospital and she can only see a few other people there.

One of the people in the mysterious hospital was named Audrey and she was able to be in both the mysterious hospital and the real world. Turned out that she somehow created the mysterious hospital (along with a tiny dollhouse type of hospital) in her mind, I guess. The form this takes is not overly clear, nor how or why she was able to do this.

Another issue was the doctor, played by Jack Blessing, who was known as Mr. MacGillicuddy on Moonlighting, was poisoning patients and putting them into these brain dead situations to… I don’t know… help them die after that? MacGillicuddy’s motives were not explored too deeply. However, he did kill off a nurse who saw him give a shot that was not on the charts, and, eventually, Audrey. I don’t know why MacGillicuddy took such a dark turn after Moonlighting went off the air. Heck, if I remember Moonlighting, I think MacGillicuddy died in the last episode. Maybe he was in this mysterious hospital then.

I’m kidding of course. There is just so much unexplained, even for an X-Files episode, that I had some trouble buying it. It also does not help that Monica is one of my least favorite characters on the show. I was impressed with Robert Patrick’s performance. He brought some solid work grieving the woman that he loved.

Admittedly, the love Doggett felt for Monica seemed to be fast tracked here. I got some implication that they had feelings for one another, but nothing to this extent until this episode. Still, I can let that slide. I do have an issue with Doggett not telling Scully what he thought was happening. He said once that Scully would think he was crazy… but he should know by now that Scully always listened to crazy theories and never outright dismissed them. You would think that John would know that by now.

Overall, there were some interesting ideas here, and some solid to great performances. There are just too many things lacking in my opinion for this to be anything but a mid episode.

Screamboat

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June 4

When I saw this for rent on Vudu, I expected it to be another film in the same vein as Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. It had two movies and both were in the top 5 worst movies of their respective years. Taking the Steamboat Willie cartoon from public domain felt like the same kind of sad and pathetic attempt.

Make no mistake, this is a terrible movie….

But…

I don’t know… I guess I came in with the expectations of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, but Screamboat was better than that. It’s not good. Just better than Blood and Honey.

According to IMDB, “A seemingly routine late-night ferry ride in New York City descends into chaos when an ordinary mouse undergoes a terrifying transformation. This mutated creature unleashes a reign of terror upon the unsuspecting passengers, forcing them to fight for their survival. As the body count rises, the remaining survivors must band together to find a way to escape the deadly vessel and confront the monstrous threat“

The piece that felt better than Blood and Honey was this had a satiric side to it. The Steamboat Willie character itself had some funny parts. He would whistle just before killing his victim, much like Mickey would in the original Steamboat Willie animated movie. I kind of liked the backstory of Steamboat Willie, involving the man known as Walt. Some of the kills were sufficiently gross. There were a couple of characters that I wanted to survive the trip on the ferry.

What was bad about the film? Oh, let’s see… the acting, the dialogue was horrendous. Most of these characters were one-dimensional and there were these “bad girls” that I really wanted to get killed by the mouse. I was cheering for Willie when they did. The characters did some really stupid things and made some really stupid choices. Plenty of the choices made no sense. Of course, stupid characters are not uncommon for some horror films, especially the slasher ones. A couple of the deaths of our main characters felt underwhelming.

If I am being honest, there are some funny moments in the movie and they actually felt like they were intended it to be funny. There was one line of dialogue that made me laugh out loud. One character fired a flare gun at Willie and said “Say cheese, mother f@#$%.” I thought that was exceptionally funny.

This is nowhere as bad as either of the two Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey movies and if you want a stupid movie to watch that has some dumb laughs and a murderous version of Mickey Mouse, you could do worse than this movie. Just know what kind of movie this is and do not expect much, and you might even have a passable time.

2.1 stars

Into the Deep

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June 2

I have been a fan of shark movies. Sadly, most of them are terrible. There are some exceptions. So when I spotted Into the Deep on Disney +, I thought this would be a good option for the June Swoon 4: Two A Day.

It gave me hope when I saw that Richard Dreyfuss was among the cast of this movie. Dreyfuss starred in the greatest shark movie of all time (heck, one of the greatest movies of all time) Jaws. How could we go wrong?

We could go wrong in so many ways.

Into the Deep was horrible. Just a waste of an hour and a half. After the first five minutes, I had an idea of what kind of movie this was going to be.

According to IMDB, “Pirates on the hunt for sunken drugs kidnap a boat of tourists and force them to dive into shark infested waters to retrieve the contraband.”

That sounds exciting. That was not the basis behind this story. I mean, it was there, but the execution of that storyline was so inept that it was laughable.

The acting was just bad. The dialogue was unnatural. It made no sense. The story was so coincidental and haphazard that it could not be believed. None of the characters felt like real people.

The shark attacks looked ridiculous. It looked like a shark just shaking a hunk of bloody meat. The images of the sharks in the water were impressive as they just swam around. Other than that, there just was not much of anything.

The overall production of the movie felt cheap. The sound was terrible. With the exception of the beauty of the water shots, there was not much to make this stand out among shark films, let alone other movies.

There are so many better movies on Disney +. Take your time and watch those. This was terrible in every way.

1 star

Bring Her Back

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I guess I really didn’t need to sleep tonight.

The internet was out when I got home from my last day of school, so, instead of just being mad at Mediacom, I decided to go to a movie. I had the tickets for tomorrow purchased and I know there was one film that I was going to see later next week. I went tonight instead.

Bring Her Back, the latest movie from directors Danny and Michael Philippou, the directors of 2022 Talk to Me, was one of the most disturbing and unsettling films I have seen in a long time.

This film avoided many of the horror tropes. There were no jump scares. It covered multiple types of horror, from body horror to psychological horror.

Step siblings are sent to a new foster home after their father died. It does not take long to realize that something was off about this situation.

There is no doubt that this is a movie that will be triggering for some. It is one of those horror movies that stuns you so much that you just want to go sit in silence and deconstruct.

Bring Her Back is a slow burn, but it does move well and never is without a healthy dose of tension and anxiety. There were times when I was grimacing, disturbed and looking away. There are some scenes that were very difficult to get through.

Sally Hawkins played Laura, the foster mother, who was extremely creepy, even in the moments when she seemed as if she was a loving individual. Hawkins was truly exceptional in this performance, which could have been too over the top, but turned out strong.

The kids in the movie do a great job too. Billy Barratt played the oldest kid, Andy, who had plenty of background troubles. Sora Wong played Piper in her debut. Wong, just like the character she played, Piper, is partially blind. She was remarkable and made everything work so well. Jonah Wren Phillips played Oliver, the boy Laura had already been fostering. All three of these kids did an amazing job, and they all had a different type of character to play.

I have to say, I was not completely clear about the demon aspect of this movie. It was a bit confusing, but you just accept that there is something supernatural going on and don’t question it too much.

This is going to be one of those movies that I will recommend, but never want to watch again. I squirmed in my seat several times during this uncomfortable movie. A24 has become known as a super horror film studio and they have yet another one. This is also a very different of sort of horror film than the Philippou brothers made previously.

There will be plenty of people who hate this movie. I was tense the whole time. My teeth were gritted several times. The film is remarkably well constructed and made. I understand if someone hated this movie. I don’t ever want to watch it again. But it absolutely did what it was trying to do.

3.8 stars