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Reviews
Smile (2022)
Mostly tepid filler.
In the first 15 minutes you understand the entire plot of the movie. The next 90 minutes are repeated scenes of either the main character trying to explain to people that she's not crazy, or scenes of her investigating and uncovering absolutely no new information. Those scenes are occasionally interrupted by visions with jumpscares. That's it. That's the movie.
I'm really not sure what we're meant to be scared of. The smile is about as ineffective as it was in "Truth or Dare" and the visions don't hurt you unless you're clumsy and hurt yourself by accident.
Then the ending happens and it's as generic as you can get nowadays. Smile clearly tried to take the high road in some sense and be a step above those stupid horrors with teenagers partying which is commendable. Being boring isn't better than being stupid though.
Mirage (1990)
Already forgot it.
Pretty much a typical slasher. I appreciate the unusual setting but, well, it's a desert, there's not much of interest there. Overall, not that entertaining aside from a couple of moments of befuddlement.
Near Death (2004)
Amusing enough
Of course it's bad and cheesy but it's not that boring and has some nice practical effects. I had fun.
Rassvet (2019)
I was entertained.
Listen, while it's not very good I found it oddly comforting. I know it's a horror movie, but most of the time it's very calm and slow. It does have good atmospheric moments and the general mood is nice.
Throughout the second half of the movie I kept smiling and giggling to myself. I know this isn't the reaction the filmmakers intended but I had fun. One scene in particular had a standout crazy person performance followed by horrific violence. Good times.
Sputnik (2020)
Competently made, weak script.
On most levels the movie is well made. I like the cinematography and the acting. The music can be a bit much but it works well for the most part. The script is where it falls apart.
The setup for the movie is intriguing, the rest seems like they didn't know where to go. It turns into an almost love story that they don't commit to. The main character has a goal to achieve but it never feels like she's doing much. Mostly just observing. For the ending to happen the way it did, everyone needed to make the dumbest decisions they could for not much reason.
Also, this isn't horror. There are violent deaths, but the movie never tries to unnerve or scare you. Never did I feel that the characters were in danger.
She Dies Tomorrow (2020)
Tomorrow can't come soon enough.
What if a sense of impending doom was transmittable? There. I just saved you 85 minutes.
There are no characters you care about, there aren't any deep interesting conversations, there aren't any events that take place. The promise of an atmosphere glimmers occasionally but nothing comes of it.
I think the cinematography was trying to be artsy but it came of as lazy. The main music choice that plays on repeat countless times is frankly absurd for a serious horror movie in 2020. However, that in addition to the editing, which had a downright comedic timing, make me think this is supposed to be a dark comedy. Either way it fails.
A short movie stretched to its absolute limits to get to feature length.
The Rental (2020)
Tense.
I went into this movie completely cold, knowing nothing but the title, and I think that's how the movie is best viewed. It's a very tense Rube Goldberg like machine. You put a set amount of well played and developed characters into a house and just watch as things go wrong and wrong and wrong. Don't know why it had to turn into a horror movie though, it worked best before that point.
Amulet (2020)
A bore.
Extremely unengaging. The plot seems to have no thrust to it. You're just watching at best passable actors wander about, occasionally witnessing generic horror tropes.
I'd guess that's a side effect of stretching a 20 minute idea to a 100 minutes but I'm honestly not sure what the 20 minute idea is. I finished the movie, I understand all the events that took place, and I'm still left with a feeling that I didn't get something. It's like they chose to tell a fairly basic story in the most convoluted way possible. I have so many questions about the motivations and inconsistencies of characters and actions.
At one point a plot twist happens. There are flashbacks to previous events and all that jazz. I admit to being confused, but only because I don't understand why that's a plot twist. It could have been presented as it really is and would have changed absolutely nothing. In fact it would make more sense that way!
Imelda Staunton is great in her very short role and for the 3 minutes that the movie goes completely bananas it is entertaining, but for every good thing in this movie there is a scene that makes you laugh unintentionally for either coming out of nowhere or being done poorly. It's not so bad it's good, it's not entertaining.
Relic (2020)
Waste of time.
I am so tired of horror movies where the characters move to a new house and walk in dark corridors for 80 minutes. What's that sound? Oh it's a washing machine. It doesn't matter. What's that sound? Oh it's just grandma being a weirdo. Go to bed grandma. What's that-- It's all a meaningless barrage of random nonsense. We need the first 80 minutes of the movie to get to the actual reason why this movie was made - the pretentious last 10 minutes. Just release that allegory for dementia/depression as a stand alone short film and don't waste my time with filler.
Unearthed & Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary (2017)
Doesn't have a reason to exist.
Contains a handful of amusing stories and footage from the set but suffers from being somewhat disjointed, overly self congratulatory and just not that interesting. Also lacks context so if you haven't seen Pet Sematary in a while or don't remember it well, you'll be lost as to what scene people are talking about exactly and when it happens in the movie.
If you're a Pet Sematary mega fan and need to know how they chose the house to film in, this'll do OK(not great), otherwise - skip it.
It (2017)
I kind of hated it.
Most of the movie is disjointed "scary" visions every character has to have. It's like there's 4 different scenes, but EVERY character has to have them. "This is what I'm scared of", "this is me getting bullied", "these are some "scary" scenes", "this is me standing up to someone". And then they hit the poor clown with baseball bats and steel rods for half an hour. It was was just boring.
Pennywise wasn't godawful. That's as much as I will compliment him. Tim Curry was better.
Also, holy **** can someone fire the sound editor? EVERY TIME something even mildly paranormal or supposedly scary was happening some moron kept banging a piano, or blowing a trumpet, or whatever instrument made those noises. Can I have a moment to enjoy the creepiness or get unnerved by something first? Damn!
I have no nostalgia attached to the miniseries, but it was better.
Chelovek s kino-apparatom (1929)
Almost unwatchable.
If there's one thing I hate about movies it's when they waste my time. This is a prime example of that. Man with a Movie Camera is nothing but random shots the director filmed in his free time, vaguely edited together with everything waking up at the start and being active in the end. We see homeless people sleeping... A woman dressing up... Someone's hair being cut... and it's all unbelievably dull, so much so that the movie starts by explaining why it's boring. All it has is a handful of interesting shots, the eye inside a camera lens being the most famous one I suppose.
It may have invented filming techniques, it may have been groundbreaking, but it's nothing more than a technical demo of things you could do and should've only been used as promotional material for video cameras.
Pacific Rim (2013)
Tedious nonsense from start to finish.
Pacific rim is a movie with a lot of problems, but first the good things: The monster design is great. It's very imaginative and impressive. The visual effects are some of the best I've seen. Actors do a fine job.
The problems start with a script devoid of any sense or a good story... or suspense or surprises for that matter. This is a movie that cannot be spoiled because you'll know everything that's gonna happen 10 minutes before it does anyway. I never cared for any of the characters. They break rules all the time, endanger other people, fight among themselves and don't do enough good to counterweight that behavior.
The fight scenes are pretty unimpressive despite the great CGI. They just get boring after a couple hits when you start wondering why don't they just shoot the monsters? In fact, why build giant robots anyway? That's a horrible idea! There's hundreds of better ways to kill those things. Flying plasma cannons. A satellite laser. Anything! Why punch them when you can shoot them? People say it's a homage to cartoons, but it doesn't work as that either. The drama just doesn't work when people are that stupid. Maybe if the characters were interesting or at least likable and a better story I wouldn't care about logic flaws so much. As is they should've made at least some excuses for their stupidity.
Sometimes the sound mixing is pretty bad. I really struggled to hear what characters were saying during fight scenes. The music goes to 11 and the sound of things hitting each other just makes the voices inaudible.
I won't even mention the hundreds of things that didn't make any sense. If this movie was going for serious drama: it failed. If this movie was going for ironic fun: it failed. By the way, the main characters at the end would've died of decompression sickness. So there's that.
A surprisingly bad, joyless and tedious experience.
Fred 3: Camp Fred (2012)
God, why have you forsaken me?
Fred 1: Very bad.
Fred 2: A little better but far from good.
Fred 3: Camp Fred: Abysmal. Torture from start to finish.
Wow. I mean WOW. I'm sorry, but everyone who was involved in production of this movie and their families should be arrested for crimes against entertainment. I don't even know where to start.
The characters are not themselves. Not that I'm saying there were any actual characters to begin with, but in this movie everyone is noticeably different. The mom turned into an annoying valley girl parody, the best friend disappears after 60 seconds of screen time, the bully went back to who he was during the first movie. None of the actors have any idea about comedic timing or intonation. And we get several new stereotypes as Fred goes to camp for summer. The camp's "hilarious" name "Iwannapeepee" is the comedic high of the movie (and frankly the bubonic plague was funnier) so you know what to expect from everything else. Fred this time is the only main cast member, which makes matters even worse.
The story this time is as generic as it gets. Fred goes to camp he doesn't like. He meets friends he doesn't like. There will be a competition with another camp that "Iwannapeepee" hasn't won in 69 years. Yes, even a 5 year old can see where all of this is going.
Fred's voice in this one is especially annoying. It's like a thousand fingernails scratching a thousand blackboards, during two active fire alarms at a vuvuzela concert. I don't know how my ears didn't bleed. My soul sure did.
This abomination shouldn't be seen by anyone. This is the bottom of the barrel, end of the road, nightmare. Frankly, a colonoscopy would be more entertaining.
Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred (2011)
A pleasant surprise considering the unwatchable original.
Let me start by saying that I hated the original. It was unintentionally creepy and had no laughs, only pathetic attempts and Fred himself was painful to watch and/or hear.
Here, from the get go, the style has changed. Fred is no longer the only active character so we don't see as much of him, the humor took a step in the right direction and there's a lot less seizures in front of the camera. The story is basically a silly Halloween tale about vampires. A creepy teacher moves into the neighborhood, he acts weirdly, so Fred starts thinking he's a vampire. Incidentally, there's no sign of Jane, or July, or whatever her name was, the actress presumably finally understanding she was in a Fred movie and quickly ran away as far from the set as possible. Most of the characters are no longer just stereotypes, by which I mean they're not as annoying.
In the first part of the movie some of the jokes work, more or less. They're a lot more varied and strange, in a good way, and they're driven by the plot. Some gags of course fall so flat on their faces it's embarrassing (I'm looking at you WWE skit). As Fred grows more and more convinced the teacher is a vampire he decides to spray everyone with garlic to protect them. This is where the movie loses all the funny (the little it had) and just starts going through the motions. It also runs out of plot half-way through and turns into a collection of joyless scenes throwing in whatever it can think of.
All in all, far from good, but a lot better than the original. This movie actually has some laughs, although, not nearly enough to counterbalance the annoying unfunny parts.
Fred: The Movie (2010)
Laugh at me! LAUGH AT ME!!!
That was dreadful. At first I thought that it can't be that bad. Well, it is. It starts out with Fred driveling on and on about some tripe that is never mentioned or referred to again. Then it becomes creepier than Insidious as we see Fred's schizoaffective disorder - stalking a girl named Judy. When I say stalking, I mean having a notebook covered in cutouts of her photos, and confirming the path her car takes with his notes. His strange obsession with Judy doesn't end there as he believes that they are two halves of one and that she really loves him, and therefore they should live together forever. Suddenly, Judy moves into another house so Fred sets out on a journey to find his lost love.
Now, this movie is not completely devoid of laughs... well, no, actually it is, but I did smile 2 or 3 times. Unfortunately those smiles were quickly killed by Fred having seizures in front of the camera desperately trying to be funny.
Near the end, the movie turns into a montage of a fake party. Then it turns into a montage of a montage of the fake party, because they had to stretch the runtime somehow. I could not make this up if I wanted to. At one point, it unintentionally turns into something resembling Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as everyone in the school turns into Fred, because he is cool. You think is it some social commentary about our society? Is it really a misunderstood dramatic experiment? No, it's just really bad! It's something that was supposed to be on the videotape in the Ring!
In the end it leaves you feeling empty, like something was taken away from you. Something that you can never have back.