RobertWhitebrow Reviews

Vikings (2013–2020)

Shot to the stars in the first few seasons then fell into nonsense.

[7/10 · 18 August 2022]

There is no objective way to rate all the seasons in the same score as the quality is so vastly different. In the first 3-4 seasons the story is beautifully woven with well-written consistent charismatic characters with clear goals to move the plot along. Once Ragnar is out of the picture the show begins it's gradual descent from the stratosphere into complete obscurity. I'll admit, initially the premise of Ragnar's sons and their very different personalities was intriguing but it quickly grew old because of poor writing. The characters stop being consistent and they for some reason drop and replace their dreams at the drop of a hat, leading the audience to ask "wait...what?" Burning desires are quickly swept away with a shrug as if they were never that burning anyway. Characters change from a hallucinating sniveling drug addict, to an adept fighter, to a calm and logical leading character for no reason other than "well we kinda need it to move the plot along". Character growth has to be justified and in the later season it never is, which is even further reinforced by them teeter-tottering between two completely contradictory personalities.

The contrivances that require the plot to move along are ridiculous in seasons 5 and particularly 6. A character willingly, and without any plot justification rides into the only place on earth where they could be killed by the person prophesized to kill them just to make it come true. And as if the writers knew this was hardly believable they have the audacity to beat you over the head with how logical it is by having the character in question say "there is no way to avoid our destinies", when literally the opposite has just been shown to be true.

Season 6 is the biggest offender on the list with it descending into a vicious style over substance. Every other episode must have an over the top ritualistic scene with chanting, drum beats and slow cinematic shots for events that do not merit it whatsoever. Plot points are rehashed multiple times and to make it worse they play out in almost identical ways. Like the settlement arc of Floki and later Ubbe, being torn apart by the exact same issues, driven by the exact same people. Or Ivar's wife arc, which can only be justified by him hallucinating and having a mental decline, but he ends up just shrugging it off when the plot requires it.

There are no main heroes, no overarching story or goals to keep the events together in a coherent story. It feels almost like a choppy chronicle account with some fantasy elements, so the audience never knows what to expect, and therefore has nothing to get excited about as the game has no set rules of engagement. There is no subtlety like in the first seasons. Things which would be presented as a borderline fantasy, are now shown in full CGI in a feeble attempt to awe the audience into staying tuned (I am looking at you Jormungandr).

In short this is another case of a show which begins with plot and substance, drawing audiences with proper characters and storytelling, and then descending into a cash grab that drags on for much longer past its welcome. If you never see seasons 5 and 6 you would have truly lost nothing but the bad aftertaste of poor writing in your mouth.

Hidden (I) (2015)

A feeble attempt at misdirection for the sake of a shallow twist

[3/10 · 9 November 2021]

I see a lot of positive reviews on this movie, but for my taste this was honestly lacking in almost every aspect. Not horribly so, but the movie leaves you with this sensation that it is uninspired and unpolished. It is a post apocalyptic/virus outbreak dystopia flick with a "twist".

Maybe I have seen too many horror flicks to find any of this original or interesting but then again a movie should stand on its own merits no matter the audience. The three main characters are somewhat bland and for the first part of the movie I felt that we were being rushed into this alleged feeling of a close family, checking all the boxes for every cliche in sight.

The second part of the movie is where all the cards are laid on the table in a narrative coup de grace. Unfortunately the feeling of this "revelation" feels like if you're playing a poker game and someone suddenly yells "Yhatzee!" and slaps down a bunch of Uno cards and proudly bets his monopoly money. And this will be the case if you had been paying attention throughout the movie. The big twist is that the family, which we were so masterfully lead to believe were hiding from the infected "breathers", in fact turn out to be the infected themselves, and the breathers are just hazard suited swat teams send to purge the infected. That would be a cool twist if only everything we had been shown up until now did not contradict it. Until now the family was running scared and weak, avoiding confrontation at all costs but as soon as the revelation drops they go Blade on the swat team. This includes a total change in their appearance so the movie deliberately mislead the audience. The half-assed explanation that the virus makes them super powerful when desperate doesn't hold much weight since they had been clearly shown to be desperate and afraid earlier in the movie as well without any transformation. But even if we let this slide there's another plot hole. Before the revelation a single "breather" managed to tear a bolted and chained bomb shelter vault door off it's hinges while the mother was hanging onto it. It was explicitly stated this was a single breather. Not sure how one swat member managed this or why they didn't use torch cutters or the like. No wait, I know, because the movie deliberately wanted to misdirect us through deception. Its like you're watching a superman movie who suddenly rips off his mask an turns out to be batman. You raise a questioning finger because a moment ago superman had displayed the ability to fly and had super strength but the movie just says "pay no attention to this, wasn't it such a cool and unexpected twist though!"

Well no, no it wasn't. I am left thoroughly underwhelmed by a decent idea which if executed properly could have gone the path of the Sixth Sense, but instead got derailed into this mess. Is this one to avoid? No, not really. It can pass a few hours if you want to waste them but just don't think too hard about the plot holes.

Violation (2020)

Oddly and satisfyingly ambiguous

[5/10 · 9 November 2021]

So this is by no means a bad movie. Some have drawn parallels between this and Antichrist and I can certainly see that. It still has the obnoxious cinematography such as "close up of a rotting rabbit's eye" or "fast forward of growing mold and mushrooms in the forest" but it's far less so than Antichrist, which is a positive. What Violation does well is that it manages to walk the fine line between good and evil as well as real and imaginary. As a result this movie has layers and can be viewed in a couple of ways. On one hand it can certainly be perceived as as the rape-revenge torture porn and for those who enjoy this genre this will be satisfying enough. But on the other hand it can be viewed as a movie about the consequences of a broken mind crafting it's own reality as a coping mechanism. This is more subtle but there certainly are plenty of hints in the movie to imply just that. In a way the movie manages to sway the audience's perception of the characters on multiple occasions by telling the story anachronistically thus blurring the line between who was right and who was wrong. At first the female protagonist seems the instigator, then after the drunken night, the male character falls out of grace with his action, only to soon be potentially redeemed by multiple events which put in question the female's perspective, etc. Etc. The movie will certainly make you feel certain emotions but also is crafty enough to leave us to pick which emotions those are.

That being said, it also tends to be excruciatingly slow at times. Some scenes drag on for far longer than they should and as a result lose their edge. I can only watch a woman dry-heave as the guy bleeds out for so long before I roll my eyes, and this these were 5 minutes that could be spent better. Especially considering how pre-mediated the situation seemed. There are also some continuity errors that bring certain aspects into question. The pompous "symbolic" cinematography also tends to get on the nerves unless you're an absolute glutton for this particular kind of punishment. Which I am not.

Overall not a bad viewing experience. Clever storytelling and ambiguous characters and circumstances leaves quite a bit up for interpretation. Give it a watch but be warned, it tends to be "artsy" for the sake of being artsy.

Gone Girl (2014)

People need better standards for what a "good movie" is.

[2/10 · 24 January 2021]

So this is one of those movies which for whatever reasons gains a lot of positive media attention. So the people who watch movies for the social experience and don't involve their thinking anywhere in the viewing process watch it, echo the media's reviews and then pat each other on the back how well they understood it.

Unfortunately for me I cannot disengage my critical thinking like most of the people who reviewed this highly. And to be honest the plot is so offensively poor and full of plot holes and convoluted events for the sake of pushing the story along that it ended up completely overstaying its welcome. To get a few things out of the way - 1) The acting. Most people say it was good, I quite honestly did not find it even remotely close to the decent category. Ben Affleck seems completely apathetic throughout and Rosamund Pike pretty much has one blinkless stare for her "psycho persona". There's no nuance, no character development, no pallet of emotions the characters go and act through but I guess this could be chalked up to personal preference. The cinematography was ok. 3) The pacing was way off as 70% of the scenes did not contribute in any way to convey additional information to the audience or move the plot along. Instead they mostly repeated the same just slightly different. Like repeating a joke over and over and just changing your tone, hoping to finally get a laugh.

The only reason I can think of for the high score is that the story keeps introducing new characters mimicking the plot moving along so people were entertained. Problem is the storytelling is abysmal due to the plethora of plot holes. In order to get the story where it needed to you have a few presuppositions. 1) The police are completely incompetent and 2) the characters themselves do not care for continuity so they never point out errors in it. Here's a few examples: When Amy wanted to frame her husband she left her diary in an oven, just lightly singed around the edges but not enough to distort the writing, which basically said "I am afraid of my husband". Aside from the "clue" being asininely convenient and should make any detective raise an eyebrow especially considering the location, but anyone who knows how ovens work would know that if it had started burning, it would have to be manually put out to save it. It's the equivalent of painting bloody footsteps to the person you want to frame, putting a bloody knife in their hand then hiding behind the nearby curtain with your shows sticking out. Here's another example. At one point the police find traces of blood in the house and after conducting their analysis they deduce that "the splatters indicate a blunt object trauma". Fair enough, they do this type of analysis often and it in fact extremely accurate...if only the movie didn't later on show us that there was no blunt object involved and instead she drained some of he blood in a bowl and spilled it out. Good policing there! Here's another example. When she goes to live with Desi he tells her there are cameras everywhere. So she fakes being sexually assaulted and slits his throat with a box cutter. The movie expects us to believe that nobody bothered digging into the murdered person's case, nobody cared to view the bloody security camera footage and easily conclude that her story is crap. Hell, even when she tells her story Nick (notice, not the police but a civilian) brings up the question "how did she get the box cutter if they were in the bedroom" - a valid, logical question that we had been asking ourselves. Yet the nearby police officer goes "come on man, just be happy she's safe". Again, absolutely asinine plot contrivances.

And the worst part of it all was the ending. After she basically manipulates everyone thanks to the complete incompetence and obliviousness of everyone around her...there's never a retribution, never any vengeance, no, she gets exactly what she wanted and Nick just goes along with it, blueballing the entire audience. I would have even been ok with letting it slide if her manipulation was indeed masterful, but it was never that. In fact there were at least 7 different occasions when Nick could have secretly recorded her in video or audio and proven beyond any doubt what she is like, but no, he just shrugs and goes along with it as if living with a psycho is an ok prospect, without even so much as trying to leave or change anything.

The moral of the story: If you're a woman you can manipulate everyone and get away with it. God job, movie you're an absolute failure.

Oh any apparently some people are fawning over the "social commentary" that the media are like vultures and should not be trusted. This is such a profound insight that I ecpect the sequel to gone girl to to explore the even more groundbreaking "don't put your hand on a hot stove"....Seriously, people, please get some better standards for what a good movie is.

Antichrist (2009)

Arti-christ and the three pretentious beggars.

[4/10 · 17 December 2020]

This movie attempts to you in a box built of emotions and shake it, sending you bouncing off the walls until you get nauseated. does it elicit strong emotions - sure, but then again Von Trier is pretty well known for having on par cinematography to do that. That being said is is nowhere near as intelligent as people make it out to be. Just because strong imagery (such as child death, animal cruelty and genital mutilation) got a reaction out of you that does not mean it was an intelligent reaction. In fact it is pretty primal. So much so I consider it very lowbrow.

In a truly intelligent piece of cinema the audience should be expected to sift through a bit of muck on their own and THEN find the diamond in the much. Instead this movie puts you in a field of muck and then pours several metric tons of "diamonds" on you in the form of symbolism so blatant that eventually realize the diamonds are made of cheap glass and are not worth either looking for or keeping after the movie is over.

As far as the plot goes there's nothing in it that has not been done far better in movies from previous years so instead of going through it I will mention a few scenes that are particularly obtuse and over the top. So the movie starts with a hardcore sex scene presented in a very graphic way. In the meantime their little kid exits its crib and jump out of the window as the couple climaxes. It's all in black and white with very serene operatic music as background. Highbrow art it is not.

Later on the couple grieves and moves in the woods while in the meantime having sex at every turn. So the same act that they should associate with their child's death is something they do on the regular. Could it be they are bad parents? Well at one time they have sex underneath a withered tree. Could this symbolize how they cannot nurture "fruit" and are bad parents? Then the man sees a deer walking around with a half-born, dead and hanging from its rear. Could this symbolize how they are bad parents? Maybe you're seeing a pattern here...these are by far not the only examples of heavy obvious beat-you-over-the-head symbolism. They see a fox tearing chunks off itself, symbolizing how they are being self-destructive. The woman put the shoes backwards on her kid in multiple pictures, symbolizing how she subconsciously hated the kid. She batters the man's genitals then proceeds to have sex with him resulting in a bloody ejaculation. You guessed it - the symbolism here is that she hates the fruit of his loins but wants the pleasure part of it, but hates herself for it. This is once again beaten into the audience as she proceeds to mutilate her own genitals in extreme graphic detail. Etc. etc.

This pattern is just about the entire movie. Extremely graphic, presented in a stylized manner, with pretentious cinematography and "taboo" actions but it's about as subtle as bat strike across the face.

Instead of teaching you how to cook refined cuisine and giving you the ingredients, this movie spoon-feeds you forcefully all of its supposed brilliance which it seems profoundly cognizant of and in love with. It certainly isn't a complete mess and might be worth the watch but don't expect to be blown away. Just heavily nauseated with a raised eyebrow throughout.

Raw (2016)

Angsty teenage cannibals - the movie.

[5/10 · 15 December 2020]

So, this movie is not a complete wreck. Although to enjoy it you must really put some effort into suspending your disbelief. It has the specific disregard for all things logically coherent and instead follows a path of raging raw emotions of the allegedly cathartic variety, that is so typical of french horrors. Once you get to your 5th "this makes absolutely no sense" you have to either turn it off or start perceiving it as a roller coaster ride - it will do its best to shock you without providing an answer to why or how. After all, you got on the ride. That being said, is the movie a 7? In absolutely no universe. Is it kind of a 5? I'd say yes as it does have some redeeming qualities like back to back loop de loops of people biting fleshy chunks off of each other. If you're into that sort of thing you'll be satisfied. If not, you'll get off the ride with a distinctly nauseated feeling.

The "plot" (and I use the term generously) follows a family that sends their youngest daughter to vet school. Same school where the older daughter also attends as did the parents. So they are veterinary royalty or at least alumni. The entire family is vegan (hint-hint, nudge-nudge). The hazing ritual that the girl goes through aside from committing what seems be a series of felonies, also makes her taste animal meat. For some reason that triggers the vegan to start craving meat of the raw variety.

From here on the "plot" moves forward like an intoxicated chipmunk on a well-oiled surface. It manages to both be all over the place and get nowhere at the same time. You have your standard long drawn out close-up shots of the characters supposedly contemplating something, that only angsty teenagers are privy to. The two sisters have a love-hate relationship so they are either hugging, or fighting, or comforting each other, or biting chunks from each other. Or all four in the same scene together. You have a couple of supporting characters that act more like props for the main cast. Overall it has some decently gory scenes although what irked me the most is how the school, which based on its hazing practices is an absolute degenerate hellhole, all of a sudden gets its halo and starts gasping at the actions of the two sisters.

The twist ending can be seen a mile away but at least it's there. That being said it also does not fail to deviate from the general illogical behavior of the characters - all women in the family are cannibals and as soon as the mother started tearing off chunks from the father way back when, that's when he knew he loved her. In a day and age where couples break up over someone liking the wrong person's photo on facebook, this is certainly a display of iron-clad commitment! OR complete BS, you be the judge.

In any case, if you're not squeamish you might enjoy this one for the scenes so give it a go.

How It Ends (2018)

Is the title a question from the makers?

[2/10 · 10 December 2020]

When I started watching this I didn't realize the title was a question from the people making the movie towards the audience.

what they didn't realize is that in a mysterious horror about a cataclysmic event most people would be interested in what that event is and how it unfolds, not what the characters do in the meantime while wondering what's going on along with the audience. The character's actions are meant to move the plot along until said cataclysmic event unfolds. Aside from setting up that there is such an event this movie goes no further. It might as well have been any "road trip gone wrong" generic movie instead. All the encounters are completely uninspired and "traditional". You've got your crazies who love the new chaos because they like to hurt people, you have your distrustful but good people, you have your forced-to-be-bad in order to survive people, etc. Nothing new, nothing even vaguely interesting.

As for the ending, everyone is talking about how abruptly it ends and indeed it does. Revealing nothing, concluding nothing, tying no loose ends. Just a cash-grab nod of the "if you liked this we've got another one comin' your way, just get your cash ready" type.

If you value your time I wouldn't bother with this one.

Relic (2020)

An ambitious project that just lacks the intelligence to deliver.

[5/10 · 8 December 2020]

Whenever you look at the feedback for a movie and see people using reviews as comments to smugly tell everyone who didn't like it that they just aren't smart enough to understand the great masterpiece, you should know what to expect in the actual movie.

This one does not deviate from that rule, although it is a bit more solid than most pretentious "style over substance" flicks due to it's good use of allegories. Where it does fail, as is to be expected is the overall plot as it is riddled with holes which the director seems to have almost purposefully ignored in order to deliver their message.

The movie is really two different movies into one. The first part is pretty engaging, ambitious and even clever at times as a psychological horror. The second part is the movie's intellectual capitulation and devolution into a zombie horror as it realizes it cannot coherently finish the message from the first part.

In part one we get introduced to the family with a grandma suffering from dementia and her daughter and granddaughter who try to figure out how to help her. Of course here you have your pretentious violin shredding, uncomfortable close-ups and dark shots of the interrior meant to make you wonder if every shadow isn't something else. The grandmother engages in erratic and disturbing behavior so it definitely creates tension, although I would not credit the movie with it since even a documentary of a person with dementia is pretty unsettling without being a horror movie. This is where the movie sets up good imagery - a stained-glass window represents the clarity of the mind and in several shots we see it slowly get overtaken by a dark rot. the house itself has patches of the same rot spreading to represent the advancing disease. The grandma's hobby is to carve wax candles, representing her struggle to maintain her "light" in the encroaching darkness of dementia. Cool stuff so far. But here's also where the movie just shrugs and doesn't know where to go from that point. First the grandmother sees a human-shaped shadow moving in the house - OK it's her mind slipping. But then her daughter and granddaughter also see it? OK, maybe they also suffer dementia? But it isn't hereditary in the vast majority of cases, let alone three straight generations...Also it does not manifest in 20-something year olds. And just as you're ready to overlook this you see a few shots when only the audience can see the shadow, giving it credibility for being real...unless the movie means WE ALL suffer from dementia? There's even a doctor that comes in to examine the grandmother and sees a patch of rotting flesh on her chest, calling it a bruise, leading us to believe that it is in fact real and not just an illusion (more on that later). OK, plot holes aside let's see where it goes.

The second part of the movie is when the granddaughter finds a somewhat hidden section of the house and explores it. Here reality breaks down, halls start shifting, doors disappear, walls block previously accessible paths and push her further and further into a narrowing corridor which eventually becomes the size of a coffin. Pretty cool sequence, except it completely does not fit with the tone of the movie so far. If the supernatural effects are real then we're not talking about a metaphor for dementia. And if it isn't real, why does a third generation 20 year old experience this? Soon the mother joins her and experiences it the exact same way, leading us all tot believe it is in fact real. Here the movie, having written itself into a corner, decides to double down and portrays the grandmother as a rotting zombie. She breaks a leg, revealing a rotting black bone, stabs herself with a knife, dropping pieces of rotting flesh, crawls jerkily towards the other two while growling and making Zerg sounds. I thought this was all a metaphor, so how can everyone experience the same? Long story short they beat the zombie-grandma up and just as they leave the mother has a fit of conscience and decides to stay and care for her anyway. What follows is a disturbing sequence of the mother peeling away the rotting flesh of the grandmother to reveal a shriveled mummified (but living) corpse underneath. They embrace lovingly, the daughter joining in to represent three generations together, and she discovers the same black rotting patch starting to form on her mother's back as well. But...it's not hereditary! But the doctor saw it! But if it's real then it's an evil entity in the house and not a metaphor for dementia! Oh who cares, don't think about it too much and just enjoy the pretentious cinematography!

I won't fault the movie too much as it does undertake a fairly ambitious task and an important message to deliver, and in the end it's better to try and fail than to stick to simple and pretentious with no message in sight. It just tackles a topic well above its pay-grade and ends up flopping in its delivery as it teeter-totters between the multiple things it tries to be.

Behind You (2020)

Exceptionally poor

[2/10 · 7 December 2020]

Have you ever had this happen? You want to cook something, but don't have all the ingredients you need but you are too lazy to go to the store so you just throw whatever you have within reach together hoping it ends up tasting good since all the ingredients on their own are good. If you ever do, call it the "Behind you" stew as this is exactly what this movie was. Rehashed ideas from other franchises that do not tie in together in any meaningful or even remotely suspenseful way.

To go down the list of a few, you have your 1) little girl with a doll that the evil talks to, 2) crazy aunt and her creepy gardener/helper, 3) caring big sister that helps her little sibling with the possession because of plot reasons, 4) something evil locked in the basement, 5) your standard shriveled up grandma ghost with the bad dental plan, 6) mirrors that show you the ghost that you cannot otherwise see. etc. etc.

This movie simply does not know what it wants to be. It was obviously meant to be ghost-centric yet it takes almost 50 minutes of no ghost and just slow set-up that was unnecessary as the set up was clear as day 5 minutes into the movie. The plot is mostly moved forward by unrealistic or otherwise illogical decisions of the characters.

I am not quite sure why it is called "Behind you" since I am certain the name "Generic horror movie" is still readily available.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

A homeopathic version of The Shining

[3/10 · 6 December 2020]

I do not believe I have been this disappointed in a long time by a movie. If this was a stand-alone movie I'd actually consider it pretty decent, but as a sequel you are not allowed to spit on everything that made the original great and expect people to be happy about it. And yes, I know it's based on King's sequel book. What I do not know is whether the book itself was a flop or just the movie adaptation messed up.

So, if you are expecting the same tense psychological mystery-thriller you're in for a hell of a disappointment as it has been diluted so much it might as well be homeopathic The Shining. Oh the characters are there, but it's like this was targeted at a much younger audience, meaning there have to be pointless gun fights, car chases and of course vampires, since they're kinda popular now.

Remember how people talked about "shining" in vague and uncertain terms? Well forget about that. Now you have a clan of soul-sucking vampires that use shine-fu with specific techniques. You have your astral projection, your possession, your mind control, your illusion, etc. etc. It is no longer an intuition about things unseen, but it is more akin to a power from the X-men. And where would a movie like that be without the ultra powerful but untrained McGuffin child prodigy. Remember how The Shining had a handful of cast that contributed to the feeling of loneliness and isolation? Well this one has a whole tribe of the aforementioned "vampires" and a plethora of side characters most of which shine. I call them vampires because they die in the same manner every vampire put to screen over the past 30 years has died - shrivel up, burn, twitch and dissolve into fine mist. Then there's your obligatory gun fight, despite everyone involved apparently having shining powers that can Akira you into oblivion or just Jedi mind trick you into a stupor, but hey, guns are popular with the kids.

I can keep tearing this apart as the movie is 3 hours long and provides plenty of cringy material and only a few actually fun callbacks to the source material, but it would be a waste of time. If it was not a sequel the gem it might be a 7/10 but as a sequel it does not fulfill the expectations of the real fans so it cannot be more than a 3/10.

Imagine if you took Silence of the Lambs...made a sequel...and in it the Transformers jump in to fight the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. If you're prepared for that mental image you might be ok with this pale imitation of a classic.

You Should Have Left (2020)

The one prison you cannot escape from is your mind.

[8/10 · 5 December 2020]

It boggles my mind how many negative reviews this one has. In fact it does many things very good and a couple of things perfectly. It just leads me to believe that the people who downvoted it either prefer bloodbath horrors (which this is not) or pretentious cinematographic drivel with no actual meaning (which this is also not). If you are looking for an actually good horror with psychological scares, look no further.

As far as the acting goes, the cast does a stellar job. Perhaps the kid is a bit on the annoying side with some atypical lines but aside from that it gets high marks across the board. The pacing is done just right. It manages to set things up without putting people to sleep and then gradually escalates the tension.

Where this movie truly shines is in the horror elements. There's no slimy, toothy monster that goes "oogabooga!", nor a jumpscare-y ghost that constantly lurks off-camera waiting for a chance to scream in your ear. Instead the horror here is built on a breaking reality as it manages to blur the line of what is real and what is imagined. Doors loop back to places on different floors, the house measured from inside is much larger than when measured from the outside, minor changes in the background, just enough to make you wonder did the characters do that or is it...? While in most horror films the cast is expected to make a series of absolutely braindead choices to get the movie going, this one traps you and even the most rational can imagine that they will remain trapped. And that is the point of the movie - You cannot escape your own demons. The ending could have in fact been better, but even as is, I am not too disappointed.

So granted, this is no Triangle, but it does a nicely polished job, while staying fairly simple. It's an absolute must-see.

Follow Me (2020)

"The Game" did it better and didn't botch up the ending.

[3/10 · 5 December 2020]

So this is an otherwise pretty mediocre flick that takes some of the better ideas from others in the genre like Hostel, Saw, etc. The biggest rip-off, however is from the 1997's "The Game". The difference is that the writers of The Game had a higher IQ than that of a spud, so when everything came together it was an actual surprise ending. This one is so poorly executed and clearly telegraphed that my eyes rolled so hard I nearly snapped my optic nerve. There's even (and I quote) a line in the movie that says "hey, what if this is still part of the escape room and it's not over"? I guess this movie either thought it was being so clever that nobody would get it or that it's audience is braindead.

In any case, the movie is actually not too bad until you get to the ending. Where the audience is supposed to believe that the people who were capable of putting together a scheme so perfect that they can predict where everyone would go, tie up all loose ends, have contingency plans for all possible options...and yet they would not see that putting the main culprit, unarmed, within an arm's reach of a man pushed to the brink of his sanity...could lead to an injury to say the least. After the "protagonist" has been lead to believe he is in the hands of a sadistic Russian mob who have just dismembered all of his closest friends and now his own life is forfeit, they decide to put the guy who "lured" them into this mess next to him with just a phone and a smile. Oddly enough during the moment of righteous anger nobody tries to stop him or is near enough to yell something, and yet a few seconds later the room is filled with all the "cast" of the escape room, alive and well. There is suspending one's disbelief and then there's this utter nonsense.

Just go watch "The Game". It does everything that this movie attempts, just far far better.

The Monster (2016)

A textbook exercise in building suspense.

[7/10 · 3 December 2020]

This one is pretty good! And it is good because it does all the basics right and introduces a small bit of fresh view.

The fresh part is the relationship with the mother and the daughter which is exceptionally sour but eventually progresses as they face hardships together. Now, this is by no means the first movie to do it but it's definitely better than the "put a child in the movie to justify that character's extreme actions" approach that is so prominent.

It also builds suspense quite well. The setting is minimalistic, with a couple of cars and very few characters pulling the entire movie. The background is mostly black, rain and the occasional headlight, without it being so dark that it's incomprehensible. Where so many modern movie just throw everything AND the kitchen sink on the screen in hopes that everyone finds at least a couple of things to like, this movie uses a sniper rifle to deliver instead of a machine gun spray and pray. The characters are allowed enough time to become likeable and to grow and develop so by the end you will likely find yourself rooting for them.

That being said, the movie is better before the monster is revealed. It ends up being uninspired and mundane like a toothy gorilla that's been rolled around in the tar pits. It also can either move at lightning speed when it's supposed to carry off a huge corpse or it can just sit there, contemplating metaphysics, while the protagonists put their plan to defeat it into action. It's all very silly.

Despite the lackluster monster everything else the movie does is so well crafted that it will keep you at the edge of your seat and is definitely worth the watch.

Amulet (2020)

As pretentious as it is pointless.

[3/10 · 3 December 2020]

Even before reading some of the reviews I knew it'd be filled with "oh my god, this movie is so artsy and so convoluted that only smart ones like me can appreciate it and all the rabble hate it". So, stop you right there. Is the movie artsy and convoluted? Yes. Is a hidden gem of intelligence and masterful cinemacraft? Not even close.

This movie, like so many others commits the cardinal sin of style over substance. It has great cinematography, plucky untunned violin music, lost close-ups of the main character's faces with no dialogue as they stare blankly as they realize something, with a touch of lip-quivering. What do they realize? Nobody knows, but it's so open to interpretation that anyone can insert pretty much everything that currently occupies their head-space and call it "relatable".

I don't mind the cinematographic tricks - they are great for a set up. Nor the slow pace. Nor the long drawn out scenes that leave you time to ponder. What I do mind is that the movie demands that you do it's job for it. It shows you a big black square and expects you to write a dissertation on the existential meaning and transcendental hidden messages of the piece, while providing nothing more.

All that it does provide is a whole bunch of "twists" for the sake of having twists and then gloating that you never saw them coming. Imagine Jurassic park revealing at the end that it was not dinosaurs, but instead it was aliens all along! Aha, gotcha! Or revealing that the doll from Saw had made an appearance on Sesame street! Didn't expect that did you? Or that the clearly female demon that gives birth to little demons and is continuously referred to as "mother" and a "she"...was a man! Gotcha! And the demon's servant, who constantly gets beaten, bitten, bruised and whimpers in pain is...the bigger demon lord while the demon doing the biting and beating is...the servant! Cool, ain't it?

Movies (and movie goers) really need to learn that just because a movie sets up things decently and then when the time comes to tie things together it just shrugs and points at a random constellation with a knowing nod, as if it all means something, does not constitute a good flick. This is a prime example.

I won't even get into the apparently feminist anti-men overtones since the movie is poor enough as it is without them, but they are quite present, for those of you wondering.

Now, if you don't mind, I'll go stare at a blank wall and imagine a beautiful story playing out on it, then I'll credit the wall as being brilliant.

Hell House LLC (2015)

This movie can have a score of 6 only if the scale goes up to 100

[2/10 · 31 October 2020]

The lost footage genre is one of my favorites so I've seen dozens of titles in that style. And among them all this is easily in my...bottom 10. I have no idea why it's score is so high but it absolutely does not represent the quality of the movie. Objectively speaking.

First off, the idea of having a spook appear where they shouldn't be is a good technique. Except it works well when something movies in an abandoned asylum where it's obviously out of place. When it's in an escape style room full of dummies and puppets it blends so perfectly in the background that it virtually is invisible. And the filmmakers are painfully aware of this since when the camera wobbled past a spook that was not supposed to be there they literally stopped the movie, hit rewind, then replayed the shot in slow-mo pausing on the frame with the spook. The only thing missing was a red arrow with a sign "This is scary. You should now be scared". Nothing says quality horror like having to be told explicitly which parts should be frightening.

There's a plethora of unanswered plot lines to boost as the movie cannot decide whether the spooks are a black-cloaked satanic cult, a bloodied clown demon or white-eyed ghost girl. The characters make the dumbest decisions possible, completely taking you out of the immersion. And just when you're asking yourself "so why don't they just...leave?" One of them tries to, then the shot changes to the aftermath of some apparent conversation where it was decided that they cannot leave. No explanation why, especially given what they were facing. Speaking of the characters, the casting is horrendous. All the actors look extremely similar, made even worse by the overall grainy found footage format, with similar names and are generally indistinguishable from each other.

But the biggest offender was probably the shaky cam, which while a good technique to convey some authenticity, when overdone gets the audience either sea-sick, disoriented, or itching to call an ambulance for the Parkinson's afflicted camera-man.

This is one of those rare gems in the found footage genre, which has no redeeming qualities about it whatsoever. Steer clear from this abomination. There's better ways to waste your time.

The Clinic (II) (2010)

Endearingly above average

[8/10 · 29 October 2020]

While not a fantastic movie this one was indeed solid on all accounts. From the good acting to the well-written characters all through the mini-twist ending it was a pretty enjoyable ride. Granted, a character had to do a fairly stupid thing to get the ball rolling, but this only induced a brief eye-roll. If I had one major criticism it would be that the writers don't seem to have ever had an abdominal injury judging by how the subjects of these surgeries moved around freely, running, jumping, fighting, etc. , but a bit of suspense of disbelief and everything was fine.

If anything, this one has too low of a score, for a movie without many flaws. And while it will not likely win any awards, I actually found myself rooting for the main character, which is insanely rare in this day and age of phoned-in caricature characters.

I am giving this one a solid two thumbs up!

The Luring (2019)

It flows like a rough draft...for a dream sequence.

[2/10 · 23 August 2020]

The movie is exceptionally poor in pretty much all aspects.

The acting pretty much gives away what kind of movie it will be from the start. The performance is akin to a high school play with nervous kids that force their lines and overact. The cinematography is not too bad, although that alone amounts to nothing in the end considering the convoluted and disconnected plot. You know how in a dream you are convinced certain things make sense but when you wake up you wonder how come you didn't see the glaring contradictions with reality? That's how this movie plays out. There is a multitude of cliche horror elements - an eerie red balloon, a psycho kid killer, children hurting children, mysterious plot device shadowy man, a toy of unknown significance which the camera zooms in on regularly, etc. etc. Events do unfold, but saying they are in any way coherently connected is like answering a math problem with "green". I wouldn't even call this one pretentious as to me this is simply a bad movie due to bad writing and directing.

This is the type of movie that will have a few people pretend to understand its "profound" meaning and will insist that it is so deep that nobody gets it but do not be fooled. Deep applies to this movie like "dry" applies to "ocean".

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

An insulting cashgrab.

[3/10 · 27 July 2020]

This movie does too many things wrong. If you loved the T1 and T2 plot lines - tough luck. Dark Fate erases them in a 2 minute flash back, spitting on both fandom and source material. Apparently terminators can pop back through time on whim and one of them does get John Connor. To be honest at that point I had equal amounts of disgust for the ease with which they insulted the original movies, as well as a building anticipation since this COULD have been a bold enough move to spice things up story-wise. And with every passing minute that anticipation dimmed, replaced by a gradually more erect middle finger for this movie.

This is how you waste potential. You start of with the exact same way - two terminators warp in, but wait! one isn't a terminator, but an "augmented" human. Oh and she's a female. The other terminator is male. while I give props to the actor for mimicking the T 1000's facial expressions, unfortunately it is more of the same, that we've already seen in a much better movie, 25 years earlier. The general rule of this movie is that if you're a guy you're either a sniveling lowlife, a villain or get offed within 5 minutes. On the other hand every female is a golden queen. Film makers must really learn to nuance things. I don't mind a healthy dose of ideological spice, but this is beat-you-over-the-head-at-every-turn, do-you-get-it-yet type of plot contrivance.

Aside from gender-swapping the vast majority of the main characters this movie clearly has no original ideas of its own. Remember in T2 the scene where the T1000 chases them in a huge rig? Yeah, this one has an identical scene. Remember when he chased them with a helicopter? Yep, got that too. Remember how the whole thing ended in a factory with molten steel? Got that too! And this is by no means an exhaustive list of repetition. It would have been better as a remake or a reboot if they planned to copy so much of it and slap a new paint over it.

Now, back to plot fails - If you are going to erase the entire plot that the fans fell in love with, you can really make something good with it, right? Well, they don't. It's like they didn't like their Toyota car, so they sold it to buy the same Toyota. What happens with John Connor, the legendary leader of the resistance dead? Oh, nothing, there's another just as legendary leader of the resistance that the plot conjures up. Except this time it's a she, and is hispanic. Aside from those two "super important changes" nothing else is different. Oh, but we learn that in the new future Skynet doesn't exist! Cool, so what did happen? Oh, nothing, there's still a super computer AI that guides the machines, just this one is called Legion. Uninspired, rehashing, copycat cash grab.

To be fair, the characters themselves are played well and the actors are good. Almost all of them are charismatic and deliver very decent performances of how their portrayed characters have their own agendas and emotions. Well, all except the "new John Connor" McGuffin girl, who, for the leader to unify human kind against the machines, has little to no personality. All she does offer is an attitude and no skill set. Sadly, not even Arnold and Linda, along with the great addition of Mackenzie managed to save this train wreck of a plot.

Men in Black: International (2019)

Passive-aggressive quips do not equate to comedy gold. Who would have known?

[3/10 · 26 June 2020]

This installment is by a large margin the worst of the MiB franchise and hopefully the last one. The writers have apparently dried up on the ideas front as multiple scenes in this one are plucked directly from the previous movies. The cast is not at all capable of demonstrating any chemistry, let alone anything up to the standard set up by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The plot is forced and the events move "because the script said so" often lacking logic or clear motivation. The characters are mostly caricatures with none of them having to go through any character development or growth. The particular offender here is the lead female who, to contrast Will Smith's character, is a genius from birth, can just walk up to a super secret organization and get recruited and in general everything goes her way just because. Aside from "let's have one with women in it!" agenda I really do not see why this one is made. The movie makes me wonder when will the writers learn to write good female characters without shoving silly feminist lines in the audience's faces. But hey, "women are all queens" as the lead tells us directly. What? Aren't you amused and entertained yet?

Breaking at the Edge (2013)

To make a twist first you need a direction. This movie had none.

[2/10 · 24 June 2020]

A really poor and uninspired attempt at a supernatural thriller. The entire movie boils down to "the main character is suffering from hallucinations and she sees a ghost, aha but in fact she isn't crazy! Or maybe she is! But wait, maybe she isn't! How suspenseful!"

The problem is not with the miserably predictable twists but that during the entire movie none of the character's motivations or allegiances are made clear so it plays out like a jumbled mess and it makes the "twists" lose impact because they didn't really subvert any expectations as none were established. It really is a movie that makes you keep looking at the clock or your phone.

The Turning (2020)

So profound that it even went over the heads of its creators

[2/10 · 19 May 2020]

If I had to describe the movie with a sound it would be a drumroll increasing to a crescendo ending with a "wah wah wah" of a sad trombone.

The Lodge (2019)

Textbook style over substance case.

[4/10 · 6 May 2020]

I am not surprised at all at the negative reviews. This movie starts well, sets up the story well and then falls flat so hard it's like taking the popcorn out of the oven as soon as one pops - it smells nice, but in reality you're left with only hard, tasteless kernels.

Let's address the elephant in the room. This is NOT an intelligent movie. However, it does have enough pretentious cinematography to make some people think it is. That being said I am a fan of said cinematography AS A SET UP, but not as your entire substance. I have no idea why some people are calling this innovative as it simply isn't. Long drawn out shots of a darkened empty hallway or a window while someone frantically plucks at an untuned violin and radio-filtered whispers is neither ground-breaking not original. Yes, it's uncomfortable so overdoing it will elicit an emotional reaction, which some people mistake for the effect of good writing.

Now, beyond the elephant. The story goes absolutely nowhere. If the movie is original with anything it's that the ending is so mediocre and so little attempt has been made to make it interesting that it's a rarity in the genre. If you know there is no twist ending you can guess the finish a good 15 minutes after the word go. The characters are profoundly unlikable aside from the dad, who appears briefly at the beginning and the end. There is "creepy" scenes which go nowhere and have absolutely no explanation, nor do they contribute to the plot (I am looking at you 100 snow angels).

That being said I do appreciate movies which try to at least get part of the equation right and this one, as stated above, has a good first part. Now, if only movie-makers learned that you need to know how to finish a story too. So, while I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend it, if you're into eating only the first couple of popcorns of the bunch and being disappointed by the rest, go for it. Just be warned - the moment you start asking yourself "ok so where is this all going" is the moment when you know the movie is well past its peak".

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

The plot is so thin you can slice an atom with it

[2/10 · 12 February 2020]

• the ghosts that want to destroy everything are "mostly dudes" (direct quote from the movie)
• shooting the big ghost in the crotch
• "safety lights are for dudes" (direct quote)
• queef jokes.

Are you laughing yet? I wasn't. This movie's plot is so thin they can use it to slice an atom in half. Aside from the blatant sexism, showing men as shallow one-dimensional characters, there are plenty of other things to dislike here. I am all for silly comedies when everyone is a caricature, but this one was designed to apparently somehow "empower" women by putting down men. but enough about this aspect.

None of the characters are in any way relatable. They just do their thing because the script says so. There is hardly any backstory to any of them (aside from a feeble attempt to give some background to the main character's ghost-enthusiast past turned scientist. Yet it goes nowhere, since her scientific knowledge is never again used, but instead is delegated to the blond sociopath who cannot seem to decide whether her character should be rude, brilliant, offensive, endearing, or psychotic. There is no explanation how and why Leslie's character decides to join the bunch aside from "having a ride".

There is a bunch of callbacks to the original films but they all end up being profoundly unoriginal. "don't cross the streams", and "we don't have a proper containment unit for the ghosts" and "slimer", etc. Speaking of slimer, now apparently all ghosts leave vast amounts of goo, not just him, making his name completely redundant. There is not a single original concept in this aside from a couple of new gadgets that are better fitting in a James Bond movie. While the original films had a lot of subtle elements and plot lines this one was as subtle as a loud fart in a crowded elevator.

Then there's the cameos...One or two would have been nice, but man, all the original cast members had to be there and in roles which couldn't decide whether they play their old selves, or the opposite, or mock their characters.

The whole thing was forced, unoriginal, unfunny and over the top for no reason.