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The Jester (2023)
Starts off decent, completely nose dives
I came into this already aware of it dismal reviews. I also come into it after already watching two of the youtube shorts and being unimpressed. The shorts felt like a weak attempt at a Terrifier vibe, but with no point whatsoever. Masked man harasses random people on the street with increasingly obnoxious and menacing magic tricks until they get scared, then he kills them... for some reason. Seemed very lazy
That said, I still wanted to give this a chance because i'll admit it, i'm a sucker for anything Halloween related. Plus I felt like maybe since this was a full length film there'd be more of a narrative, and point to all of this. And in the beginning I admit, I was actually pleasantly surprised to the point that I started wondering exactly why this was getting so many bad reviews.
The cinematography was nice, the locations looked good and appropriately autumnal, the actors were all actually fairly decent and believable, and there did seem to be a story developing that I found myself becoming interested in. Sure, the Jester was still showing up and menacing what seemed like random people, but I felt like maybe there was a point to all of it, and was enjoying the story, and wanted to see what happened next... and then it happened
About 3/4 of the way through the story just kind of flops, and the movie takes this confusing, yet mediocre turn. Suddenly it becomes all about these two sisters and their strained relationship with their dad, and becomes this weird unearned drama that somehow gets tied up with this supernatural element that is never explained. It simply makes no sense. The questions that have been building up since the very first scene just sort of go completely unanswered, and then the movie just sort of ends. Nothing is wrapped up, nothing is explained, like whatsoever. It's like "Dad was a bad dad back in the day, and because of that... now there's a demon? Literally. Apparently being a deadbeat dad, somehow summons a demon curse upon you, your family, and your offspring, that also kills other random people indiscriminately too, and you're just stuck with that, I guess? At least that's the impression you are left with because the movie doesn't care to explain it any further than that.
Why is this happening? Who is the Jester? What does he want? Why did he go after the person he did? Why is he here now going after that persons family? Why is he also killing anyone else he randomly crosses paths with? What is he? Why does he have the powers he does? What was the point to anything that happened in this movie? None of this is answered. Instead we just get this weird family drama, some truly random, pointless kills, an overpowered "unstoppable" big bad that just feels lazily written, with no clear rules, weakness, or motivation, and a nonsensical ending
As forgettable as the shorts were, in retrospect I prefer them. They were non sensical as well, but at least we didn't have a bunch of tacked on, unneeded melodrama, and they were mercifully short. This on the other hand just felt pointless and long. You had me for the beginning, but that end was a major whiff. I went from "Huh...this actually isn't that bad" to "what did I even just watch? That made no sense, and had no point whatsoever."
This left with with a profound sense of "uh...what?". Do not recommend. Good acting all around, a plot that could have been fun, and a setting that should have been fun (Halloween night, AND a Halloween carnival? How did you screw that up?) but extremely poor writing tanked it.
Phantom Fun-World (2023)
Lead actress is good, everything else is embarrassingly bad
First off, one of the most sure fire ways of identifying that movie is probably going to be awful is if Ari Lehman is in it, and he pops up in the first 5 minutes. And as predicted, this film is another whiff. The premise itself sounded fun. Horror themed amusement park opens, then turns into a real life slasher when the titular "Phantom" begins knocking off the staff. Kind of sounds like a Scooby Doo episode taken to a psychotic level. I didn't expect it to be fine cinema, but I was just hoping for stupid fun. Weirdly enough it didn't even hit that low bar. For one thing, this movie has a real identity crisis. The theme sounds stupid, but possibly fun, the budget is low, the acting is atrocious, and Ari Lehman is there right off the bat, hamming it up in an ad for the park, in the most cringe inducing fashion, complete with the requisite blond bimbo in a tight dress oohing and aweing, and striking "sexy" poses beside him. So again, it' setting this stupid, cartoonish vibe immediately. Yet then, it introduces the main character, and suddenly cuts to this very serious, somber, drama vibe. She's showering, sadly, while very somber lifetime channel esque music is playing, then she's talking to her little brother about their mother, and how she abandoned them both, and tries to have this heartfelt moment. In fact, pretty much every time this character has a scene to herself it cuts to this very dramatic, sad, sober vibe as she attempts to relate to her brother, and connect with her estranged mother. And she's actually quite good. She's a talented actress. The problem is... she's acting in the wrong movie
Everything else, and every other character in this movie is cartoonish, and cringey. Every other character is a ridiculous stereotype. No one else can act at all, everyone is overacting horribly, every other character you encounter are all obnoxious, unlikable caricatures of people who don't speak, act, or behave like real human beings, and the rest of the movie feels like it was written by a child. Then back to the lifetime channel drama, then back to the cartoon. It makes no sense. It's like two different people wrote this film, and couldn't even agree on what kind of film they were making
Props to the main character, her brother, and to a lesser extent their mother. They are actually trying to act, far better than the awful script they were given. And major thumbs down to the park owner, the cheesy stereotypes that worked there, and Ari Lehman's ridiculously cringe...whatever it is he is trying to be (the dude played Jason as a child in Friday the 13th, long, LONG ago and has been riding that fame ever since. STOP CASTING THIS DUDE. HE CANNOT ACT, AT ALL, AND HAS A MASSIVELY OVERINFLATED EGO, EVEN LARGER THAN HIS STUPID HIPSTER MOUSTACHE).
Anyway, dull movie, weird bi polar vibe to it, with a few standouts that deserve to be in much better films.
The Third Saturday in October Part V (2022)
Being bad at filmmaking does not qualify as "Parody"
Logged on and couldn't believe this thing had 100% positive... then I realized that's because it only has 5 votes, lol. That tracks. I saw this and it's prequel being really pushed by Bloody Disgusting this October for some reason. My guess is that someone on the staff is related to these folks, because this movie is ROUGH. I'm sure it is intended as some sort of parody, but it doesn't feel nearly clever enough to pull it off. It just feels like a bad, low budget effort. Not so bad it's good, just so bad it's... mid?
I also feel bad for several of these actors. The little girl in particular, because you can tell that they are new to acting, which is fine (everyone has to start somewhere), but they also aren't being given much direction, so it feels like they are just tasked with filling in their own dialogue for much of their scenes, and the result is extreme unnatural awkwardness. The little girl has nonsensical, overly long bits where she's basically making small talk with cats (or a picture of a cat in one part) but was given no instructions on what to say, so she's just rambling on to fill time, like "i like catfish, do you like catfish? You are a cat... do you like fish? Maybe you are also a fish? Are you a catfish?", or asking a picture of a cat if it's "hungry" and "about ready for dinner?"... then just meowing repeatedly after she runs out of things to say to it. She (and the babysitter) are also obviously instructed to dance to music in several scenes, but it's clear they hadn't locked down the music selection yet, so they are dancing to a completely different beat, and/or just awkwardly making fists and unnaturally jerking them in the air to simulate "dancing", ala Elaine from Sinefeld, lol
The special effects are also rouuuuugh. So far (i'm only like 30 minutes in) i've seen a very bad, photoshop style cartoonish animated "rip" as a head comes off, some off screen awkward kills, horrible dialogue like "make like a gravy train and get those greased wheels down the road and outta my face boy!" and an awkward guy in "gameface" makeup unenthusiastically walking out of the bedroom singing "do the commonwealth shuffle. The commonwealth shuffle. Come on yall, do the commonwealth shuffle" in a monotone, while his daughter responds (also in monotone) "stop being embarrassing".
And the killer, isn't ominous, and honestly doesn't even make sense. He just casually, almost lethargically drives from house to house, blandly walking in without any real purpose and killing people in the most unenthusiastic, color by numbers way, before shuffling off to repeat, He also seems to be immortal, which is demonstrated in the most uninteresting way. A guy points a gun at him and tells him to leave, then oddly, and unemotionally just shoots him anyway, the killer doesn't react, or even flinch, a really cheap after effects, subdued blood spray plays, the guy opens fire several more times, same cheap special effect, no reaction, then they both just sort of stand there looking at each other, presumably waiting to be cued on whatever the next line is
lol, this isn't intentionally bad, despite what you've heard. This is just plain of middling bad.
Haunted Trail (2021)
Not great but much better than expected
Caught this on Tubi, while playing "Tubi roulette" (where I browse to the horror section, close my eyes, scroll, and randomly pick) and assumed the worst, because, well... that's the case more often than not. So to be fair, my expectations were low, but I was happily surprised. It was actually pretty decent.
I mean, it's not reinventing the wheel. Nothing real new or wild. It's a teen-something slasher where the kids are picked off one by one, until the killer and their motives are revealed at the end. Pretty standard stuff. But down competently. And right off the bat I was on board just because of the setting.
This movie is set at a seasonal haunt known as the titular "Haunted Trail", which seems to be a combination of multiple standard haunted house/maze sections, combined with outdoor haunted trail sections in between each maze. A group of friends arrive, in a few different groups, with plans to meet there, which automatically gives the movie license to have different groups to be attacked without the other immediately realizing the danger. There are also some rivalries, and romantic triangles going on within the group, which adds flavor to the characters, but is thankfully light enough to not bog things down for long. They are also mostly African American characters in this group of friends, so it's a nice change of pace from the standard makeup of most of these generic teens in your average slasher movie, and the dialogue feels like a lot of it was improvised to come off more natural, and genuine than the stiff generic dialogue a lot of slashers seem to employ. I appreciated that. Because of this, the acting is pretty decent and believable.
The set and props were also surprisingly good. Everything looked pretty genuine to the setting, and the lighting and cinematography was also surprisingly well done. To be honest, the only real letdown for me was that the kills were very tame, and mostly occurred off screen. And the ones that didn't were pretty mediocre. Not a ton was spent on that, obviously. That and the killers motivation seemed to make no sense. I won't spoil anything, but you have to question why, if someone sensed to focus their ire on a single individual, why they would go through this elaborate of a scheme, and kill so many other people pointlessly. Also, if their plan had succeeded, their goal would have still failed because the people that they killed were needed to make the killer successful in the future, so they just doomed their own goals by killing them
Anyway, decent movie, with a "huh?" ending, plot holes, and weak kills, but despite all that, still well worth watching.
The Orchard (2020)
FILM ON VIEWS review for Hunter's Moon
It's godawful...even for a straight to redbox movie
I was fooled into thinking this looked decent due to the premise, the poster, and what looked like a decent cast (Thomas Jane, Jay Mohr,...that girl from Tucker and Dale), but I was flim flammed! This is not the sum of it's parts...and it's barely a werewolf movie
What it is is one big telegraphed twist, poorly done, with a self congratulatory pat on the back at the end. Surprise! The family ARE the werewolves! BAM! I mean mind blown right? (hearty WINK!) Except...the twist is pretty much spelled out from the get go, so the big reveal is more of a shrug and a "meh"
The acting is also surprisingly bad, for the cast they seem to have improbably scraped together. On top of that, the casting is just...off. The "bad boy" thieves look straight from Disney casting, the eldest "teen" daughter looks to be in her thirties, and Jay Mohr just looks bored. Or maybe like he's hosting SNL but never bothered to rehearse his lines. Thomas Jane on the other hand does seem to be the only one giving a decent performance, and does a decent job, but by doing so only serves to highlight just how poorly done the rest of the movie is that is constructed around him. He is giving an B+ performance in a D+ flick, which just feels out of place
One reviewer (VIEWS ON FILM...which I decided to poke a little fun at) described this as "An American Werewolf In Cali" as well as comparing it to The Howling. Buyer BEWARE...it is nothing like either. That's like saying Sharknado is a lot like Jaws, or Alien is very similar to Mansquito. You are comparing a fine wine to gutter runoff that happens to have a few grapes in it
This is a werewolf movie with barely any werewolves (which is a blessing....they look like hot garbage), with an alternate title of "the Orchard" which fittingly enough is also barely about an orchard. The whole thing felt like a rejected episode of Supernatural. It was bad, dull, and felt unfinished, and rather than being a good time, instead left me feeling a sense of empathy toward Thomas Jane, that his career has taken a trajectory where he is reduced to doing something like this. he deserves better...and so do we