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thehorrornerdgal
Reviews
It Shall Not Be Named (2023)
Entertaining little indie movie
This movie had a very interesting premise so I decided to give it a shot. I love movies about witchcraft and occultism and having a psycho roommate story element on top as a cherry made me say "Shut up and just take my money."
The storyline itself is creepy enough because of the fact that it could happen to any of us. The thought of having an unwanted person in your home indefinitely, where you're supposed to feel the safest is just terrifying and this movie explores this what if scenario pretty well.
Don't get me wrong though. This movie isn't perfect by any means. The pacing is good, the story and the characters are interesting and there's a lot of mystery stuff going on as well. However, if you're an avid horror fan who is looking for a very disturbing and/or scary movie to have sleepless nights, this isn't your movie.
I'd say this is more in line with Lifetime thriller movies rather than an art film like Hereditary etc. It moves fast, easy to watch, the acting isn't the best and it's mainly a contained horror movie. But the concept is good enough and it has some nice pop music to listen to.
That said, if you're in the mood for a background movie where you won't lose sleep over it or if you're having a girls night and you need something light while catching up with some gossip, I'd say give this one a shot. However, if you want to be scared endless and want to sleep with the lights on for a week, you can pretty much skip this one.
Frogman (2023)
I would recommend this only for found footage fans
As we all know, found footage fans love their movies religiously. You could put one person in a one bedroom apartment and people will still watch it all the way to the end. It's just the way it is.
Frogman is one of those movies that doesn't have a lot to show for. The budget is very limited and the acting is just bad overall. The girl has her moments during the funny moments but as soon as crap hits the fan, her acting abilities takes a nose dive which is understandable. It's really hard to pull it off with a budget like this.
But the main problem with this movie isn't the budget or the acting. No found footage actor is winning an oscar any time soon. The real problem with this movie is its unlikeable characters. They're pretty much hard to bear with for 80 something minutes, especially the main character Dallas made me want to turn it off and spend my time on something else. But I resisted the urge and stuck with it through the end.
Frogman's story isn't original by any means and the costume design is super cheap. It's so cheap that even those fast cuts, glitch effects and shaky cam isn't enough to hide its imperfections.
If you're a found footage fan, you should check it out just because it's a found footage movie. But if you're looking for a decent horror movie, this isn't it.
388 Arletta Avenue (2011)
Could've been better
Discovered this movie on Tubi through a letterboxed list and decided to give it a try. I don't really like mystery films as I don't have the patience for it haha but the plot piqued my interest so I sticked around till the end.
The overall experience was okay but the ending was a total let down for me. I don't like when a writer takes the easy route and doesn't bother with explaining the why. We only got to see the how which is totally disrespectful to the viewer's time in my opinion. It's like "Hey, I know you committed an hour and a half of your life to my film but you're not getting an answer from me."
This usually happens if the writer is an amateur and tries to chew bigger than he/she can bite. They really don't know how to tie it all up nicely so they just don't bother explaining it at all. If this was an art movie, I probably could've been more flexible. But this is a mystery thriller movie with found footage elements to it. So it doesn't make any sense to hold back information from the viewer.
Other than that, the acting was fine. I found that the character wasn't very likable and at times I seriously questioned the poor choices he made.
Also the approach of the law enforcement wasn't very realistic which made the movie look a bit silly and childish. If someone is telling you that they found a severed animal head in their mailbox, and the guy claims his wife is missing, I bet they do more than just filling out a form.
Anyway, it's an old movie but if you are someone who needs to watch a whodunnit without knowing who really done it, then check it out on Tubi tonight.