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Corn
Corn (2004)
1/10
Not a horror movie, just propaganda
27 May 2022
Warning: Spoilers
In terms of pure filmmaking, this isn't terrible but it just boils down to being anti-GMO propaganda. Somehow it manages to be bad propaganda at that.

Jenna Maxine's character comes off as completely unhinged, making wild claims with little evidence that only happen to be true because the script has her back. At no point does she think to contact the FDA or any sort of authority. She just takes her circumstantial evidence as gospel and jumps to picketing outside a grocery store and harassing women who've recently miscarried.

I don't see how we're supposed to be on her side after that ending too...
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Goblin
Goblin (2020)
4/10
Certainly something...
28 April 2022
This is a posterchild of why you should not use CGI with a microbudget. It will almost inevitably come out looking cartoony and ridiculous. Combining that with a dark storyline about domestic abuse and over-the-top acting by the father and older son, you end up with almost constant tonal whiplash.

It's the kind of bad movie you find yourself enjoying because it feels like everyone involved cared about what they were putting together. I've seen way too many films where it feels like everyone is just there for a paycheck, so this is refreshing in that regard.
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Anonymous Animals
Anonymous Animals (2020)
7/10
Beautifully shot, awkwardly written
19 April 2022
In my opinion it's impossible to rate films on a single scale since their goals and methods vary so much, so this is a 7/10 for what it is: an odd experimental indie film.

The basic concept is good. A dialogueless movie showing the mistreatment of animals with the roles reversed. It intercuts between different groups of humans serving as analogues for different animals.

Unfortunately, I feel like some fall flat. People as cattle has been done before and this doesn't do much unique beyond a few especially effective scenes. The dog fighting segment was much better executed until the stories intertwine, breaking the analogy. Dogs and cattle are both often mistreated, but not in the same ways. I think it would have been better as a collection of short films.

The cinematography is excellent though, with bleakly beautiful outdoor shots, grimy industrial indoor shots, and a camera keeping the animal people just far enough away or out of focus to avoid making it too obvious they're just people with costume heads and gloves.

I'd recommend checking it out as long as you know what you're getting into. This is more arthouse than slasher flick.
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Circus Kane
Circus Kane (2017)
6/10
What were you honestly expecting...?
15 May 2021
Look at the cover.

Look at the director's past work.

Watch the trailer.

This is camp horror, not A24.

I don't know if I'm just really easy to please, but I think cheesy low-budget horror films should be rated on their own scale. They're never going to measure up against Alien or The Exorcist, but they're going for a totally different effect. These are fun movies much more than scary ones.

Big Ed and Circus Kane were a blast to watch and clearly absolutely adored their roles. The mazelike mansion was well done, although I would've liked to see more of it (the budget probably limited it). It did fall apart a bit once characters started dying. Dumb decisions are pretty much expected in horror movies, but a few of them in here were unignorable and detracted from the experience. Overall, it was a flawed but fun watch if you enjoy the sillier side of horror.
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Insect
Insect (II) (2017)
5/10
Utterly Mystifying
18 August 2020
An independent domestic drama/horror about the loss of a loved one doesn't sound particularly out of the ordinary. Honestly, this would probably have been a fairly unremarkable indie flick if it wasn't for one crucial difference: this is an animated movie made by one guy with what looks like MS Paint.

I don't even know how to respond to this... I'm not going to say it's some unknown masterpiece. Practically every aspect of it is bad, but I enjoyed it all the way through. I don't even like it in a so-bad-it's-good way. I wasn't laughing at it, I was kind of just drawn in by it's amateurish charm.

Calling a movie "charming" sounds condescending, but that's the best term I can come up with for it. The amount of effort that goes into a feature length animation, even one as crude as this, is daunting and I'm unironically impressed by any one person creating an animated movie and putting it out there. I imagine other reviewers would be much more negative than me, but Insect gets a thumbs up from me. It's easily one of the most interesting movies I've stumbled upon in recent memory.
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Pod
Pod (I) (2015)
3/10
A Great Start, but a Major Letdown
12 August 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I've been on a roll recently with picking out low-budget gems and the first two acts of this made me think my streak was continuing, but then we hit the third act and climax.

The brother's over-the-top performance of a schizophrenic conspiracy theorist was a ton of fun to watch and his siblings' personalities bounced off fairly well too. I legitimately think the movie would have been better if he really was crazy and it was a drama about mental illness since everything fell apart soon after the basement door is finally opened.

Do filmmakers think we enjoy flashing lights and screeching noises? They can be effective in small doses, but I was legitimately getting a headache by the end of this. Not every flashback or reveal needs strobe lights and the sound of squealing of dying pigs.

The final scene of the cameraman shakily looking around the room before suddenly being lunged at by the creature has been done to death, but there are a few issues with its inclusion here... THIS ISN'T A FOUND FOOTAGE MOVIE AND THERE WAS NOBODY IN THE ROOM! Why suddenly change filming styles? What was the creature lunging at? Why force in a cliche ending that doesn't even make sense?
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The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight (2011 Video)
5/10
No, it's not good. Yes, I enjoyed it.
7 August 2020
With a budget of $10000, you can't expect much from a fantasy movie and this is still pretty poor given the circumstances. The CGI gargoyle things look about what you'd expect for such a low budget, but the writing and acting are what really hold this back from being a true hidden gem in my opinion. The story itself is fine and the locations they shoot in are nice but in the end, it feels like a bunch of amateur LARPers running around the woods fighting imaginary monsters.

And I love it for that. This movie is not for everyone, it's probably not for most people, but it feels genuine and not like a soulless cashgrab. The Asylum produces movies of about the same technical quality, but a lot of them just feel hollow because they're made in a rush to con you out of $5 at a Walmart. This feels like a bunch of 20 to 30-year-olds had a really fun D&D session and wanted to make a movie about it.

Can most of the cast act? No. Do they have the budget for this? No. Is half the movie just them walking through the woods? Yeah. Did I enjoy it all the way through? Absolutely.
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The Lonely Ones
The Lonely Ones (2006)
7/10
An oddly uneven but ultimately rewarding experience
19 June 2020
It's hard to adequately describe what The Lonely Ones does without spoiling it. I was starting to regret choosing this film near the beginning with the cliche college students going off somewhere to get drunk and party. Somehow, and I won't say how, the film unexpectedly improves and becomes a tense but campy fun time. The acting ranged from good to over-the-top in a fun way. The practical effects were genuinely jarring considering the otherwise obvious low budget. I definitely rate movies higher than most since I've seen some truly awful ones to compare, but this is one case where I don't see why it would be given a 1 or 2 unless they turned it off early on.

I'm disappointed that the director barely did anything in the industry after this one, since he made a genuinely surprising and entertaining film that's miles above the trash I expect from the 20-film packs I buy for $5.
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The Hollow
The Hollow (2015 TV Movie)
2/10
Truly a Hollow Experience
1 May 2020
I watch a lot of horror and creature feature movies (especially during this quarantine), but this is the least entertaining one I've seen. A good movie entertains its audience as intended. A really bad movie entertains its audience in unintended ways. Formulaic dull movies are a black hole of enjoyment, unfortunately. The acting was just okay. The effects were just okay. The story was just okay.

The only particularly stand-out parts are the creature design (a cool flame filled twig dude) and the fact that the characters have to avoid dying until morning to stop it, rather than the customary Syfy technique of electrocution or explosion. I'd say don't pay for it, but it's officially uploaded on YouTube and it wasn't really worth watching there. Plenty of better and entertainingly worse films are freely available there.
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