MY CALL:  This film came out of nowhere and blew away viewer expectations by bringing us smart characters, a creepiness that developed with the story, and a not-so color by numbers plot.  Very good horror film.  MOVIES LIKE The Taking of Deborah Logan:  Try Oculus (2014) and The Babadook (2014) if you’re looking for recent releases that break the mold.

The Taking of Deborah Logan tells a story that we haven’t already heard a dozen times and it tells the story well.  Deborah (Jill Larson; Shutter Island) is a charming early stage Alzheimer’s disease patient living with her anxious caregiving daughter (Anne Ramsay; Planet of the Apes, Critters 4).  In exchange for much needed financial compensation, they agree to let PhD student Mia (Michelle Ang; Underemployed) and her audio-visual team stay with them, record them, and study the effects Alzheimer’s disease has on the unafflicted surrounding family members.

Isn’t Mia a cute, spunky little grad student?

Something that I always must point out is when a horror movie does a good job of getting to know its characters and getting us to like them and invest in their well-being.  From the very start, I wanted to learn more about Deborah, her daughter, and the academic team studying them.  First-time feature-length director Adam Robitel did such a GREAT job, in fact, that it didn’t feel like a horror movie at all at first…and I didn’t care.  If this movie turned out to be a family drama I still would have wanted to see these characters develop.  What’s more is that the story in no way relied on the characters’ stupid decisions to move forward.  The story unfolded as the characters, in fact, made wise or at least credible decisions in an incredible situation.  Amazing job–and a great storytelling victory for the horror genre to close out 2014.

Mia’s team watches as Deborah’s episodes and symptoms worsen at an accelerating rate and, with these episodes’ intensity, we also see a greater and more frequent danger to Mia’s team.  The characters great freaked out for good reasons, and things just keep getting creepier and weirder as we begin to learn more about what is causing Deborah’s disease to become so aggressive and more about her mysterious history with her close friend living next door.  The story finds good synthesis, great creepiness, and appropriately effective gore and shock value without trying to compete with overblown shock cinema.

This film was rich with scares and all of them for legitimate reasons….no loud noises and camera angles to spur needless jumps.  The scares had effective, creepy build-up and even when you saw them coming they were still shocking.  What’s more is that the shocks and their creepy build-ups both appropriately amplify as the movie shifts from its subtle beginnings to its moderately intense end.

Yeah…it gets pretty weird.

You may have noticed that I have gone out of my way to reveal EXTREMELY little about this film (other than the photos in this review).  Why?  Well, it’s one of the best horror films of 2014 and it deserves to not be spoiled….and YOU deserve to be surprised.  Just know this—it’s NOT a found footage film although there is a good deal of documentary style filming/camera-work, it is supernatural in nature, and it’s something of a horror mystery.

See this movie.  Right now it’s on Netflix.

MY CALL:  Only die hard gore and horror anthology fans should even consider this schizophrenic mix of wildly inane short films.  Overall this is nothing special.  But I’ll bet you could make one Hell of a drinking game out of it!  MOVIES LIKE ABCs of Death 2:  Some other fun, decent and/or clever anthologies include (in order of release date):  Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), Creepshow (1982), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Creepshow 2 (1987), Tales from the Dark Side: The Movie (1990), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Campfire Tales (1997), 3 Extremes (2004), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013) and V/H/S 2 (2014).

This movie features a wide range of filming styles, varied and (sometimes) creative special effects, some nice use of stop-motion, standard animation and all manner of gore delivered in both serious and humorous context.  Are you looking for a film that features dismemberment, murderous grandmothers that won’t die, mass murder, bath salt-induced mania, tentacles, zombie court and weird transformations?  Well, depending my interpretation of what I saw in the melee of clips from this film you may be in for all that…all be it in small doses and of questionable quality.  As a fan of gross-out gobs of gobbledy-gook horror and creative and/or funny and/or just plain awful twisted death scenes, I thought that this movie would NO MATTER WHAT be a big pleaser for the darker side of my soul.  I was largely wrong.  I had thought the same of The ABCs of Death (2013), which was in fact better than this “sequel” but also similarly not so great.

Like a child’s ABC book, the film is comprised of 26 individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter. Each director had total freedom to choose a word to create a story involving death; 26 directors from around the world have contributed all manner of random death clips.

I’m a huge fan of horror anthology movies. They get a little flack because they come from a range of writers, directors and production quality–but that’s what I like.  It also makes horror shorts available to those of us who do not attend film school or genre-geared film fests (e.g., Fantastic Fest).  We get to taste a lot of stories and ideas and, if we don’t like one of the shorts after a few minutes just wait for the next one to start.  If you don’t like a film in Creepshow (3 stories) you’d wait 20-30 minutes for the next story.  With V/H/S (5 stories) one need wait only 15-20 minutes.  However this has 26 stories, so you’d only have to wait what?  Maybe 5 minutes?  Sadly, because of generally low quality and uninspired shorts, you’ll find yourself waiting a lot.

Below is an ABC guide to the shorts, their directors and their past work, a few components of the short and an occasional comment…

“A is for Amateur” by E. L. Katz (Cheap Thrills)
Nudity; drug use.  This humorously shifts from an edgy, sleek first-time hitman’s fantasy to a fumbling cruel reality.  Beautifully shot!  Good blood work.  Funny.

“B is for Badger” by Julian Barratt
Humorous gore; dismemberment.  Tongue-in-cheek nature documentary gone wrong.

“C is for Capital Punishment” by Julian Gilbey (A Lonely Place to Die)
Decapitation.  A wrongful execution.

“D is for Deloused” by Robert Morgan (various short films)
Claymation; decapitation.  Very creepy and a little trancy.  I didn’t really get it, but I liked it.

Anyone else reminded of a Tool music video right about now?

“E is for Equilibrium” by Alejandro Brugués (Juan of the Dead)
Comedy.  Two island castaways discover a woman washed ashore.  Very goofy.  Really liked it.

This short tells a truly cute story in a very cute way and it ends in a cute murder and a cute kind of happiness.

“F is for Falling” by Aharon Keshales (Kalevet, Big Bad Wolves) and Navot Papushado
Arabic (?) language; broken bone.  This film didn’t seem to fit in well. Not that it was bad.

“G is for Grandad” by Jim Hosking
Full frontal elderly male nudity.  Ungrateful punk visits his grandfather.  Weird.

“H is for Head Games” by Bill Plympton (Mutant Aliens)
Animated slapstick gore.  Lots of weird imagery and weaponized body parts and bodily functions.

“I is for Invincible” by Erik Matti
Patricide; immolation; decapitation; foreign language.  Trying to kill grandma for her inheritance but she just won’t die.

“J is for Jesus” by Dennison Ramalho
Portuguese; full frontal nudity; genital torture; dismemberment; stigmata.  Gay exorcism.

“K is for Knell” by Bruno Samper and Kristina Buozyte
Mass murder ensues a lunar event.  Then things get weird.

“L is for Legacy” by Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen
Horrible CGI, lousy middle school quality make-up.  Beyond stupid! “M is for Masticate” by Robert Boocheck (Horrific) Bath salts. Slow motion filmed crazy fat guy neck-biting some poor shlub.

Evidently bath salts also cause instant body hair growth. Lord, look at those shoulders. It’s like he’s wearing a sweater!

“N is for Nexus” by Larry Fessenden (Beneath, Wendigo)
Nudity.  Extremely stupid, not in a good way.

“O is for Ochlocracy” by Hajime Ohata (Metamorphosis)
Foreign language; zombies.  Zombies try and prosecute their still-human assailants in court.  Fun idea.  Dumb film. “P is for P-P-P-P Scary!” by Todd Rohal (Nature Calls)
So stupid that it’s annoying.

“Q is for Questionnaire” by Rodney Ascher (Visions of Terror)
Surgery.  Brutally gory surgery scene.

“R is for Roulette” by Marvin Kren (Blood Glacier)
Russian Roulette, foreign language.

“S is for Split” by Juan Martínez Moreno (Game of Werewolves)
Gory.  Home invasion.  This one was really quite good.

“T is for  Torture Porn” by the Soska twins (American Mary)
Very, very, very weird.  Basically a porn job interview turns into a live-action Hentai with men as the victims of tentacle porn rape.

“U is for Utopia” by Vincenzo Natali (Haunter, Splice, Cube)
Immolation.  An unbeautiful person in an otherwise beautiful world is “solved.”

“V is for vacation” by Jerome Sable (Stage Fright, The Legend of Beaver Dam)
Nudity.  Morally reprehensible, but one of the better shorts.

“W is for Wish” by Steven Kostanski (Manborg)
Organ removal; stop-motion.  Zany, campy, gory fantasy fun.  Very funny.

“X is for Xylophone” by Julien Maury (Inside, Livid) and Alexandre Bustillo
This short film boils down to one goretastic punchline.

“Y is for Youth” by Sôichi Umezawa
Japanese; transformation; Tokyo Shock; phallic stuff; evil sperm.  This is bonkers.  A woman turns into a dog that spits sharpened pencils, that turn into worms, which combine into a worm hand…and that’s not even a fraction of the really weird shit.

“Z is for Zygote” by Chris Nash
Birth scene.  A very long-term pregnancy gets very weird and VERY gory.  Gross…but a very cool film.

WARNING:  If you liked this movie or the book, you will probably be offended by this review.  There, I said it.

Don’t be curious.  The movie isn’t worth it.

MY CALL:  Not sexy, not limit-testing, not hot’n’steamy.  This was like a “hard PG-13” film for young adults.  MORE FROM “a certified bro”:  Try some mommy issues, poor communication and dangerously unrecommended travel in the spirit of girly independence with Blue Crush 2 (2011).  Want more?  Try Beautiful Creatures (2013) in which Carrie meets Titanic in the form of an angsty supernatural high school love story.  There’s just something about teenagers talking about destiny that makes me angry.

DISCLAIMER FROM A CERTIFIED BRO:  Not sure how the introverted teenage girl target audience felt about this.  But I’m a 34 year old certified bro and a Jersey Italian and this film made me roll my eyes so much I was getting dizzy.  I live for bench pressing, Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, bicep tattoos and high-fiving alcohol-based accomplishments.  Maybe if you grew up on Hannah Montana, this film could be for you.  Me?  I happened not to read the book.  I think I was busy hocking loogies, thinking up new dick jokes or doing push-ups or something.

It was a day like any other when my loving girlfriend suggested we go see Fifty Shades of Grey on Valentine’s Day weekend.  In the spirit of being a good boyfriend looking to reap the benefits of seeing a sexy movie with her I, of course, succumbed to this otherwise seemingly reasonable request.  I mean, it’s a movie about sex and bondage and dominants and submissives; there’s nudity and sex and dirty talk.  This should be a blast even if I don’t care about the romantic angle, right?  WRONG!

Add a few melodramatic tears and this image pretty much sums up the movie. BTW, I didn’t mach-up this image, I think it came from Perez Hilton’s website.

Not since some lovesick, glittery, bloodsucking Edward loaded with teen angst and in need of some bored looking Kristin Stewart to fill the void in his eternal life have I been so unmoved by two young adults’ yearning to be together.  Five movies that Twilight franchise lasted…FIVE!  Is it just me, or is that a lot of screen time to devote to a group of anemic high schoolers who haven’t showered the glitter off since their last trip to the champagne room?  Well, thankfully the Twilight Saga (2008-2012) has come to an end.  But just when I thought I was done with sparkly vampires and it was safe to let women pick the movies again, this shit happens!  And guess what, bros?  This is the first of what will result in no fewer than three theatrical releases in the saga of Grey.

I kept hearing about the intense chemistry and steaminess of this story.  If that’s the case then this was the chemistry of slowly solidifying water into ice and then using that to sooth the hemorrhoid-plagued sphincter of an elderly man in a steamy sauna. If you thought there was chemistry then you’ve probably not seen enough movies to recognize a stale script and if you thought the sex scenes were “steamy” then I’m guessing you have little basis for comparison other than the pages of this book.  So sorry if you’re offended, but this isn’t exactly A Certified Feminist Young Adult Novelist’s Perspective…it’s A Certified Bro’s, and I don’t hold hands and say prayers and supportive crap about keeping your clothes on at abstinence club meetings.

Oh “GASP”, they’re disrobing and taking a well lit bath together in his immaculate marble empire.  Someone alert Perez Hilton of this SCANDALOUS scene!  What bondage act will he conduct upon her swooned body?  A sponge bath, folks.  A tender, loving sponge bath.  However did they slip this raunchy scene under the MPAA’s nose.

For those of you trapped in the northeast blizzards with record snowfall who are worrying about just how you’re going to go see Grey find love in the form of his “one and only” kneeling in the corner like a whipped dog…please get a hold of yourself and be less desperate. When you’re snowed into your house, the electricity is out, you’ve rendered your dog’s fur to fend off hypothermia and you’re just a few perishable sundries away from softening Ramen noodles in your toilet bowl for survival…when you’re so desperate you’d eat “toilet Ramen”…just understand that this is how desperately I wanted to escape my seat in that movie theater.

The dialogue in this train wreck of a film was so grossly over-exposed and mind-numbingly dumbed down it’s as if the director and screenwriter were following a “no student left behind” program.  Things are so over-explained that they feel staged and unrealistic.  There’s a scene where Anastasia (our female lead character) is interviewing Grey (the dominant, metrosexual anti-bro) and she asks about his hobbies outside of work.  In response, as if Mike “The Situation” had just dropped a rufy in her buttery nipple shot, he answers “I like to test physical limits” while staring into her eyes like some frat boy acquaintance rapist about to get ambushed by the “To Catch a Predator” guys.

“Do you like to test physical limits, Anastasia?  No?  Okay…well do you like tequila and Vegas Bombs?”

Later she jokingly calls him a control freak.  To which he unjokingly replies as he gazes at her like a lion to a limping gazelle in the African Savannah: “I exercise control in all things.”  Of course, this meant-to-be intense line was followed up by tender kisses.  BARF!

I went in expecting something fun and walked out having endured an utter cinematic failure.  The romantic comedy (slash sex thriller) Exit to Eden (1994) had better nudity, BDSM attire, toys and even better dirty talk than Grey!

“How can I fulfill your fantasy?” –slave
“Go paint my house.”  –Rosie

Considering that Exit to Eden (1994) starred Rosie O’Donnell and Dan Aykroyd, I’m gonna’ go ahead and say that’s pretty damning for Grey.

But then it occurred to me.  The dialogue, as inanely unrealistic as it is, fits perfectly to what I have realized to be the target demographic for this film: young adults.  And I’m stressing the word young here because the ins and outs of BDSM are explained as one would to a child…as if Dora the Explorer had stumbled across a “flogger” and a ballgag and then engaged in an educational repartee with stubby infant Grey.  It all seemed very UNcomplex, UNintense, UNnaughty, and one-dimensional; more like Three Shades of Grey.  The other Forty-Seven Shades, and many more in your 264 count Crayola pack, can be found in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac (2013) films.  Now THAT film tested limits.  Whereas Grey’s almost saccharinely sensitive sex scenes were about as intense as Leo DiCaprio’s lovemaking in Romeo & Juliet (1996), Nymphomaniac truly tested limits.

A line in the theme song “Love Me Like You Do” includes a common line “what are you waiting foooooor….?”  I was thinking this every time Grey was talking about his dungeon–or, as they called it in this dumbed down Saturday Cartoon of a bondage story, his “play room.”

They claimed that they toned down Grey’s the sex scenes to appease the MPAA rating board.  But I’m calling bullshit on that one.  In terms of ratings-testing sex, this film was a step above Pixar films.  Any drinking, drug-using teen having premarital sex in a horror movie is having raunchier sex than anything you’ll find here.

Sex in the woods while in the middle of investigating some weird noises in the middle of the night?  Yes.  That IS steamier than anything in Fifty Shades of Grey.

This was no more risqué than any sex scene between Jean-Claude Van Damme or Sly Stallone and their action movie love interest, and it tested fewer awkward sexual limits than an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants.

If you came for “sexy” then you’re in the wrong theater and I’d redirect you to almost any episode of Game of Thrones.

And can we talk about the name of our female star?  Anastasia Steele?!?!  Sounds like a very strong female presence, doesn’t she?  Yet she’s nothing of the sort, not even a little, not even when she puts her foot down about not being…well….I won’t say the name of the sex act but it’s a really nasty one that I’d wince to see on film—I winced when I saw it done to someone in Nymphomaniac.  Anastasia comes off as purely naïve behind her years, vulnerable (for all the wrong reasons), unsure of herself, scared, and far too easily swooned by a good-looking rich guy who takes her in a helicopter on their first date before revealing that he wants her to live with him in his condo McMansion as his sex slave.  BARF!  I thought movies female characters had moved beyond such materialistic impressions.  Guess not.

So what was good about this movie?

Not the characters nor their development (they really never developed).  They were just stagnant.

Not the dialogue…which was so fundamentally simplistic you’d think it was the movie they’d show people who were just learning English as a second language.

Not the sex scenes…nothing hot to see here that 80s and 90s action stars didn’t do better and with more sweat, passion, raunch and heat..

Not the glimpse into BDSM.  Driving by an adults only sex store and looking through the window in passing would confer more insight into this alternative lifestyle subculture than watching this cinematic drivel.

Not the romance…there hardly was any.  And every time you get a taste, it gets squashed shortly thereafter.

Not the ending….which was aggravating at best.  It was like hitting the pause button until the sequel gets released.

I’ve got to add just one more thing here before I let you write comments about how upset you are, how you loved the movie, and how I don’t know what I’m talking about.  Neither of these characters were very attractive.  I had a naked girl in front of me on a 20 foot screen and don’t think my heart rate changed.  The dude was maybe decent looking, but it was mostly the well-groomed hair and suit.  These two were a couple of 5’s, 6’s at best.  I wasn’t impressed.

In closing, I really didn’t hate this movie like my review suggests.  I just have fun writing like a jerkish bro from time to time.  However, I meant what I said about what (wasn’t) good about this film…pretty much nothing.  I don’t recommend this film, not even for a date night.  Why?  Because even your girlfriend won’t like it.  Mine didn’t.

Hello all. Mark here.

I love researching movie posters. I’ve already studied Jason Statham posters and explored whether explosions on action movie posters matter.  That is why I am excited to bring you this post. Nicholas Spark’s has had an incredibly schmaltzy run throughout the last 16 years and the movie posters for his book adaptations tell a tale.

Nicholas Spark’s book adaptations have become a moneymaking machine that combine well-known actors and a whole lot of melodrama. Sparks has become a brand and when you say it is a “Nicholas Sparks film” people know exactly what to expect.  What does it mean to be a Sparks film? The movie needs beaches, mud slides, drowning, ghosts, cancer, untimely death, spunky grandparents, cute kids and some sort of lie.  A pattern is afoot and I wanted to check if there is a correlation between the movie posters and box office/critical reception.

Here is the latest movie poster for The Best of Me.

The following post takes a look at the posters and analyzes the box-office, critical reception and audience ratings. The average worldwide box-office (per Box-Office Mojo) is $89,249,941  and the average Rotten Tomatoes critic score is 25%. The thing I find most interesting is that these films are critic proof. The critic score is 25% but the audience score is 66% (Per RT). The average budget is $31 million and the average profit is $58 million dollars! However, things are changing and so are the movie posters.

Here is the data from the movie posters

Posters featuring cuddles: Message in a bottle, Dear John and Walk to Remember have accrued a 29% RT (+4 on average) score and 66% (=) Audience score. the box office average is $93,784,012 (+ $4,534,071)

Why? Message in a Bottle featured Kevin Costner, Paul Newman and Robin Wright! They had huge names in 99 and the movie had a whopping $80 million budget (You could make Walk, Dear John, Safe Haven and Last Song for 80 million).  It was the first Sparks adaptation and took itself fairly serious until the absolutely terrible ending. If you added for inflation the box-office would actually be around $150,000,000 as opposed to $114,000,000

The good thing according to EW is they are some of the least ridiculous of Sparks films. Walk to Remember is the least ridiculous at eight while John and Message rank six and three. Dear John was the last film to be released before Sparks took over writing the screenplays so that is why the critical and box-office scores are higher. The posters are more creative as well. The posters are expansive, intimate and most importantly no faces are grabbed.

Posters featuring head grabs of doom: Nights in Rodanthe, Safe Haven, The Best of Me, The Last Song and The Lucky One have accrued an 18% (-7) RT score and 62% (-4) Audience score. The average box-office score is $81,258,841 (- $7,991,100).

The Nicholas Spark’s films have taken a serious nosedive as of late. The last four films have an average 15% RT score and the posters look the same. With the exception of Nights in Rodanthe (which is the 2nd most ridiculous Sparks film) they gotten progressively more soul-crushing and Sparksesque (Safe Haven was ranked the most ridiculous).

Why are the face palm posters so critically reviled? Well, three out of five screenplays were written by Spark’s himself. The Last Song, Best of Me and Safe Haven were the three lowest RT ranked films. The only other film ranked that low was The Lucky One which collected a 20% RT score. These four films have become like the Saw, Final Destination (sans five) and Paranormal Activity movies (They built up a good name, follow a formula and have gotten progressively worse). The face palm romances follow a bonkers beat that introduce ghosts, lies and so much sap it could crush the most stalwart of fans.

Another factor is the lack of poster imagination mirrors the book content. They are scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep the Sparks train rolling.

Posters featuring the woman embracing the man’s cheek: The Notebook collected a 52% RT (+27) score and 85%(+19) Audience Score. The box-office is $115,603, 229 (+$26,353,288).

The Notebook was incredibly passionate and super bonkers (They die at the same time!) Rachel McAdam’s character is by far the most three-dimensional of Spark’s ladies and Ryan Gosling became a megastar overnight because of this movie. The Notebook is by far the most popular of the nine films because of the great acting, passion, and all around care spent on the script. I would rank the poster #1 on the romance scale. They look genuinely involved. If you look at the other posters the people look sorta bored.

Conclusion: The first five films attempted to take Nicholas Spark’s books and do something with them. They tried to work around the schmaltz, contrivances, syrup, mourning, melodrama and sentiment. However, eventually they gave up and gave in to Sparks. He started writing the screenplays and now they stick to a safe formula and face palming posters. The critics have given up trying to defend the films and judging by the Best of Me box-office ($34 million, the least of any film) the age of big money is coming to an end.

My guess for newest Sparks schmaltz-fest The Last Ride is $25 million box office, 10% critic score and 52% audience score. The good news is there is a slight deviation featured in the poster. The guy isn’t cupping a face, he is grabbing a hat.

Notice how they mention the two highest grossing Sparks romances? They are saying “We used to be good…sorta!”

Did Ti West seriously just sit back and let the marketers put a spoiler on the movie poster!?!?!  “Live as one. DIE as one.”

MY CALL:  Very much a mixed bag.  The ending…so terrible…the cult leader’s mid-movie performance…so effing beautiful…it’s like watching a unicorn thrashing around in a puddle of shit.  You hate the smell, but you can appreciate the beauty of the beast.  MORE MOVIES LIKE The Sacrament: There are better films about cults out there, I’m sure I just can’t think of most of them.  It’s not horror, but how about the mysteriously atmospheric Sound of My Voice (2011)?  It was great!  And I’m no fan of Red State (2011), which is more on the brutal side, but it has no less to offer than this film.

A recent review (by our MoviesFilmsandFlix founder) rightly summarized this film as predictable and “middle of the pack” and something which veered far from the Ti West standard of atmospheric suspense.  While I totally agree with the first part of this criticism (not the atmosphere part), I feel there were things that West accomplished making this film worthwhile.  The Sacrament is a film that begins with good intentions, middles into an effective brainwashed atmosphere of a delusory paradise, but ends poorly.

Our story begins when a film crew (including A. J. Bowen of The Guest, You’re Next, Chillerama and Joe Swanberg of V/H/S, Cabin Fever 2) travels to another country (probably in South America) where a crew member’s sister (Amy Seimetz; You’re Next) has traveled with her commune to set their roots in Eden Parish and give up all their worldly belongings to the financial discretion of a man they call Father (Gene Jones; Oz the Great and Powerful).  Father, how about that?  That’s not shady at all, is it?  Father is a southern, mild-mannered, elderly fellow who feels like a mix of a tent evangelist-soul healer, a plantation owner, and someone you’d find on a park bench in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) sipping a mint julep while walking an overly-groomed terrier.  The air about him wreaks of pleasantly-mannered manipulation and overtones of a semi-humble Messiah complex.  He seems, at times, to be simultaneously simple yet clearly quite methodical.

He comes out into the crowd like a humble rock star.

“Father is a southern, mild-mannered, elderly fellow who feels like a mix of a tent evangelist-soul healer, a plantation owner, and someone you’d find on a park bench in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) sipping a mint julep while walking an overly-groomed terrier.”

He warms up the crowd with a lot of hand waving and applause like one of those electric guitar-toting ministers.

The film crew sets out to investigate the nature of Father’s paradise Eden Parish, and Father does a fine job manipulating his interviewer into joining his audience as he grandstands (in lieu of answering questions) about the villainy of their past materialistic lives of sin and their enlightened way of life and togetherness in which they now bask.  And the lord of the baskers, Father, is so pleased with himself as he presents his sermon–like a well-fed lizard warming its belly on a hot stone.  But as our crew meets more parishioners, there are a few red flags in paradise denoting that the peacekeeping and serenity may be managed more with fear and brainwashing than a happy sense of community.  All of this is executed very well and it crafts an unnerving atmosphere, even when they present the obvious mute girl who would undoubtedly reveal something later (i.e., a classic harbinger trope).  But this is where we lose sight and things falls apart for both Father and Ti West alike.

“Something’s just not right about these people.”

“Something’s just not right about the third act of this story!”

Eventually the shit hits the fan and, with it, so does all of the cult credibility that “the interview scene” had so strongly edified with a tone of unflagging fanatical mania.  I can’t help but to think that Father’s protective and paranoid nature wouldn’t have circumvented the invasive film crew’s motives and their effect on his proselytized followers.  Surely Father would have previously overcome other investigators, cult de-programmers, concerned family members and the like, and probably more savvy ones than we meet in this film who come unprepared to another continent in a wilderness seemingly devoid any law or rule outside of Father’s word.

To avoid dwelling on the particulars of the tragic ending, I’ll just say that by the middle of this film I was captivated by Father’s ability to deceive and distort and misguide, and by the end I was completely underwhelmed by a weakly executed massacre that came about with all of the preparation and build-up of someone randomly pulling a middle school fire alarm.  I was waiting for the grand revelation  behind Father’s cult…a demon of some sort, devil worship, human sacrifices (perhaps the invited film crew), possession, preparation for the apocalypse…?  There was none; no mystery at all to be found.  Very disappointing. VERY.

Directed by Ti West (The Innkeepers, House of the Devil, V/H/S, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever) and produced by Eli Roth (Hostel, Green Inferno), The Sacrament is a found footage-style mixed bag based on (or, more accurately, strongly modeled after) the true story of a cult that relocated to Guyana and committed mass suicide, known as the Jonestown Massacre of 1978.  In the end, the only thing this film brought to the table was a great mid-movie performance by Gene Jones and a solid culty atmosphere.  And while these positive aspects do occupy about the middle 50% of the film, they alone don’t make this film recommendable to the general horror audience.  It was worth it to me, though.

MY CALL:  Short Circuit (1986) meets RoboCop (1987, 2014) in this visually striking and emotionally captivating take on artificial intelligence, humanity and a likeable robot.  Chappie is vibrant, emotionally fragile and soulful; expect him to touch your heart.  MORE MOVIES LIKE Chappie:  RoboCop (1987, 2014), Short Circuit (1986, 1988), The Machine (2013), I, Robot (2004) all include critical elements we see echoed in Chappie.

Set in the near future, Chappie begins when artificial intelligence engineer Deon (Dev Patel; The Newsroom, Slumdog Millionaire, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) creates an AI program that is self-aware and conscious.  Working for a weapons company, Deon previously pioneered the technology enabling a completely robotic and ever-growing police force in South Africa and he uploads his program into a damaged robotic unit scheduled for destruction.

One problem we encounter (and many reviewers are slamming hard) with the story is that it encapsulates too many sub-stories with too many antagonists (or, more like characters with conflicting motives).  Chappie (Sharlto Copley; District 9, Oldboy, Europa Report) and Deon are clearly our “main” protagonists.  The weapons company CEO (Sigourney Weaver; Alien, The Cabin in the Woods) and an ex-soldier-turned weapons engineer with a ridiculous mini-mullet (Hugh Jackman; The Prestige, Real Steel, Prisoners) are introduced to us as being of questionable roles (neutral vs antagonists).  There is a sort of Mad Max: Road Warrior gangster lord who is pure evil and has no business being in the story.  And some semi-likable criminals (Ninja and Yo-landi VI$$ER of South African hip-hop/alt band Die Antwoord, and Jose Pablo Cantillo of The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy) are introduced who usher Chappie through his development, but on questionable terms.

Another thing that many (generally negative) reviewers have honed in on is that much in this story will feel familiar.  Scenes echo Johnny Five (Short Circuit) discovering new things, being excited about the world, learning new words and how to express himself and even being misled by gang members (Los Locos, from Short Circuit 2).  The setting and mechanized law enforcement, the position of the weapons industry, and the ethical tug-of-war encapsulating it, smacks hard of RoboCop…and you’ll even see a larger, human-operated robot that will look like a newer version of RoboCop’s big bad ED-209.  And the self-realization and emotional conflicts often mirror both I, Robot and Short Circuit.  But while pieces of Chappie are “like” pieces of other movies, the final product creates a very new, intense and emotionally kinetic experience.

Chappie, meet the world.

Chappie learns about thug life.

Thugs teach Chappie to fist bump and look cool.

Despite some familiar components and the “problem” of too many antagonists (both of which I find forgivable given this film’s other powerful merits), the film remains exceptional and the story boils down to this… Chappie is created and falls into the wrong hands.  His exploiters form strong relationships with him (some sincere, some not) and lead him down a manipulative path of crime.  Like an adolescent, Chappie makes strong emotional connections and, like a rebellious teen having lost his child-like innocence, he scornfully pulls away from his loved ones when he discovers (or wrongly perceives) lies or mal-intent.  We watch and hope as Chappie discerns right from wrong…and the true intentions of those who love him.

Thugged out Chappie preparing for battle with the gang.

The use of Die Antwoord’s music to score much of the film (Hans Zimmer rounding out the rest) was an interesting choice.  Their music is edgy, often catchy, even just plain weird (but in a neat way), and this style of music creates an aura of playful menace as we see a naïvely gleeful Chappie being manipulated into performing crimes and harming (even killing) people without his knowing.  This film is appropriately rated R for its violence, and the intensity of that violence never seemed overdone, even if quite brutal at times.  I should add that the action was great and the special effects were top notch.  However, this film is as much an emotional drama as it is an action film.

Chappie vs. the MOOSE (an ED-209 lookalike)

Above all, South African director Neil Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium) is tremendously successful at eliciting our emotional response to Chappie’s journey.  When he is first imbued with consciousness, child-like and scared and unable to communicate, we feel tenderly for him.  Chappie’s enthusiasm to learn about the world contagiously tugs at the muscles in our faces that make us smile.  As he identifies a mother figure (Yolandi) we feel warm.  When people try to take advantage of Chappie we want to right the wrong, and when a frightened and abandoned Chappie is beaten and damaged by street hoodlums, our hearts wrench and we come nearly to tears…it was difficult to watch.

In the end the lives of our protagonists are threatened and, whereas most movies may allow us to comfortably “expect” a happy ending, the direness of the final act infected me with a sense of anticipated sadness.  I won’t reveal if I left the theater feeling warm and happy, or sad.  But I will say that this film took me on a powerful emotional journey and I have every reason to recommend it.  Some flaws may keep this from being viewed as a great movie in the eyes of many, but it is absolutely a great story.  Chappie is vibrant, emotionally fragile and soulful; expect him to touch your heart.

MY CALL:  A cerebral house movie that bends time, genres, reality and expectations.  Venezuela’s #1 thriller of all time is truly a winner.  MOVIES LIKE The House at the End of Time:  I’ve seen my share of “house movies” and this one certainly stands out.  House Hunting (2013) and Silent House (2011) utilize effective means of disorienting viewers creating a sense of tension and unease.  Even Oculus (2014) serves as a house movie in the same manner despite its focus on an evil mirror.  House (2008), however, should be skipped altogether.  OTHER TITLE: La Casa del Fin de los Tiempos.

I recently had the pleasure of viewing this Venezuelan thriller when my girlfriend stumbled across it on Netflix.  Being adventurous about trying new horror movies completely unknown to us—a quality I absolutely adore about her–she did some research and it turns out that this movie was actually a pretty big deal in Venezuela.  Evidently it ranks as the highest grossing thriller (in Venezuela) of all time, selling 700,000 tickets during its 41 week run at the box office—which means that 1 out of every 42 people in the entire country saw this in theaters!  A horror movie!  That’s impressive.  That would be about a $60 million box office gross if 1 in 42 people in the United States saw a movie assuming an $8 ticket (which may be on the low side).  Not bad for first time writer, producer, editor and director Alejandro Hidalgo!

But even still, I somehow remained skeptical.  After all, Venezuela is a country one-tenth the size of the United States with about 30 million people and loads of tropical forests.  I questioned whether they’ve made enough thrillers (or movies in general) for me to be impressed with their “highest grossing thriller of all time.”  But, being adventurous myself, I submitted to my girlfriend’s desire to see this figuring “we can just watch something else if it’s no good.”  Let’s just say my expectations were very wrong…and hers were right.

Anyway, at its start I had low expectations.  But, I do like a good “house movie” and the disorienting devices that often accompany them like protean or even labyrinthine architecture and plays on time (flashbacks, haunting visions of the past, actual time lapses).  And a good house movie is exactly what we got!  However, this house movie is far from being cut from the typical mold.  This is neither scarefest nor gorefest.  This is something so much deeper, so much creepier, so much more cerebral.

The House at the End of Time opens on an ill-fated evening set 30 years in the past when Dulce is convicted of the murder of her husband and missing son.  Then we move to present day, after an elderly Dulce has served 30 years in prison and is returned to her home to serve the remainder of her life under house arrest.  Almost as quickly as she gets home and sits down, she is visited by a priest who tries to help her remember exactly what happened that night 30 years ago.

Opening scene 30 years ago (ABOVE); Dulce and the Priest (BELOW)

The pacing was not ideal, often alternating between long scenes of kids playing and intense scenes of marital disorder during the first half of the film.

We also alternate between scenes from the past and scenes from the present as elderly Dulce wanders her home and begins to remember more…some of which she never recalled even 30 years ago.  At times, she seems to be hallucinating her present day elderly self into these scenes from the past.  But are they hallucinations caused by the house, are they suppressed memories, perhaps they’re her own delusions…or is it all something else?  I even found myself questioning if we’d discover some manner of possession had occurred, or some other form of evil.  Is this house movie or a ghost story?  Is Dulce a ghost!?!?!  Is Dulce guilty or innocent of her family’s murder?  Is this house her own personal Hell where she relives visions of her past sins?  Why is this priest interested in helping her solve the mystery?  So many questions—it’s easy to get carried away.  I wanted answers and so did Dulce (and so did my girlfriend LOL), and none of us cared what it was—as long as we had “an answer.”

At one point young Dulce visits a medium.  The scene is creepy.

Now, please make no mistake and please distrust any reviewers who call this film “one of the most scary” movies of whatever.  There are a few effective jumpscare moments, but this movie is more about a steady atmosphere of fear, tension, anticipation and disorientation.  Writer/director Alejandro Hidalgo succeeded in creating a consistently creepy, engaging slow-burn that kept me watching the shadows for evil and thinking at the same time, trying to solve the time-based mystery therein.  Without spoiling anything, I’ll reveal that time is played upon much as it is in Oculus, such that we don’t really know what is the present and what is the past…or future…or are two times meeting one another somehow… or even…. you get the idea.

It’s also easy to discount movies of apparently low budget.  This film has the complicated story of a book, looks like someone filmed a play (with a huge set and special effects), and feels like a horror-drama-mystery telenovela.

During the third act of the film some things will make sense, others things maybe not so clearly.  Just be advised that this film will end up proving that it’s a lot more clever than you think it is.  Its story is elaborate to the point that I find no borrowed components from other stories.  No.  This story is unique and, much like its successor Oculus, it thrives on the audience’s fear of the unknown and things that may or may not be revealed.

This film was eerie, unpredictable, disorienting, and it pleasantly surprised me.  Even though it’s a Spanish language film subtitled in English, the pace is casual enough that reading along will not compromise you’re ability to immerse yourself in the story and its chilling atmosphere.

Don’t be intimidated by subtitles.  Don’t shy away from this foreign movie.  Please, do give this a chance.

This article is dedicated to my girlfriend.  She chose this splendid gem, she got me to stick with it and see it through, and she has stuck with me.  Love you, baby.

MY CALL:  A dark New Zealand horror comedy that just may be the hidden gem you’ve been looking for.  MORE MOVIES LIKE Housebound:  Dead Alive (1992), although more extreme in all aspects, captured dark New Zealand humor in a similar way.

First things first.  This has a cover/poster that makes it look like a home invader movie like The Strangers (2008), some descriptions and reviews that suggest it is a haunted house movie, and it is marketed as a horror comedy.  More accurate than anything is that this New Zealand horror flick is a comedy.  It smacks of Dead Alive (1992) if you were to turn the gore down from an “11” to a “2” and the utterly zany insanity is much lower as well.

I mean, yes, there is gore.  It’s just that it pales in comparison to Dead-Alive.

While advertised as a horror comedy, the first half of this movie will not make that obvious.  I found a lot of things funny, but they didn’t seem deliberate in the sense of filming a comedy.  It just seemed to be the interesting nature of the characters.  However, as the story advanced, so did the obvious intent of the humor therein.  And as for the horror, you may jump but this movie is not scary and only playfully creepy.

More than just “playfully creepy” was this Teddy Bear.

The pissy antihero of the story is recently convicted Kylie (Morgana O’Reilly), who is placed under house arrest with her mother and stepfather after she gets caught doing a smash-and-grab job.  More like an angry, petulant teenager than a woman in her 20s, Kylie resists her mother’s every attempt to be pleasant, civil, constructive, or generally happy.  It seems that Kylie is doing everything she can to make her parents’ lives as miserable as hers.  It’s funny to watch this unfold and well-acted, but it’s a little frustrating as well.  We really don’t find ourselves rooting for Kylie at this point.

I’m just gonna’ sit here and sulk.

Kylie’s mother (Rima Te Wiata), however, is absolutely delightful.  She’s overly pleasant, loves small talk-loving, a bit naïve, and she believes that her house is haunted.  All of these things annoy the grumpy Kylie, who is especially antagonistic to her mother’s belief in their ghostly houseguests.  Kylie experiences “an encounter” in the basement when investigating a rogue ringing cell phone and insists there is a home invader.  Kylie’s mother has other ideas of the nature of this intruder and she’s really cute about her opinion on the matter.

“What was that sound, mum?”

“Probably a ghost, Kylie.”

“Shhhhh! I’m trying to hear the ghosts.”

There to back Kylie’s mother up is Amos (Glen-Paul Waru), a security guard who monitors Kylie’s house arrest and responds to their call about the recent disturbance.  When he finds no sign of a break-in or intruder, he suggests the presence of an other-worldly form.  Like Kylie’s mother, Amos brings us more comic relief but in a more straight-faced role as an amateur paranormal investigator.  He sets up the house with cameras a la Paranormal Activity but don’t worry, the movie does not follow that over-used playbook at all.  It takes its own path devoid of found footage, shaky cameras and video analysis.

[CLOCKWISE from top left] Amos goes all Ghost Hunters on the house; an evil Teddy Bear scares Kylie but no one wants to believe her, she tells the police about her disturbances and they just call her probation officer, and her mother “always knew” about the ghosts so Kylie snarls at her a lot.

From here things take a few interesting turns leaving us wondering about the nature of Kylie’s encounter in the basement and several other “weird sounds” in the house.  We learn about the disturbing history of the house and murders that took place there when it served as a halfway house for mentally unstable youths.  We meet an extremely creepy neighbor.  Kylie meets with a therapist (Cameron Rhodes; The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring) who suggests that her overly active mind in her inactive house arrest setting may be playing tricks on her.  And with all this piled up on us, people start dying and Kylie becomes a believer in the paranormal.  I should warn, however, that one major plot turn rather reduced my interest significantly.  It did remain funny, though…even funnier, in fact.

“What’s the creepy neighbor doing?  Creepy things?”

Amos finds some old articles about Kylie’s mum’s house.

The “intruder” makes an appearance.

And then we meet this weirdo who looks like a raccoon.

Writer/director Gerard Johnstone does a fine job with his first feature length film and I am eager to see what he does next.  After all, perhaps the things I didn’t like about the third act were more a product of taste than quality.

The characters are interesting, fun and quirky…and perfectly acted for this film.  The story doesn’t go anywhere we expect.  And I laughed a lot among a few unexpected jumps.  Part of me wants to call this a gem but I just wasn’t pleased with where the story went in the third act.  It got weird in an unexciting way for me (and my company watching it), even though it was a sort of original story element and the humor certainly accelerated for the better.

I’d say you should see this if you enjoy off-color horror comedy.  This was just a semi-precious stone for me, but for you it may be just the hidden gem you’ve been wanting.

Let’s talk about misleading movie posters, shall we? Misleading movie poster #1: Movie is called Mine Games.  The poster has a picture of a cabin in the woods.  REALLY?

MY CALL:  This B-movie makes an effort, but the director really never transcends its B-moviedom.  The best quality of this movie is the unreached potential of its premise.  MORE MOVIES LIKE Mine Games:  Some reviewers compare this to a movie called Coherence (2013), but I don’t know it.

Misleading movie poster #2: Here you’d think the theme of the movie was as much linked to Spring Break as a mine.

This flick feels so much like the Friday the 13^th (2009) reboot for the first 20 minutes.  Not only because modern day Scream Queen Julianna Guill (The Apparition, Altitude) is in it–and playing pretty much the same exact role–but because of the nice log cabin McMansion in the woods they go to for a 20-something vacation.  Our 20-somthing group includes the classic Cabin in the Woods (2012) roles of the athlete, the scholar, the fool (stoner), the virgin (in this case, she’s a self-proclaimed spiritually sensitive medium; Rebecca Da Costa of Freerunner), the whore (Guill’s role), and one extra female role in which fellow modern day Scream Queen Briana Evigan (The Devil’s Carnival, Mother’s Day, Sorority Row) plays the straight, serious, concerned girlfriend of a guy who needs to “take his meds” for something that is never explained…making him something of a wild card role.

Misleading movie poster #3:  Is there a tunnel from the cabin to the mine?  And “are you ready to play” what exactly?  Is this a play on the Jigsaw’s tagline? There’s no “game” to play in this movie.  Although the clever similarity to “Mind Games” in this semi-trippy movie obviously explains a lot.

This group is deep in the mountainous woods for a little vacation and partying in a remote location.  In the early scenes they drink (some doing so all the time), try to sleep with one another, do drugs, and discover an abandoned mine.  This cookie-cutter set up plus two scream queens, along with the fact that we had a sex scene in the first 15 minutes signal us that we are not in for anything deep, original, or intellectually stimulating.  This should be a typical, formulaic VideoOnDemand/Direct-to-DVD horror-by-numbers, right?  Actually…not quite.

Yup…this totally looks like a scene from a horror movie that is to be taken seriously.  Two girls known for their roles in horror movies (and taking off their clothes in one case) sitting around in bikinis drinking beer from Solo cups.  This director clearly had his game face on. SMH

Yes, this movie started out like the Playboy channel was hosting a Coors Light commercial, but we get hints that this will turn out to be something more.  Our medicated character has dreams that take place in an abandoned mine shaft, our medium sees “spirits” and the characters venture into the mines to encounter echoes from the future about their fate.  Seems like our story is trying to break out of the cookie-cutter mold.

Bro #1: “Hey look, an abandoned mine.” Bro #2: “Let’s go in. I’m sure it’s totally up to safety standards of the MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration).” Bro #1: “Cool. What could go wrong?”

“This is the first time”…for what?  This is an example of something that “tries”, then doesn’t get properly executed during the reveal, so it just fizzles out and falls on its face. Good idea; poor execution.

This twisty-turny plot clearly tries and, in premise alone, maybe there was something there—something that could have been good.  However, the execution left me desperately wanting something more substantial.  It’ll make you think and become hopeful after you lumber through the first act.  I just doubt that the thinking will lead you to a satisfying outcome.  What’s more is where the execution of this would-be decent premise has failed, the special effects and acting take no part in remedying such malady.  The characters make dumb decisions that hardly make sense and even though the story leaves nothing to the imagination, the end still doesn’t necessarily fit the story. I have no idea why—and I couldn’t be troubled to look up the reason—but I knew about this movie for a couple years yet was only able to find it on Netflix and Amazon recently.  It’s listed as a 2012 movie, but I don’t know who (of the generally movie-going public) saw it before this year.  I guess it’s nothing important enough to discuss, though.  Just another horror movie unworthy of a theatrical release at the end of the day.  It probably had difficulty picking up support somewhere along the process line leading to its release.  The same seems to be happening to 7500 (2014, but I knew about it already in 2012 and was looking for it then), which has still not been released in the US but, from what I hear, we’re not missing out on much despite the provocative trailer. When all is said and done, I’d advise skipping this one.  You might find some positive reviews, but the reviews are all over the place (evenly distributed from 1 to 5 stars on Amazon).  The best quality of this movie is the unreached potential of its premise.

MY CALL:  A solid premise and great atmosphere that fails to deliver an effective possession movie.  Despite some good performances and a decent ending, we are not completely reimbursed for the disappointing shift from an engaging, tense film to a nigh-dull, predictable experience.  MORE MOVIES LIKE The Damned:  Stronger Spanish-language films whose atmosphere’s actually deliver on their promises include The Orphanage (2007), [REC] (2007), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and The House at the End of Time (2013).

Also released under the title Gallow’s Hill and Encerrada, this Colombian film boasts a humble $5 million budget and uses it wisely.  It is also Colombia’s highest grossing film with 395,380 tickets sold (in Colombia) of the year…not horror film, but “film.”  Having seen this, I’ll say it doesn’t live up to that statement.  I mean, sure.  I guess I’m not surprised it was Colombia’s highest grossing horror film, but I’m a bit surprised it was their highest grossing film in general for the year.  Then again, this is perhaps the first Colombian movie I’ve ever reviewed.  So what do I know about their country’s film industry?

Reporter Gina (Carolina Guerra; Da Vinci’s Demons), her cameraman, a young girl, her father (Peter Facinelli; the Twilight Saga, Hollow Man 2) and soon-to-be stepmother (Sophia Myles; Outlander, Underworld: Evolution) find themselves stranded in the flash flooding mountains of Colombia and seek refuge in an old man’s house in the middle of nowhere.

This premise already screams cookie-cutter plot, right?  Lost, car breaks down, people are stranded, they find an old house with a creepy host who offers them help but has no telephone and he doesn’t speak much…yeah, it does.  But you know what?  For what it is, it works.  After we meet the characters, find them stranded and see them to their creepy remote locale, this film captures a creepy atmosphere from the get-go.

“Hey, that old guy asked us not to leave this room. What should we do while he gets us a glass of water?”

“Where did they go?  Um….to look for a bathroom.”

Their remote location host is an old man who isn’t so happy to have guests.  He lets them in to take cover from the rain but explains that he has no means of communicating with the outside world and he doesn’t even want them to leave the living room.  Of course, the old man’s guests find an excuse to explore the house at the earliest opportunity and they stumble across a locked cell in the basement incarcerating a young girl.  They release her and, in doing so, release “the damned” upon the house.  From here, this becomes a possession movie which declares a witch’s curse to be the problem, but it feels a lot more like Evil Dead (1981, 1987, 2013) revisited using the Fallen (1998) playbook.

What worked?  Carolina Guerra gives the best, twisted performance as a possessed deadite and, until the possession premise was obvious, the atmosphere was powerful and eerie. Spanish director Víctor García (Mirrors 2, Return to the House on Haunted Hill) knows what creeps us out.  The special effects were limited and practical, but one scene involving a neck break and its aftermath (and the actor’s performance around it) was REALLY IMPRESSIVE.  Also, although predictable, I liked the (hardly-a-twist) ending.  It shined with a “horrific” sort of poetic justice.

 The evil spirit of the witch exploits our secrets and sins much as the devil would.

 Then she contorts and spasms and goes all Evil Dead.

What didn’t work?  Once you know the premise, things become overly predictable and the atmosphere loses its luster.  I essentially found myself waiting for the witch’s spirit to finish her game of musical chairs as she possesses her way through the cast of protagonists.  It simply degenerated from engaging and tense, to almost dull.

I’m not alone in my opinion of this film—i.e., not being terribly impressed.  Out of almost 3000 ratings it averages only 5.2/10 on IMDB, the NY Daily News gave 2/5 stars and explained “strong performance doesn’t scare off moviegoers in this serviceable, but gruesome, horror flick,” and Rotten Tomatoes reveals an unprovocative rating of 11% (20% audience).  Of all places, Amazon has the highest ratings at 3.3/5 stars.

The ambience, Carolina Guerra, and the ending might make this film worth a watch for the horror fan who likes to see as much as they can.  Just don’t expect anything original or to be wowed.

MY CALL:  Entrancing and unsettling, this gritty timeless film serves as a powerful cautionary metaphor to the consequences of unprotected sex.  Beautifully executed and a unique experience; quite an unusual combination in the horror genre. 

This film felt like so many familiar things, yet like nothing else.  The presence of a Kindle (or something sort of like that) indicates that the story takes place now—or close to present day.  Yet the use of corded phones and minimal presence of cell phones creates a sense of media isolation, much like pre-2000 horror, and the overall feeling reminds me more of an 80s horror setting.  Adding to this isolated 80s sensation, the entire film is scored with synthesizers.  This scoring is of much higher quality than an 80s film, and the style sets an ominous tone that readily resets our uneasiness as we watch.

And what is it we’re watching for?  After an intimate encounter, a young girl (Maika Monroe; The Guest) is told by her newly ex-boyfriend that “something” will follow her from now on; that this something once followed him but he has now “given it” to her.  This something has no specific form or identity and may appear as anyone, from a random unknown person to someone you love.  The only certainty is that, where ever you are, “it” will be somewhere walking directly towards you…until it takes you, or you give it to someone else.  “It” becomes a palpable nightmare.

And that brings us to the most important thing of all:  this movie is scary?  You may not leap out of your seat or scream, but you will be scared.  This film propagates more of a continuous, quiet sense of dread.  As with White Noise (2005), Shadow People (2012) and Paranormal Activity (2007) we find our eyes locked on the screen, looking for the “it” that “follows.”  Suddenly every person in the background becomes a candidate and every time a door opens we wonder if “it” will pass the threshold.  Typically we watch a screen and may jump at the appearance of a killer before his victim.  Here, we watch more in the same manner as the victim.  I really felt like I was in the movie for many of the scenes.

Is that displaced person the “it” that “follows,” or just a red herring to keep us on our toes?  You’ll find you’re on your toes a lot while watching this film.

There was one scene towards the end that I didn’t like.  It was a long and major scene, but still just the one turned me off.  You’ll know it when you get to the indoor pool scene.  It felt like it belonged in a different movie of lower caliber.

The pool scene, if viewed alone, smacks of a typical (but watchable) direct-to-DVD horror movie of moderate production.  It just didn’t “fit” the film well in my opinion.

Director/writer David Robert Mitchell is brand new to the business, but I expect he’ll become a household name to horror fans.  As far as I can tell, It Follows serves as something of a cautionary metaphor representing the risks of unsafe or premarital sex and being “followed” by the consequences, even the sense of dread that may haunt one while waiting to receive the results of an HIV test (or any STD test).  This metaphor, however, really pushes the envelope and the realness and likability of the young cast veils this nightmare with urgency.  There is one particularly intense scene in which “it” takes the form of a teen victim’s mother, and the way it “takes” you when it finds you is quite a disturbing image that was burned into my mind.  This film was unsettling and gritty, for sure—and it does it without a menacing killer with a name and a scary past.  It does it with a nameless, protean entity; an unnerving breath of fresh air.

Even my horror-desensitized mind was on edge as I watched this masterfully crafted horror.  This truly unique and beautifully executed film pleased me overall.  It felt like a classic horror from the late 70s or early 80s with a modern production treatment.

Ignore the sexual theme, understand that there is nothing raunchy or gratuitous to be seen, and enjoy sense of unmatched isolated dread of It Follows.

MY CALL:  This minimalist, quietly scary adult fable melds the Billy Goats Gruff with a hauntingly melancholy atmosphere.  The budget is low, but the film does not rely on effects as characters and eeriness drive this movie.  I was very pleased with it, but it’s not for those looking for something exciting, gory or shocking.  It is slow-paced and tense.  MOVIES LIKE Absentia:  Want other truly creepy films instead of “loud scare” horror?  Try It Follows (2015), Session 9 (2001) and Oculus (2014).

I must say, this film surprised me in more ways than one–neat story, good characters, very creepy, nice camera work.  I skipped this film for years following its release labeling it “just another straight-to-DVD horror” that I’d “get around to” when I had time.  I kept delaying.  After all, if you look at the DVD cover art you wouldn’t think there was anything original behind that woman being dragged into the darkness.  In the last couple years, however, I’ve been noticing mounting positive reviews of the film.  So I finally caved in and decided to give it a shot when I saw it on Netflix.

At its start I feared my original concerns would come true.  I recognized none of the actors and I could tell it had a low budget (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).  I just figured this would turn out to be some haunting story brought upon by some past misdeed of the main character, a pregnant woman whose husband has been missing for 7 years.  But this was nothing of the sort.

The story begins very simply: Callie moves in with her sister Tricia when Tricia is forced to sign papers declaring her husband (who has been missing for 7 years) “dead in absentia.”  However, instead of finding closure, Tricia’s inner conflict continues as she is apparently haunted by her husband’s tormented spirit.

The scares and imagery are rattling and the atmosphere is powerfully off-putting.  But rather than being “loud” and scary, it’s quiet and eerie—think Session 9 (2001) and you’ll know what I mean.  Not so surprising, I guess, after learning this was written and directed by Mike Flanagan, who later went on to helm Oculus (2014; which cameos the actors of this film).

Creepy shots, creepy sounds, none of it loud. Just pure creepiness.

Character-driven and nightmarish, our story advances as Callie begins to link several recent disappearances spanning 100 years (and that of Tricia’s husband) to a nearby tunnel.  The film includes scenes with the book “Three Billy Goats Gruff” and serves as an adult version of the fable.  That said, this isn’t a monster movie, or a haunting story…yet it feels like both.

Doug Jones makes a cameo.

And like a terrifying fable, we find no solid reason behind the disappearances at the end, only evidence of a cause, making this feel satisfyingly mysterious yet many will feel at least partially annoyed by the lack of explanation.  But isn’t that where most horror falls apart?  When things are explained, or over-explained, or we try to rationalize a supernatural story with rules…?  Maybe it’s for the better that it ends this way.  Not all horror is meant to be explained.  Sometimes, just sometimes, that’s what makes it scary.

MY CALL:  Definitely not for everyone.  This film is sweet and funny, but it has its Texas Chainsaw moments, too.  It’s a cute little murderous movie.  MOVIES LIKE The Voices:  Maybe American Psycho (2000), which is much smarter and more serious.

Ryan Reynolds (RIPD, Safe House, Green Lantern) seems to be supportive of indie and experimental films.  The Captive and Buried presented him with new challenges, and I suppose The Nines and Finder’s Fee presented some different styles to try to round him out as an actor.  His latest non-mainstream endeavor is The Voices, in which he plays the voices of his Scottish-accented cat Mr. Whiskers, his dog Bosco, a weird Bunny Monkey sock puppet, and a dying deer his character hits with a car.  It’s like a slasher-Psycho version of Eddie Murphy’s The Nutty Professor.

The cat is menacing; the dog, warm-hearted. Like having a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, Bosco is everything good in Jerry whereas Mr. Whiskers exudes the evil from the darkest corners of Jerry’s psyche.

If that sounds a bit odd to you, your suspicions are correct.  This film is odd.  Were it not for my being a Ryan Reynolds fan, I’d probably have spent the first 20 minutes of this movie wondering if renting it was a mistake.  That said, the story does find its legs and gains some traction.  It doesn’t end up anywhere great, but it certainly turned out to be something interesting.  At the very least, it’s a story you have not seen told before (not like this anyway).

Meet Jerry…sitting alone talking to a goldfish bowl in a Chinese restaurant.  Story of his life.

Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) is a sweet, likable factory worker with schizophrenia.  He tries to fit in and live a normal life, but his actions highlight his eccentricities, alerting everyone around him that something about him is weird.  As a product of not taking his medication, he comes home to a friendly talking dog and his cat, who verbally abuses him with a Scottish accent.

Jerry has a crush on Fiona (Gemma Arterton; Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Byzantium, Clash of the Titans) that turns from something pathetic into something awkward and then develops into something tragic…but the whole time we feel for Jerry.  Things gets worse when Lisa (Anna Kendrick; Pitch Perfect) goes out on a date with him.  Completely incompetent and thus facilitating his madness is Jerry’s psychiatrist (Jackie Weaver; Haunt, Stoker), who never takes appropriate action regarding Jerry’s treatment and medication.  Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick and Jackie Weaver all contribute decent performances.

Oops.

The most interesting and eye-opening scene by far is when Jerry actually takes his medication and, to his horror, sees his sickly abject home and muted pets as they truly are.  The scene brings the story together and solidifies Jerry’s ensuing actions and our forgiveness for those actions.

Yup.  That’s Gemma Arterton’s head.  And here he is feeding it cereal.  Her head keeps him company and asks if she can have a “friend” to keep her company.

This movie is nothing spectacular, but Reynolds does a fantastic job of presenting his murderous character through a sympathetic lens, begging reasonable forgiveness for even his most heinous acts.  He’s the killer you feel sorry for…you even want to see him happy even though you know it won’t happen, making this a very endearing psycho-killer film.  LOL

Also, I’m not sure if this was just an authored scenario or a sleight of social commentary about our health care system, but it is only because the health care system (especially his psychiatrist) fail Jerry that he causes anyone harm.

The film closes with a weirdly funny musical number at the end featuring Reynoolds and the major cast during the credits.  Nice touch to wrap up the mania of this cute little murderous movie.  Definitely not for everyone.  This film is sweet and funny, but it has its Texas Chainsaw moments.

Hello all. Mark here.

Episode 8 of the “new and noteworthy” (thank you Itunes) and Audible sponsored podcast is here!

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In this episode we answer listener questions like “who wins in a fight? The Rock in Walking Tall or The Rock in The Rundown?” While answering the questions our wonderful host Lasavath accidentally comes up with a beautiful poem entitled “The Rock is hot for Sean William Scott.” From there we talk about 50 Shades of Grey and when saving the day goes wrong. It is a spirited discussion that showcases what MFF does best. We appreciate all aspects of cinema and explore the randomness that it has to offer.

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You can download the podcast on Itunes or you can stream it on the Sharkdropper website.  If you have an Android phone check out the app called Onecast. It makes listening to pods even easier!

If you get a chance please rate, review and share the podcast! We appreciate your listenership and want to continue to build upon the randomness.

Hello all. Mark here!

The MFF podcast is back and we are examining the 1995 cinematic landscape. We talk about the subpar horror films of 1995 and examine the jerkiness of all the cinematic jerks. No stoned is left unturned as we talk about Empire Records, Species, Demon Night, Tommy Boy and Candy Man’s bees.

Yuck. Dude was a massive jerk.

We also discuss Kurt Russell, rumors that aren’t rumors and somebody says “Keyser Soze was a three-toed sloth.” We also answer three fantastic listener questions.

1. What would be the most evenly matched female superhero vs. female super villain battle?

2. What is your favorite cinematic meal?

3. Why do people like Donnie Darko?

You can download the pod on Itunes or you can stream it on the Shark Dropper website.

If you get a chance please rate, review and share the pod! If you have any random cinematic questions please ask and we shall answer!

MY CALL:  An artificial intelligence thriller told in a manner you have not seen before. It will play on your sympathies as powerfully as your suspicions.  MOVIES LIKE Ex Machina: The Machine (2013), Transcendence (2014) and Chappie (2015) all explore self-awareness, our judgment of it and its evolution in different ways. I recommend all three.

Almost entirely taking place in one location, Ex Machina keeps us mentally on our toes while never really pulling us out of our comfort zone.  This sense of “comfort” works all too well as we, along with Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson; About Time, Dredd, Star Wars Episode VII), get carried away sympathizing for artificial intelligence creation Ava (Alicia Vikander; Seventh Son).

Caleb, a talented coder working for a huge search engine company called BlueBook (much like Google), is charged with performing a week-long Turing test on Ava to establish that her self-awareness is more than just a stunningly accurate simulation of sentience. But Ava surprises Caleb with her elegant mind…and heart.

Ava’s creator Nathan (Oscar Isaac; A Most Violent Year, Drive, Robin Hood) is friendly yet arrogant and well-God-complexed–perhaps not surprising being a young billionaire genius engineer who may have created the first ever truly self-aware artificial intelligence.  He boasts friendship over beers and then pushes and manipulates to uncover the truths about Ava that he feels Caleb withholds.

As Caleb conducts his Turing inquiry, Ava and Nathan engage in a tug-of-war to earn Caleb’s trust.  We are given convincing evidence to distrust either of them, but Ava naturally garners more sympathy being that she is kept against her will by her Frankensteinian creator.  Ava is not surprisingly brilliant yet carries a mildly naïve air about her and the likewise naïve Caleb is almost immediately taken by her.

So who do we trust?  The controlling Creator or the created machine?  Or do we trust the innocent tester Caleb, whose apparent lack of emotional maturity may blur his judgment? We find that all three of them have their own plan…and we are left to question whose plans match, overlap, or conflict with each other’s.

Written and directed by Alex Garland (writer of Dredd, Sunshine, 28 Days Later), this film plays on our sympathy and trust. Driving the story is both Caleb and Ava’s innocence, which is starkly contrasted by their craftiness and a shared resistance to Nathan.

As the astute but lonely Caleb, Gleeson is stellar as usual. Ava was carefully and precisely acted by Vikander–her facial expressions and eyes telling us far more than her brilliantly scripted dialogue ever could. But for me Oscar Isaac was the one who truly stole the show as Nathan. Nathan has all the quirks we might expect from a locked in savant…fixation, a bipolar grip on hospitality and temperament, addiction, patience in some regards and impatient in others. Perfectly duplicitous, yet understandably so, Nathan is handled like a villain playing a relatively fair game. At times his behavior skirts that of a sociopath–watch out for the almost surreal “dance scene.” He self-medicates his solitude with alcohol, which serves to alienate the obsessed programming paragon from Caleb, befriend Caleb, and even empower Caleb.

As we learn more about the motives driving each of our three players, we see our expectations crumble before our eyes into such a simple, sensible conclusion that we somehow never saw coming. My only successful prediction: that something bad was going to happen to someone.

We adjourn with an ending that is powerful. Its impact will haunt you.

  
MY CALL:  Far from anything resembling horror, this boring art-house Iranian film features a skateboarding hipster vampire.  Amazon boasts numerous positive reviews, but horror fans should beware.  MORE MOVIES LIKE THIS:  Film noir, I guess.  Pretty much stuff that film students love and I hate.

Knowing that we are in for an Iranian vampire story, this black and white art-house endeavor opens in a manner which immediately strays from our expectations.  From his snug white t-shirt to his hair, our protagonist smacks of a young Middle Eastern Marlon Brando, like a 50s greaser who at any moment may break into a dance number snapping his fingers and chanting some West Side Story Jets/Sharks theme or scream “Stellllllllllla.”  Further Americanizing this film the sets, wardrobe and neighborhood could just as easily, or even more easily so, have been set in suburban Ohio rather than Iran.  (It was actually filmed in California, by the way.)

But, oh yeah, this movie is also about a vampire.  A vampire who only preys upon bad people—and who ensures that notion is well understood to the audience through over-exposition more deafeningly than a nearby jackhammer.  For just a moment this reminded me of Innocent Blood (1992) in premise alone.  Our most contemporary vampire (a young woman) listens to American LPs demonstrating to her audience two things: 1) hipsters in Iran are just as annoying as they are here, and 2) the score was the most (or only) brilliant part of this film.  However, whatever the artistic intent behind her music and dancing and wardrobe and other Americanized themes, I failed to find any other brilliance here.  Also on the “neat” side, the opening scene includes a cat which is later utilized as a device, like a judgmental observer of the truth behind the protagonist’s father’s addiction and paranoia.  But this didn’t really lead anywhere special either.

Although I must acknowledge that the black and white helps the film by masking racial and cultural differences by obscuring skin and clothing color.  But other than witnessing a sympathetic relationship between a young 50s style man and a young hipsterish vampire, I got nothing out of this.  I was excited to see this film, yet it was boring since the opening scene.

Was this art?  No—but I’m sure many will disagree.  Was it artistic?  VERY.  Using a skateboard as something of a symbol for the discovery of compassion was artistic, maybe a little “neat,” but ultimately fell shy of making any impact on me (or my girlfriend).  I imagine I’ll get some flack from “film fans” out there complaining that this is not a horror movie and shouldn’t be assessed as one.  But guess what?  This is JOHN’S HORROR CORNER and I’ll warn my readers as I see fit. LOL.  Besides, I doubt anyone who would like this film reads my articles and, furthermore, I didn’t enjoy this as a non-horror film either.  I didn’t enjoy it, in any form, at all.

Yup.  That’s a skateboard in the bottom left.

In my eyes, writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour proves that she can make artsy films.  She clearly wasn’t trying to make anything resembling horror—or so, I hope she wasn’t trying to—so horror fans should probably steer clear of this film much as I wish I had.  I’m sure many will see greatness in this; but I also think those will be people who are disgusted by studio blockbusters, gore or mainstream comedies.

Somewhere in this story I think there was a plot, but I felt more like I sat through a series of scenes that simply “seemed to be linked.”  A guy owes a drug dealer (who got the protagonist’s father hooked on drugs), he meets a friendly vampire who takes a shining to him, she helps him with his drug dealer problem, they find a mutual affection.

If you are a lovelorn film student, this may be for you. If you are a horror fan: RUN.  Run far away and fast in the opposite direction.  Amazon is producing a wealth of positive reviews, none of them praising any component of actual horror.  Such praising reviews consider the film “a tale of love and loneliness set in a fictional Iranian town”; “a vampire romance”; and “a visual metamorphosis of the characters as they both make life-altering decisions, without any dialogue required.”

Horror fans, don’t be fooled by these positive reviews.  To use a line closer to horror: “It’s a trick. Get an axe.”

MY CALL: An excellent anthology that focuses more on storytelling than shock value—but it still has its moments.  These fun short stories span serious to silly and original to trope-rich.  Well worth a watch!  OTHER HORROR ANTHOLOGIES:  Some other fun, decent and/or clever anthologies include (in order of release date):  Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), The Uncanny (1977), Creepshow (1982), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Creepshow 2 (1987), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Campfire Tales (1997), 3 Extremes (2004), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), V/H/S 2 (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013) and The ABCs of Death 2 (2014).

Having directed several episodes of TV’s Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside, John Harrison had the right experience to bring these stories to life.  The wraparound story is rather Hansel and Gretel-ish, featuring a young Matthew Lawrence (Boy Meets World, Creature of Darkness) incarcerated in a kitchen-side cell being fattened with cookies.  The young boy distracts his captor (Deborah Harry; Videodrome), who plans on preparing and serving him for a hoity-toity dinner party, by reading twisted stories from a book aptly title “Tales from the Darkside.”  The three stories are not linked themselves, but still find a good synthesis with the wraparound story.

Our first story “Lot 249” features a group of graduate students played by a young Christian Slater (Stranded, El Gringo), Julianne Moore (Carrie, Psycho) and Steve Buscemi (Con Air, Escape from LA)…that alone gives good reason for any movie fan to see this.  Young Buscemi is an archaeological power geek who acquires (somehow) a sarcophagus with a mummy in it.  How he pulled this off without eBay and bypassing customs inspections is beyond me.  So what do you do with a mummy other than maybe sell it to turn a profit?  Well, have no fear of indecision because the mummy comes with instructions—in the form of a scroll in hieroglyphics.  Of course he reads this scroll, after all horror cannot transpire otherwise, and the mummy goes about killing people.  The execution of the story is weak, but it’s cheeky tone makes up for that.

Next is “Cat from Hell,” a new take on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat.  A wealthy geriatric recluse (William Hickey; Puppetmaster) hires a hit man (David Johansen; Campfire Stories, Freejack) to kill his cat for $100,000!  Sound funny?  Well not to our recluse, who explains how the cat had already killed three members of his household.  Of course, our hit man takes the job and it turns out to be considerably harder than he expected.  Enjoy.  This one is zany but told with a straight face.  You’ll giggle, but you’ll also wince.

It gets gory in a really fun way!

“Lover’s Vow” is the most clever story by far, it offers no laughs at all, and it steers clear of the tropes we find in the other two segments.  In this story an artist (James Remar; Horns, The Unborn, The Warriors) sees something that he shouldn’t have and he swears a vow that he would never tell what he saw or describe his mysterious assailant, which is apparently a gargoyle.  Later in the story he meets the love of his life (Rae Dawn Chong) and all the while he keeps from her this secret.  There’s a cool ending.  I never saw it coming, but my girlfriend managed to predict it.

The gargoyle is actually pretty cool.

I first saw this as a child, so this flick has a powerful nostalgia over me.  But the stories are still entertaining to see unfold and I feel this should entertain today’s horror fans who haven’t yet seen it—especially viewers old enough (maybe over 30) to appreciate the practical effects and the before-the-were-stars cameos.

Enjoy.

MY CALL:  If you like action movies then this is for you.  PERIOD.  Do not wait to see this at home.  See it on the biggest screen possible…it’s GORGEOUS and INTENSE.  MOVIES LIKE Mad Max: Fury Road: While the grandiose action is scaled way down, I think of Waterworld (1995) and The Postman (1997).  Both feature a quiet, reluctant hero in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Folks, let’s just start by stating the obvious.  When in your life will you again have the chance to see a $150 million budgeted R-rated action movie?  Probably never.  So go see this in theaters while you still can.

Fury Road is an intensely action-gasmic spectacle.  The first 30 minutes bombarded the audience with an unmatched extreme action sequence (and an equally magnificent battle score) beginning with a post-apocalyptic high speed car chase, Max is captured by tribal cultish goons and then escapes giving chase through a subterranean quasi-steampunk lair while still fettered and gagged while battling dozens of these minions while climbing and hanging from things and trudging through water, and then we get another tremendous mass vehicle chase/battle scene littered with explosions and speeding dilapidated car wrecking cartwheels and minions climbing all over these vehicles like ticks on mechanized apocalypse cattle…and then it all continues in a sandstorm with more bodies being flung from or even into the paths of raging war machines in the maelstrom.

Let’s try to explain this chaos, shall we?
STEP #1: Get a crazy guy with a death wish to leap onto an enemy vehicle while holding spears with explosive heads.

Step #2: Land on target vehicle.

Step #3: Explode, along with target vehicle.

Step #4: “Wash, Rinse and Repeat” with an army of fanatics until all are dead or enemy is dispatched.

There may be LOADS of CGI, but the budget shines as brightly as the rich orange explosions and the electric yellow sand.  The cinematography bestows grandiose scale to our vastly empty wasteland populated by chaotically raging traffic.  The action was truly flawless throughout, ever-tense and utterly thrilling, and often catches you off guard with the sheer brutality.

George Miller (Mad Max, Road Warrior, Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome) hasn’t done very much recently—really only making children’s movies like two Happy Feet films and Babe: Pig in the Big City in the last 20 years. But after making happy-go-lucky bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids flicks he has returned to Mad Max with a most fierce yet equally welcome assault on the senses. We have not 2 minutes of calm as we meet Max, his two-headed gecko snack, and his dusty Ford Falcon XB GT. From that moment on we are graced with a score that matches the scale of the scenery, the explosions and the budget. It’s grandiose in the best of ways; I truly lost myself in it. By the way, the acting was also great!

 Meet Max, his Ford Falcon, and his post-apocalyptic Hannibal Lector mask.

As Max, Tom Hardy (Warrior, The Dark Knight Rises) is perhaps perfect, but his character is quite unexpectedly understated.  His lines are few and he isn’t really the hero of this story.  Rather he is a reluctant sort-of nomad-turned-antihero who trusts no one and remains nameless through the majority of the film.  The real hero is Imperator Furiosa (daringly performed by Charlize Theron; Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman), a once-loyal servant with a mechanical arm who is defying Immortan Joe by fleeing his citadel with his enslaved harem of “breeders” (a group of young attractive women Joe uses to produce children).  They find unlikely help in a turned minion Nux (Nicholas Hoult; Warm Bodies, Jack the Giant Slayer) and a clan of strong, elderly warrior women deep in the desert.

Our antagonist is the tyrant Immortan Joe, played by the very same actor (Hugh Keays-Byrne) who played the villain “Toecutter” from Mad Max (1979). Joe rules by controlling the water supply and motivates his gullible and devoted minions called “war boys”—covered with almost tribal body modifications like body paint, piercings, ritual scarrings and brandings–with promises of an afterlife in the paradise of Valhalla, and as such they are ready (even excited) to die in battle serving their warlord.

It’s very cultish and fanatical. The war boys claim their steering wheels at an altar, pray to Valhalla, and spray paint their teeth silver to prepare for death.

Look for the guy playing the double-necked flamethrower guitar and the gigantic Nathan Jones (6’11” 390lbs; Troy) at Joe’s side as son Rictus who, along with an army of war boys and heavily modified vehicles, aid Joe in recovering his property (i.e., his breeders). That, in essence, is the plot. Max just ends up in the middle of it all. It may sound overly simple, but it works gloriously.

 I’m sure there’s an explanation out there for this guy with his flamethrowing guitar…I just haven’t a clue what it would be other than BECAUSE THAT WAS AWESOME!!!

So who is this movie for? Anyone who likes action movies. Really, ANYONE who likes action movies. Also, anyone who appreciates strong female roles. Feminine strength and freedom is what drives this movie and the rather simple plot. Despite the fact that there isn’t much to the story, the film is overall AMAZING.

PULP REVIEW: noun//A review devoid of a thorough or complete synopsis, but including snarky snippets of ideas and overall opinions/recommendations.
Alt. def. A review of a movie that was not worth my time to write a full review.

If I’m writing a review this short, then I probably wouldn’t recommend it.  That said, here are three movies I don’t recommend.

The Mirror (2014) started off with a bit of promise.  In this found footage film we are quickly introduced to our young British protagonists and I found them to be instantly likable.  They have bought an allegedly haunted mirror and set up cameras in hopes of capturing evidence of the paranormal so that they can win some contest.  It’s clearly a very low budget film, but I’d blame this film’s eventual degeneration on poor writing.  Once weird things start to happen, the likability of the characters is squandered, I stopped supporting them, and I found myself just waiting for something interesting to happen…but to no avail.  The best part of this film was meeting the characters in Act 1.  Act 2 simply set up some interest that never found a satisfying conclusion in the 3rd.  Most disappointing was how components of the final act were blatant bastardized rip-offs of Oculus (2013)…not that this is surprising.  I’m always glad to give any film a shot, but this turned out to be wholly dissatisfying.  I’d recommend avoiding future projects by writer/director Edward Boase.  I saw this with my girlfriend (also a general cinephile and horror fan) and she was even less impressed than I was, expressing that she didn’t even find the characters likable.  We don’t recommend this.

Extracted (2012) features sci-fantasy fan favorite Sasha Roiz (Grimm, Warehouse 13, Caprica) as a scientist who has engineered a method of “seeing” people’s memories.  He ends up in a dangerous situation after he is trapped in the mind of a felon–not unlike the concept behind The Cell (2000), but without all the cool stuff and suspense.  Somehow the story remained interesting while the movie itself felt completely uninspired and unexciting.  Sadly good premises are often lost in subpar movies, and this is sort of the case here.  I was expecting something of a thriller mystery that would have me at the edge of my seat for a fun movie night with the girlfriend.  What I got was a ho-hum mystery that I’d watch while laying on the couch alone and half-asleep with a cold on a Tuesday afternoon after calling in sick from work.  My girlfriend summarized that this movie felt like Inception, Awake, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Ghost, Groundhog Day and Sublime…but clearly not in the best way, nor as effective as any of the aforementioned.  This could have been an awesome film, instead it was merely a serviceable direct-to-DVD flick.  It wasn’t bad per se, but I wouldn’t recommend it either.

Exorcismus (2010) was shockingly helmed by the director of The Returned (2013).  I say “shockingly” because I thought The Returned was fantastic, yet this film felt stale.  I’ll start by pointing out that I was drawn to this movie because of Doug Bradley (Pinhead of the first several Hellraiser movies).  As it turns out, his role was very small.  Not making up for that at all was the hardly passable “possession acting.”  By this I refer to the lead role (a possessed teenage girl) when she is acting under the influence of an otherworldly force.  They tried to spice things up with a clever twist to the story, but the only way I was moved was by the rolling of my eyes.  Ultimately this may have been one of the least impressive possession movies I’ve seen.  The Rite (2011), The Devil Inside (2012) and even The Possession (2012; which I had called the “the Diet Coke of Possession movies”) were all more effective–but likewise, I wouldn’t recommend any of them either. :/