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Nefarious (2023)
Evangelical Christian Propaganda Masquerading as a Horror Movie
This is not a horror movie. It isn't even really a movie. It's a sermon of Evangelical Christian talking points masquerading as a demon possession movie. I think it was probably shown as advanced screenings in churches around the country which is why it has a 97% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes (30% critic rating) and somehow still a decent rating on IMDB as well.
And I wouldn't even be mad at the sermonizing if it was done well. There's a whole genre in horror dedicated to "The atheists were wrong and Satan/Evil is real!" I mean, that was the essential point of The Exorcist. But this was just so ham-fisted and terrible. You could more accurately title this movie "Atheist Straw Man the Movie." Also, I like so bad they're good movies. This isn't one of those. It's literally just like going to church.
I knew it would be nothing but boring sermonizing about 30 or 40 min in where the demon admonishes everyone for being desensitized by movies and video games. That's when I knew that nothing interesting would happen. It would just be a long drawn-out sermon. I wanted to leave but one of my buddies thought it might turn around. It didn't.
Then after the climax when you think it's finally over there's a whole extended anti-climax scene with Glenn Beck.
Apparently the Director said this movie was intended as a bait-and-switch to get horror audiences in to hear a sermon. Well, it worked on me and my friends.
The Evil Within (2017)
Great for a low-budget horror movie
I'm giving this 8 stars because within the category of B horror movies, it is great. You should not compare this to full-budget, talented-cast 8-star movies. If you watch this, you are in the mood for a low-budget horror movie. You should evaluate it within that context.
The acting is pretty mediocre most of the time. Sean Patrick Flannery won't be winning any awards, though he was fine for the most part. Frederic Koehler, however, was great. He is able to play a cognitively disabled young man without it turning into stereotype or being offensive. He switches back and forth between Dennis and the demon very well. He really made a pretty fun movie out of what would have been a very mediocre one.
The writing is a bit stilted to unbelievable. The introduction of the mirror at the beginning makes very little sense. It gets better as the movie develops, though.
The demon scenes aren't scary and even get pretty farcical.
But here's why I really liked this movie: it's an original idea with an original execution. This is what every low-budget horror movie is aspiring to. If you like B horror movies, give this a go. But give it at least until the middle. The beginning is a bit awkward and even somewhat cringe-worthy. It really starts to shine in the latter half as things get weird.
Blindspotting (2018)
Deceptively Compled in a Good Way
This deceptively complex film strikes a great balance between drama and comedy to cover a lot of timely and important topics. But don't think it's not fun. This film starts out light-hearted and fun and lets its message slowly emerge. As the film gets more serious, it uses comedy at just the right moments to let the pressure off the audience. That's not to say this film isn't heavy. It is. But it's also fun. This film does what I think Spike Lee struggles with, which is to let the message emerge and trust that the audience is intelligent enough to understand it. Excellent film.
Patti Cake$ (2017)
Way better than I expected. Danielle MacDonald can rap!
As others have said, I went into this not expecting much. I expected it to be a maudlin, pull on your heartstrings story about a large white girl who wants to rap. It was that without being maudlin or pulling on your heartstrings. It strikes the right balance of silly and sober. I was surprised to see that Danielle MacDonald can rap as well. Does it resemble 8 Mile and Hustle & Flow? Yes it does. But it's also its own thing. And just because one or two good movies were made on an idea doesn't mean those are the only movies that should ever be made for the rest of time. If so, we'd have like 50 movies to tide us over until the end of humanity.
Demonic (2015)
Good enough for a Netflix horror movie
I see reviews here from people who saw this in the theater. If I saw it in the theater, and paid actual money for it, I'd probably give it a 5 as well. But I watched it on Netflix while doing my hobby. For that it's perfectly fun. It's not a great horror movie. It relies on pretty predictable jump scares and quick shots of creepy things. You can see the "twist" coming from a mile away. But it's not terrible. It's acted well-enough, has decent pacing, and the production quality is good.
If you're like me and have watched pretty much every other horror movie on Netflix, then you'll probably enjoy it well enough. If you want a great horror movie, though, then you'll want to keep looking.
The Titan (2018)
Dr. Moreau Meets Complete Nonsense - Don't Waste Your Time
So they're randomly mixing people with animals to see what might work on the moon of Titan. These altered people, for no apparent reason, begin killing their spouses. Care to explain that one? Nope.
They successfully get Sam Worthington's character, who can no longer speak for no reason that makes any kind of sense, to Titan. Only, he's the only living thing on this moon. No Eve to his Adam. But yay, we've saved humanity? What?! Does he reproduce asexually? Does the guy eat rocks? Hope he likes flying around all day since there's probably not much else to do.
This is another one of the absolute garbage films that Netflix gives a 97% rating for me. Look, Netflix, I like sci-fi and horror, but I have some discernment, okay? I'm not the sci-fi/horror-fan equivalent of a super-drunk person at a bar just looking to hook up with whomever.
Also, in someone else's review they noted how Sam Worthington is always just this kind of flat-faced, flat-voiced, barely-existent actor and now I can't not see him that way. Although to be fair, there wasn't much for him to work with here.
Singularity (2017)
Why does Netflix keep giving garbage movies 95+%?
I'm going to be honest. I watched about 30 min of this movie. It's a decent premise with a C- execution. But my real question is why Netflix keep trying to tell me that I'd like garbage films. The Rift was the most ridiculous (you can see my review of that). It's definitely one of the worst movies I've ever seen and Netflix gave it a 97% for me.
This film just has a hackneyed plot, is poorly acted (except for John Cusack who is fine), and has really poor writing. You always know a story is going to suck when a voice over has to tell you what the story should be showing you.
But seriously, Netflix, your algorithm used to be fairly decent. Now I feel like its trying to make me watch garbage and convince me to like it.
Hereditary (2018)
On my top 20 horror movies of all time list.
This is not a monsters jumping out of darkness going "boo" type of horror movie. Don't come into this thinking it's a sensationalist monster-makeup horror movie or a jump-scare horror movie. It's so much more than that. Two things make this movie fantastic. First, it's a meditation on anguish so real and believable that it's really hard to take at times. Toni Collette delivers a scene of overwhelming pain and anguish that could win her an Oscar. So much pain that, to borrow from Col. Walter E. Kurtz, "I wanted to rip my teeth out; I didn't know what I wanted to do." It's just a damned good movie about loss and pain, to say nothing of it being a truly creepy horror story. Second, the pacing is phenomenal. It's a slow burn at first, in which the creep-factor slowly builds. By the time you reach the climax...I don't know, I'll just say that my jaw literally dropped open once the climax started.
I'm a horror junkie. I love all kinds of horror movies from comedy-horror like Cabin in the Woods to paranoid horror like John Carpenter's The Thing to out-and-out silly horror like Dead Alive to drama horror like Rosemary's Baby. This is something more like Rosemary's Baby. Rosemary's Baby was fantastic not just because it was about a woman giving birth to the anti-Christ, but because it was a claustrophobic vision of the social powerlessness of being a woman in 1960s America. This is like that. It's going to be a horror classic for sure. I can't decide where it fits in my list of all-time favorite horror movies, but it's top 20 at least.
It's also a movie you need to see twice. Honestly, though, I'm going to have to give it a minute before I see it again. It's pretty rough (in a good way).
The Rift: Dark Side of the Moon (2016)
Music absolutely ruins what would be a decent B-movie
This movie kind of wants to be a Roadside Picnic knockoff with a dash of Lovecraft ("death is dead"). I watch a lot of B-level sci-fi and horror. It would have been fine for that. The lead actress does a great job. Actually, if I were her, I'd be *pissed*. Because the movie is rendered unwatchable by the music.
It's like the guy doing the score thought that the movie was really just a venue for him to perform his music. The music is just totally over-bearing and has nothing at all to do with what the characters are doing. At one point, they're driving in a car, having a mundane conversation meant to give us some important character backstory. The music is this crazy, heavy, undulating acid-guitar riffs. They're just talking! Have some soft string instruments in the background!
I'd say don't watch this, but really you should watch it for about 10 min just to see how absurd this is. I've never seen a movie so thoroughly destroyed by the music. The guy isn't even a bad musician. It's just that he clearly didn't care about whatever was going on in the movie and wanted it to be about him. Again, if I were the lead actress, I'd be pissed.
Una (2016)
You have to watch it til the end
I think most of the negative comments I read here are people mad at two things. First, they're mad that Una herself seems ambivalent about the relationship she at 13 with this man. Part of her is mad at Ray, but part of her clearly misses him. It even kind of looks like maybe she's only mad because he left her, not because he statutorily raped her. Second, it allows Ray the space to say that he's not really a pedophile, but just loved this particular girl at that time. It clearly wants the viewer to consider whether this was a truly loving relationship that was only complicated by the age issue. People justifiably do not want to consider such a thing and, if you're like my wife, turned it off. I came back to finish it because I was interested to see how it was going to resolve. And the acting and cinematography are phenomenal.
Here's where the movie saves itself and proves it isn't what my wife thought it was.
You get your first glimpse at true Ray in the warehouse when he starts saying stuff to Una like "You were just so wise for your years." That's the kind of manipulative crap that pedophiles use to "groom" their victims. It harkens back to past pedophile Ray. It passes quickly, but it's clear that there's more to Ray than he's been showing us.
I'm skipping a bunch. In the end, they go to a garden party at Ray's house where Una discovers that he married a woman who has her own very cute 13 year old daughter. Suddenly Ray sees that he's in danger. He follows Una out and starts telling her again how special she was and how he's never been attracted to another young girl etc. He's clearly full of shit. At that moment, Una realizes that he's been full of shit for however many years. She realizes how stupid she's been for holding a candle for this guy, and she leaves, feeling disgusted. Ray turns around and everyone saw *something* happen. He's got some explaining to do and it's probably not going to go well for him.
But here's why I love this movie.
It turns the *viewer* into Una. At the beginning we're thinking this guy is a creepo, but maybe it was just this momentary thing and he's not *really* a pedophile. Maybe he even really loved her, even if having sex with her was wrong. The film forces us into Una's ambivalence. It's only in the last few moments that we do a 180 along with Una. She and the viewer realize in the same moment that Ray is and always has been a predator.
If you don't watch it until the end, you might think it's defending statutory rape. It's not. It's just trying to take you on a journey with a woman who is still on a hard journey, processing her abuse. For that reason, it's a powerful film