haskel-72951

Remember when Scout Taylor-Compton had a career? I mean a REAL career, when she was landing decent roles in theatrical films, not in cut rate, bottom of the barrel garbage like this. Maybe she needs a new agent, maybe she made the wrong people mad...who knows. Anyway, this alleged film is absolutely laughably bad. From the horrible acting, the nonexistent production values, and that stupid song - "they turned us into killers/we're the Millers. Seriously, grownups sing that, more than once. I watch a lot of low budget movies. I find some gems, I find a lot of trash. This one is decidedly in the trash category. Nothing to see here, move along.

I will never understand the need to go online and bash a very good movie. Have I bashed horrible movies? Yes. This is far from that. This is Shymalon at his best. I put it a notch above Split and one below Unbreakable. That's high praise from me. As a side note, I hated The Village, The Happening, and (ugh) Lady In The Water so I'm not exactly a big fan of the guy. This, however, is first rate filmmaking. I'm sure I'll get hate over this review, but if I can get a few folks to watch this as it is intended to be seen with an open mind, I'm OK with it. Willis is later Willis, yes. Jackson is good as usual. But McAvoy...man what an amazing actor.

The Unheard has a runtime of 2 hours and 5 minutes. It feels three times that long. The main reason for that is this film has no idea what it wants to be. Is it a body horror? A psychological thriller? A ghost story? A serial killer movie? Well, it tries to be all this and succeeds at none. The movie suffers from its runtime, it could have used a rewrite with an emphasis on choosing one direction and also an editor that wasn't afraid to speak up. A decent cast is basically wasted in a boring mess of a movie that is bloated beyond reason. Oh, and if you are epileptic or suffer from motion sickness, stay far away from it. The director really thinks strobe lights and high frequency noise is cool. It's not.

First the good news: this movie is not absolutely terrible, like so many films I find on Tubi. It's actually somewhat entertaining. The bad news is that it's yet another low budget thriller you've never heard of that Eric Roberts shows up in. It's a voice role only, but still...if I see the name Eric Roberts in an indie movie I usually won't bother to watch. Somehow, he's managed to show up in a British indie and I didn't notice before hitting play. He actually nails it in this one though, as he is capable of doing when he isn't just phoning it in for a check. The lead actress is convincing enough to make you care. The first hour is rather slow, but act three makes it almost worth it. Almost. It's a fair time passer.

I love a good found footage movie. Thing is, out of 10 found footage movies one will be watchable. Out of ten watchable ones, two will be better than fair. This is not one of those. With despicable characters and impossible occurrences combined with a slow pace this was doomed from the word go. The ONLY thing getting this a two star rating from me as opposed to a one star is the accuracy with which it portrays "influencers". Spend an hour on the cesspool that is Instagram for confirmation. With that said, there is no reason to watch this horrid, amateurish, lifeless imposter of a movie. None. Don't bother.

First of all, the 8-10 star reviews are hilarious. Apparently every member of the cast and crew and their family members were required to write a fake review. How's this sound for a horror movie: husband and wife paranormal investigators who are traumatized by the loss of a child take a case in a strange little town and odd things happen. Been done, right? Not like this, it hasn't. You see, our "investigators" do not spend a second investigating - unless you call pretending to write and taking pictures an investigation. There apparently was cult activity at the site they're "investigating" but it's too much trouble to give us any real background on that. There may be a possession, we're not sure - that would have taken some effort to explore. Oh, and there may or may not be some parallel realities. Who knows? This is just a mess. An incoherent, dirt cheap, mess. If anyone involved in the making of this incompetent pile of no budget crap never works in film again it will be a blessing.

Some low budget horror movies work in spite of bad performances. This is not one of those movies. The acting is far from the problem here. This is one of the strangest examples of "what could have been" that I've ever seen. Simply put: good acting in a bad movie still results in a bad movie. The basic concept is fine, but the writing is not. It is so clear from early on where this is going, yet the characters that aren't in on it seem oblivious. There's no conceivable way that's possible. The most self centered actor on earth could see what's going on here. The cast of this deserve better, and I'd like to see them in an actual good horror movie. This one is not it.

Fantastic little film. A tight, compact thriller that works on (mostly) every level. Will Patton does what he's been doing for so long now - he delivers a great performance in a complex role and does it in the most "everyday guy" way. The script is efficient and effective, it is exactly the right amount of action and family drama with dialogue that is actually believable. As Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com said, I believed every minute of it. The only negative, and it is really just me being selfish, is that it is too short. I would have enjoyed a little more backstory. That aside, it is absolutely worth a watch and Will Patton's performance from beginning to end is riveting.

This movie makes me ask one question: HOW? How are the Russo Brothers - respectable filmmakers- Executive Producers on this dud? How did someone get Natalie Dyer, Asa Butterfield, AND Annabeth Gish to sign on to this lame project? How did a script this bad ever get greenlit? How did it somehow gross over a million dollars globally when it should have never been anywhere near a theater? We will never know the answers to these questions. What we DO know is this is a first rate turd of a movie with zero redeeming qualities other than it is mercifully short. Even the sound stinks in this trash. Stay away.

A trailer park. Interesting. Why have I never seen a horror movie set in a trailer park before? That and the central concept - mummers - help elevate this from the mediocrity it would have been otherwise. The mummers concept is weird to say the least, and it the movie stayed with that instead of going the direction that it ultimately does it would have been much better. As it is, this is an average middle of the road thriller. A slasher that loses its edge halfway in. The performances are decent, actually they're better than the script deserves. I don't do spoilers so I won't go any further with a review other than for free, on Tubi, it's not bad.

Slasher movies are historically low budget affairs. From Halloween to Friday the 13th, The Burning to Maniac, low budget movies that overcame that to be effective films. Time's Up is certainly low budget, it is obvious from first to last frame. That's where any and all similarities to the classics listed above end. This movie is less than 90 minutes long but seems to last an eternity. A promising premise quickly falls apart due to a lousy script. That script lends perfectly to the amateur direction and mostly wooden performances by a cast of unknowns that will almost certainly stay that way. Not worth a watch.

I loved every single thing about this movie. As usual, the mainstream critics are hilariously wrong. Then again, these are the same morons that loved A Ghost, The Babadook, and Skinnamarink. It is certainly not for everyone- it is pitch black, humorless, mercilessly violent, and at times full on sadistic. The performances alone in this film are worth praise - particularly Maika Monroe, who is a full fledged star in the making. Jamie Foxx turns in a performance that no one could see coming. Cassavettes has made a movie that requires a lot of unpacking, not at all easy to do but well worth the effort. Watch it, draw your own conclusions, don't let "critics" keep you from seeing good movies.

I watch a lot of low budget, amateurish horror movies. It's a curse of having seen what seems like everything. Sometimes I find a gem, usually I find painfully awful trash that is nearly unwatchable. Midnight Screening is neither of those. It is simply an underwritten, poorly acted b movie that takes forever to get to the point and has zero idea what to do when it gets there. It is instantly forgettable, because it's not good enough to linger in your thoughts and not bad enough to get a negative reaction. It just "is". In fact it is so forgettable that you may accidentally hit play again at a later date because you don't remember watching it. Absolutely nothing to see here.

I am a huge fan of Ricky Umberger's Fear Footage. I consider it among the top ten found footage horror films. The sequels were average, at best. I was happy to see he went in a new direction with his newest film Project Eerie, or so I thought. It is yet another anthology, this time without the mysterious disappearing house and with three kids breaking into an abandoned government building and finding a dvd instead of an old vcr with a tape. I can forgive that, especially with a first segment as strong as this one is. It doesn't last unfortunately. The second segment is just ok and the third...man. If you're going to have segment with paranormal investigators at an Amish family's home, it's probably a good idea not to have ceiling fans running and a light fixture in every room. That kind if oversight is huge. All in all, it's just an ok film - which is disappointing with such a strong start.

Finally, Marcel Walz makes a decent movie. Is is perfect? God no, but it's better than anything he's done before. The director of the absolutely horrid remake of Blood Feast had made several really lousy direct to video then streaming films and this had the look of yet another. Surprisingly, this turned out to be decent. The acting - for a change is actually alright. No one's winning an award, but nobody really stunk it up either. The script is acceptable, not brilliant but alright. Then there's the direction. Let's be honest, til now Marcel Walz has been Uwe Boll with a breast fetish, but he reigned it in just enough for this to be a watchable and fairly entertaining movie.

I remember seeing this film in theaters on its opening weekend and being blown away. I was not surprised. After all, it was from the Dowdle brothers, the sibling team that brought us what I consider the absolute pinnacle of the found footage/faux documentary genre: The Poughkeepsie Tapes. That film, through all the challenges it originally took to see it, blew the doors off the prior high water mark in the sub genre The Blair Witch Project, which was at best a hilarious unintentional comedy. As Above So Below doesn't quite reach Poughkeepsie heights but it isn't far off either. With a great script, superb cinematography, and realistic performances, it is certainly in the upper echelon of this sub genre. Highly, highly recommended.

The Creeping is in a way just what you'd think it is: a very British horror movie with chills than full on scares. On the other hand, it is also a very well crafted drama about the effects of dementia on a family, as well as Hammer-like gothic horror. It is quite intentionally made to look like it was produced in the 1970s or 80s. Perhaps this was a stylistic choice, perhaps it was to somewhat cover for the budgetary constraints that led to some cheap looking CGI. Either way, it worked and I enjoyed it. I wouldn't have paid to rent it, but for free on Tubi it makes for some pretty decent entertainment.

This is a great comedy, it's an even better dog movie. As a dog lover, I immediately hated Doug, the owner of Shi-err Reggie. The sad reality is that there are millions of those people. Folks who have zero business even being around the greatest animals on earth. But that's another discussion. I saw Strays tonight on its first day in theaters and loved it. It is a foul, raunchy, subversive, brilliant ride and I loved every minute of it. Yes, there are a few things that could be improved but not many. The ending is actually perfect and the mid credit scene is hilarious. Ignore the morons and see this movie.

There are few things that are certain in this post COVID world. One thing that is an absolute certainty is that a Tubi Original with Michael Madsen and Robert Davi in the cast will be flat out awful. With this knowledge, I gave it a shot anyway. I shouldn't have. This movie - I'm using that word very, very loosely- is horrendous. Stupefyingly horrendous. It isn't Madsen or Davi's fault. The former is barely in the movie and the latter actually is the lone bright spot. As is the norm with a failure of this magnitude, the script is the cause of said failure. A good location, game actors, and some fair cinematography cannot overcome a trash fire of a script. Give this a hard pass. You're welcome.

Do not - I cannot stress this enough- piss off a burned out teacher with anger issues while he's going through a divorce. I had zero expectations for this movie, an indie with almost nothing available in the way of reviews from critics and a premiere with absolutely no attention on pay per view. I waited for it to be available on Prime or Tubi, but it would have been worth a rental. Brian Austin Green plays the aforementioned teacher and gives a performance that makes you wonder why he doesn't work more. The rest of the cast is as good, there's not a subpar performance anywhere. The only flaw really is we could use a little more backstory on how the teacher got to this point, but as it is this is solid entertainment and better than a lot of thrillers that get theatrical runs these days.

This one is tough. It is entertaining and suspenseful and certainly held my attention but there's a real hole in the plot as well. I won't go into great detail as I absolutely do not do spoilers under any circumstance. It has a very small cast as it is set nearly entirely in a car and for the most part the performances are good - a little overacting, but hey it's a low budget thriller. It is directed well, ratcheting up the tension slowly and doing the best possible to make up for the quite large hole in the plot. All in all, this is a decent watch. It's free on Tubi, so you're out absolutely nothing to judge for yourself.

It's hard to put into words how truly astoundingly awful this "movie" - that is a very generous use of the word - really is. The world's oldest looking high school students are kicked out of a party after a fight. They they spend nearly an hour walking, talking, driving, egging houses, lighting poop on fire, ringing doorbells - you know, incredibly dull running time filler stuff. One disappears , so they drive, walk, and talk about that. They make two attempts to return to the party. They are not welcome. Then around an hour into an 85 minute movie a cult shows up, as if the filmmakers suddenly remembered "oh yeah, it's a horror movie." By this time, there is no salvaging this mess and a lame suburban death cult comes off as an afterthought. Give this one a hard pass, you HAVE to have something better to do.

I found this movie on YouTube of all places. I had never heard of it, and usually when the genre is spaghetti westerns that's a poor start but not this time. The spaghetti westerns of the 70s were a totally different affair than those of the 60s. Usually the films followed one of two paths: silly comedies such as the Trinity movie with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer or ultra violent, like Cutthroats Nine. This is closer to the latter category but honestly feels more like a late 60s effort from Corbucci or Garrone with a little more violence. The cast - especially the always dependable William Berger - is up to snuff and the overall production is above average. This is a lost/forgotten gem of a spaghetti western that deserves to be seen.

Seriously. Tubi, we need to talk. You need to stop with the whole "Tubi originals" thing. They're bad. Really bad. Laughably bad. Terror Train was an insult to the original, but it was better than this. This is what happens when a cheap as it gets production company makes a movie so bad Lifetime Movie Network doesn't want it. Noy one thing about this is adequate: the script is eyeroll inducingly poor, the acting is as wooden as the lumber section at Lowe's, and the director mails it in. Who could blame her, really? The first two acts are quite poor but the real craptactular is saved for act three, which features some of the mist hilariously inept makeup effects of all time. Avoid.

Other user reviews would lead you to believe that this is absolutely worthless. It isn't. It IS very low budget. The acting is hit or miss. It is highly derivative. It's also fairly entertaining. The slasher subgenre has never been rife with originality from the eighties on. How can you be original with a central idea that has been done a million times? The trick is to make it entertaining and this one manages that plus some. It also falls into a few traps along the way, like offering a cast of characters that is almost universally unlikeable. And lets be honest, the social influencer thing is more played out than a bunch of investigators in a haunted location. Don't expect greatness or innovation, but it passes the time fairly well.