paul_haakonsen

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 2023 Filipino horror movie "Ang Mga Kaibigan Ni Mama Susan" (aka "Mama Susan's Friends") here in 2025. Sure, I had never heard about the movie, and thus didn't know what I was in for. But it being a horror movie was essentially all the persuasion I needed to give the movie a chance.

Writer Bob Ong put together a somewhat bland and mundane script. Running at nearly 2 hours, nothing much of any interest had happened at 60 minutes into the playtime, and it was getting a dull experience sitting through this, hoping something exciting or scary would happen.

Given my limited exposure to the Filipino cinema then I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. But I will say that the acting performances were good, just a shame that they didn't have a more thrilling and entertaining script to bring to life on the screen.

Visually then the movie was okay. It was a fairly low-key special effects movie, but it worked out nicely enough, as the effects were done to emphasize the situations in the movie, and not to impress the audience visually.

Maybe someone native to the Philippines would enjoy "Ang Mga Kaibigan Ni Mama Susan" more than I did.

Given my love of Asian horror cinema, I have to say that director Chito S. Roño's 2023 movie "Ang Mga Kaibigan Ni Mama Susan" wasn't particularly noteworthy. There are far more entertaining and scary movies out there in the Asian cinema. And this was not even close to some of the more enjoyable of Filipino horror movies out there.

Would I recommend you to sit down and watch "Ang Mga Kaibigan Ni Mama Susan"? No, not really. The movie just simply didn't have anything thrilling or scary to offer, aside from a rather slow paced narrative where nothing much happened.

And running at 113 minutes, the movie could have seriously benefitted from a more round-handed trim in the editing room, to cut away some of the all the pointless fillers that prolonged the runtime of the movie.

My rating of director Chito S. Roño's 2023 movie "Ang Mga Kaibigan Ni Mama Susan" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

I stumbled upon the 2014 family sci-fi adventure movie "Earth to Echo" by random chance here in 2025. And with it being a movie that I had neither heard about or watched, of course I opted to check it out. I didn't really know what I was in for here, but the movie's cover boasted "E. T. for a new generation", so I figured it couldn't be all bad.

I have to say that I found the script and narrative to be a bit boring actually. I was struggling to enjoy the movie, and it was by no accounts comparable to the iconic classic "E. T." movie, not even remotely. Writers Henry Gayden and Andrew Panay didn't particularly entertain me with the script that they penned down for this movie.

"Earth to Echo" has a cast ensemble of all unfamiliar talents to me, and that was actually something that spoke in favor of the movie. Yeah, I do enjoy watching new talents on the screen whenever I watch a movie. And I will say that the acting performances in the movie were fair.

The effects in the movie were adequate, but I can't claim to be impressed.

Watchable, sure if you have younger children in the family, but this was hardly an outstanding movie experience. And I doubt that I will ever return to watch the movie a second time.

My rating of director Dave Green's 2014 movie "Earth to Echo" lands on a generous five out of ten stars.

Of course I was not familiar with this 2025 horror movie from writer and director Michael Rock prior to stumbling upon it by sheer luck. And with it being a horror movie, and given my love of all things horror, of course I had to check it out. Now, had I known that it was a 'found footage' type of movie, I would have tossed the movie aside like yesterday's garbage. Yeah, I absolutely loathe the ridiculous 'found footage' genre of movies.

The storyline didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell. Writer Michael Rock put together an insanely bland and pointless storyline. I am at a loss how watching people wandering around in the wilderness and chatting is considered horror.

I was not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list. And that is actually something that I do enjoy in movies, so that was a plus here. But I can't claim to be impressed with the performances.

With "The Ruck March" being a 'found footage' movie, of course you have to expect questionable and shoddy camera work. And guess what? That is exactly what you are getting.

Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time, money or effort on this dumpster fire of a movie.

My rating of writer and director Michael Rock's 2025 'found footage' movie "The Ruck March" lands on a very, very generous one out of ten stars.