Anticipation makes the heart grow fonder, or something like that. Back in 2020 when the plan was to go to a movie theater each week--you know, before the world ended--Antlers was a movie I was pumped to see. It's a mainstream wendigo movie! That's a cryptid I am inordinately fond of! And thankfully, the anticipation paid off better than The Lodge, because this movie is certainly passable.
3.0 stars
It was fine.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Everybody's got a movie they think is overrated. Some are contrarians--check out the 1 star reviews of any of the more famously well received films for examples--while others just don't get the hype. I find myself in that second camp with the original Dawn of the Dead, a film that just went on longer than it needed to while not really doing much. Oh man, am I already hitting the inevitable decline in quality this early in October of the Living Dead? This could be a problem...
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
COVID fucked up a lot of stuff. Case in point, Marvel celebrated the release of Thor: Love and Thunder because that meant they had finally caught up with all the projects announced at San Diego Comic Con 2019 (that had a release date). November 5, 2021? Whoopsie! But it's here now, and it's getting... very mixed reviews. And I kind of agree. To an extent, at least.
Scream 4 (2011)
I guess it makes sense that Scream--the unoriginally titled fifth movie in the Scream franchise--came out a little over a decade after Scream 4, since Scream 4 came out a decade after Scream 3. It's the franchise that just can't stay dead and refuses to let Sidney Prescott live a happy life. No, it's a neverending parade of misery, as people around her are deranged enough that murdering people for clout seems like a good idea. I mean, it makes for a fun watch, but it's a bit depressing when you think about it too hard.
Scream 2 (1997)
Man, it sure sucks to be Sidney Prescott. If it wasn't bad enough that her boyfriend tried to kill her--spoilers for the first Scream, I guess, even though I have no idea why you would read this post if you didn't know the events of the first film--but her life continues to be a nightmare over the next several sequels. The girl just can't catch a break! And so we continue the franchise with Scream 2, a sequel with some parts much better than the original, but overall just not as up to snuff. It was fine, is what I'm saying.
Make the Yuletide Gay (2009)
Oh, you thought you I was done with Christmas movies just because the 25th had come and gone? Nope! This month had several interruptions to the theme, so I'm making up for it by finishing the week off with a few more holiday films. And hopefully some good ones since January's theme is... it's going to be bad. I honestly don't know if I can keep it up through all of that month.
Virus (1999)
Every movie is somebody's least favorite movie. That's just the law of averages, in my mind. I can look up just about any movie generally regarded as "good" or "a classic" and find 1 star reviews saying it's boring, or just sucks. But while most people can safely ignore idontknowiknowthatidontknow's review of The Shawshank Redemption, "if this film is #2 of all time, then i am Jesus Christ returning to burn this trash," big names saying they hate a movie they actually were in is worth noticing. Case in point, Mrs. Jamie Lee Curtis has said on multiple occasions that Virus is the worst movie she's ever been in, which is a bold claim to make about a fairly okay movie.
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992)
I've seen all ten Hellraiser movies before, but most of them were a long time ago. I remembered the first two adhering to Mr. Clive Barker's vision and being pretty good, the last two were absolute dog shit, and the ones in the middle were hit or miss. So I went into Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth not expecting much. They're brining back Pinhead after his noble sacrifice in Hellbound: Hellraiser II? Already starting on a bad foot. But turns out this was better than I remember, in part because it has something intersting to say about abusive relationships.
Django (2017)
Django is an unusual name, isn't it? The only people I knew with that name were characters in westerns--white Django in 1966's Django and black Django in Django Unchained--or the genetic base for Boba Fett. Yes, I know that one's actually Jango, but still. Turns out it's a Romani name, which makes using it for a western hero extra unusual. Why pick that name out of all the ones available? It's almost like there was some famous person named Django that the filmmakers were referencing, but what are the odds of that?
Beethoven (1992)
Once upon a time, I found out that a friend of mine was a big fan of the movie Beethoven. You know, the one about the big, slobbery dog? Anyway it turns out it had more sequels than you would expect, so I bought him a DVD collection as a gift to him and punishment to everyone else at Movie Night. But then COVID hit and Movie Night disbanded for over a year. But once we started back up, the Beethoven movies were back on the menu! Until a few weeks ago when more COVID shenanigans started preventing us from watching the final film. I'm not saying that this DVD collection started the coronavirus, but I do think it's a cursed object, here to inflict suffering and ruin unto our world.
Chwineka Watches 