Tag: thriller
-
Saw IV (2007)
I think just about every major franchise reaches a point where the original creators are no longer directly involved in it. George Lucas sold Star Wars, Clive Barker absolutely hates most of the Hellraiser movies after his first two, and co-creators Mr. James Wan and Mr. Leigh Whannell were just producers for Saw IV. So how was it with them taking a backseat? Find out in the latest chapter of Saw-mhain!
-
Hostel (2005)
As it turns out, there aren’t enough Saw movies to have every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in October dedicated to them. I’m left with three extra days during Saw-mhain, and you know what torture porn franchise has only three films? House of 1000 Corpses! And also Hostel, which is what we’re actually talking about today. And the first of the trilogy is… good? Better than expected, at least!
-
Saw (2004)
You didn’t think a little thing like a hiatus would stop me from celebrating the entire month of Halloween, did you? My tradition of a yearly October event lives on with Saw-mhain, a pun that works best if you know Irish /Gaeilge. Oh yes, the syllable break of Samhain (SAH-win) is Sa-mhain, because fuck you, that’s why. Gaeilge is a bastard language.
-
Broadcast Signal Intrusion (2021)
Sometimes it’s hard to put into words why a movie didn’t resonate with me. Using a recent example, Antlers was a perfectly fine movie with a pretty basic ending, but it just didn’t live up to my expectations. And that’s the case with Broadcast Signal Intrusion. The creepy atmosphere is on point, but the ambiguous ending just didn’t land. And I’m usually a huge fan of ambiguous endings! So let’s analyze what I think didn’t work.
-
Old (2021)
Saying you’re not a fan of Mr. M Night Shyamalan’s later work is a pretty basic opinion these days. No one enjoyed The Last Airbender; and while The Happening is generally pointed to as his worst film, I will go to my grave saying Lady in the Water is objectively worse. So I did not have high hopes for Old when I first heard about it. And now that I’ve seen it, I can say that it’s another disappointment from a man who had so much potential. What a twist.
-
Becky (2020)
I feel like I usually have a fairly good idea on what a movie is about just from the premise. Not specifically every twist and turn, but for the most part I can watch a trailer and figure out if the movie’s going to be a trainwreck or not. And I absolutely expected Becky to be a disaster. All you have to do is look at Mr. Kevin James and the swastika tattoo on the back of his head! Paul Blart as a neo-Nazi, trying a serious role? Bound to be a disaster. So imagine my surprise when this movie…
-
Twisted Pair (2018)
I honestly don’t know what to say about this movie. Neil Breen is an auteur with a specific vision on the merging of humanity and advanced technology, and he wants to share that vision with us. Doesn’t matter that he’s an awful filmmaker and his movies are utterly incomprehensible, I guess.
-
Life (2017)
I will never not be amazed at how some movies just… sneak past me. Like sure, movies come out all the time and sometimes I’m just not paying attention, but how did a movie from 5 years ago starring Mr. Jake Gyllenhaal and Mr. Ryan Reynolds slip by? And it’s a sci-fi horror? This feels like an intentional slight and I will not stand for it.
-
Run (2020)
Trailers lie all the time. Sometimes it’s for good reasons, like Avengers: Infinity War hiding how many Infinity Stones Thanos had when he fought Captain America. And sometimes it’s for bad reasons, like Slender Man cutting a bunch of scenes that would explain what the hell was going on while apparently forgetting that they were left in the trailers. Then you have a movie like Run which lies like a fucking pro.
-
Red Christmas (2016)
I had the option to watch something good for today’s post. Friends have recommended Make the Yuletide Gay to me for a while now, but for whatever reason I just wasn’t feeling it at the moment. No, I was in the mood for something absolutely awful. Just some utter dogshit. But because it’s December–Christmas Eve today, in fact–it has to be festive. Well good thing there’s Red Christmas, a movie about an aborted fetus that survived and seeks revenge on his mother (Mrs. Dee Wallace). No, this isn’t the only “survived being aborted” movie, and yes, I’ll get to Hanger…