Scream 2 (1997)

After the success of the first one, it was inevitable that there would be a sequel which seemed to come out about 15 minutes after the first. The opening scene is quite good as a film based on the events of the first film has been made called Stab and I honestly don't know how we haven't had a Stab film or limited series. It is funny that Jada Pinkett Smith is only in this opening scene and yet she is on the poster. This is one of the few scenes that I can remember from the Scary Movie film (I think the first one, although I only saw the first two). Like Drew Barrymore, Sarah Michelle Gellar plays the famous actress in a slasher film for about 10 minutes and like Barrymore, Gellar’s involvement is perfectly fine and ends in a horrific death. 

David Arquette comes across even sadder in this film that he did in the previous film. When Dewey gets stabbed and is seemingly killed, it's apparently due to the scar tissue that he somehow managed to survive. This is apparently the same scar tissue that didn't save him in whatever Scream film he ends up being killed in. Liev Schreiber plays Cotton who is the one accused of killing Sidney’s mom but is released and is sort of in the background wanting a big tv interview to start his road to redemption and gets his redemption when he shoots Debbie. For some reason I found it hard to believe that Jerry O’Connell is a college student. I don't know how old he was in 1997 but even then he looked too old and doesn't really 

Laurie Metcalfe is good as Debbie Salt. I loved how Sidney recognised who she was even though Gail didn't and the get around was that Debbie had some work done. It doesn't explain how Gail didn't even click that there was something familiar with her. Timothy Olyphant like Jerry O’Connell looked a little bit too old for a college student but gets away with it and gives the sort of performance that Olyphant is known for. 

Also like the first film, this film is almost too smart for its own good. The discussion about sequels and when they list sequels that are better than the original The Godfather gets brought up and as well as Terminator 2 and Aliens but when Empire Strikes Back gets mentioned it is immediately dismissed as being part of a trilogy even though at this point in time Aliens was part of a trilogy and so was The Godfather Part 2 but thats a minor geeky gripe. The references to movies apart from this scene don't seem quite as wink wink as they were in the previous film. 

The twist like the first film is ok. The fact that one of the people involved were related to people from the first was somewhat predictable but I suppose it was inevitable. The first half of the film did feel like a bit of a slow burner which I doubt was intended. Once the action starts then the film picks up but it doesn't fall into that category which they talk about in the film of being sequel that is superior to the first. It's not terrible but its just ok.

Scream (1996)

Back in 2025 (or last year if you are reading this in 2026), my local cinema did a four film marathon which I thought was great. This year they have done a Scream double bill which is fine but it would have been nice to have a four film marathon. It’s fair to say that Scream did reinvent the genre that it was parodying. The opening scene sets up the film with Drew Barrymore ended up being the first victim of the film. It was a great scene that was tense and also very dramatic.

The film is very 90s which might be a stupid thing to say but it has somehow managed to age well. I think people of a certain age will have to be told what a video store is and why they were so busy. The film follows Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) who in the last year lost her mom who was murdered and when the murders start, the media circus comes into town and one of those people are Gail Weathers (Courtney Cox).

The twist that Billy (Skeet Ulrich) killed Sydney’s Mom because she was dating Billy's dad which forced his mom to leave was a good enough motive. It's easy to say now but it was clear that there was something not right about him because he just looks like a psycho. The film does a great job of throwing in red herrings to try and throw us of the sent.

It's always funny seeing Henry Winkler in this film as Himbry because it is such a different type of performance than what he was known for. Being a bit nuts only for him to be killed so soon was obviously the classic red herring but I just thought they could have strung it out a bit longer.

Neve Campbell is quite good as Sydney. She is the right sort of leading lady as she is a strong character but still has the flaws that make her character interesting in this sort of film. Courtney Cox was at the peak of her stardom with Friends only starting a couple of years earlier. The arrogant news reporter who wrote stories on Sydney’s mom cause the needed. Inflict between the two but by the end she has become a nicer person.

David Arquette is good as Dewey although he is never treated as a serious person. He is what constitutes the leading man but he is more of a supporting role to Sydney. He gets a romantic subplot with Gail and it is always going to be amusing that he and Courtney Cox ended up married. Matthew Lillard is funny. There is a reference about the blood used matching what was used on Carrie and then Lillard appears with the TV show Carrie having just been released. Once it's revealed that he is involved in the killings, his performance is somewhat over the top. Somehow Lillard manages to pull it off and it works in this film.

Jamie Lee Curtis is only in this film cause they show bit of Halloween but she is mentioned so many times that it felt like she was in the film and this leads me to the main issue is that the film does come across by today’s standards as a bit to clever for its own good. All the rules and references were ok but it does come dangerously close to be annoying. If you're making a film and you are in on the joke then you have to be careful not to be too up yourself.

The film is an 18 which for a film that is 30 years old surprised me but I suppose how much knife crime is an issue in society the 18 certificate is perhaps justified. I also forgot how much blood there is. It isn’t an excessively gory film but there is enough blood that you get your moneys worth. Overall I enjoyed this film. Despite being dated by the 90's fashion and attitudes, the film gets away with it. I didn’t see it at the time but  many years later. It’s an important film in the horror genre but I think if you want scarier films then there are pleny out there but this one should be watched and even when you know the twist it is still fun to watch.

The Exorcist (1973)

There was a time when the idea of going to see a film like The Exorcist would have been the last thing I would have wanted to do. When I think about how my film watching habits have improved, I think about films like Alien and this to show how I have developed/improved. I doubt I will ever enjoy films like Saw, Hostel or Terrifier but time will tell I suppose.. Watching the film in the cinema has been a great experience. I think the film was great before this cinema visit but watching at the cinema made it even better. This film is rated as an 18 which for a film that came out half a century ago shows how shocking some of the things that happen in this film still are. The set up is simple, a young girl is possessed by something calming to be the devil and two priests try and help. That's it. However the film is also about faith and how something so horrific tries to test that faith and our ability to confront what terrors appear in front of us.

Linda Blair is great as Regan. Part of the reason why the film is so effective is that Regan comes across as a likeable young girl. The dynamic between her and her mother is lovely to watch and is heartbreaking when things start to go wrong. She isn't portrayed as needy, or entitled or anything that would become commonplace in today's horror films but she is instead portrayed as a simple and likeable young girl. When she is at the hospital having all the tests, you feel for her because and this is just how medicine was in the 70's but the scans and procedures seem so aggressive. It's hard to fine kids who can act (especially in the 70's) and Blair gives a superb performance. Ellen Burstyn is also great as Chris. In the first half of the film, when she is trying to find out what is wrong with Regan, she slowly starts to despair when the tests don't show anything conclusive and when she tries to get Karras to do something and he isn't much help to begin with the exasperation is hard to watch. Again the relationship between Chris and Regan is lovely to watch.

Jason Miller is also great as Father Karras. He also comes across as likeable person with his own family issues. His elderly mother occupies his involvement in the film but once she dies, the grief is what drives him in the second film. Miller brings a vulnerability to the film as Karras is not happy in his current employment  Max von Sydow is great as Father Merrin. It might be strange that he appears for first ten minutes or so and then disappears for about an hour but he gives a great performance. He is the reason why the exorcism part of the film is so good because he brings an intensity to the scenes and when he is sitting on the stairs with Karras looking so despondent it is so well acted by both von Sydow and Miller. It would have been nice to have see his death on screen as it feels a bit rushed. Despite that von Sydow's involvement might be brief but brilliant.

The effects that are used in this film are great. The increasing rotting look of Regan once she is possessed is truly horrifying. Your are left in no doubt that she is possessed and like Blair's performance help make this version of Regan look truly scary. The sound effects were great in this film. The moment when Reagan is doing the spider walk down the stairs is made even more creepy because for a few seconds before you see Regan you can hear a light rumbling and then the shot of her walking with blood

The final part of the movie sees the actual Exorcism and Chris takes a backseat. This gets referred to in The Exorcist: Believer, blaming it on the patriarchy even though she is not an exorcist and her previous encounters with the possessed Regan ended in violence, she ended putting this absence down to misogyny. The fact that Karras is willing to sacrifice himself to save Regan (again forgotten by Chris in Believer). The Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films ever. It might come across as a slow burner although it shows that slow burners are great as long as things start to happen and are interesting and this film manages that. I don't know if it's my favourite but it is one of the greatest. I think that despite the film being 53 years old it still holds up better than films that came out just a few years ago. It reminds you everything that is wrong with The Exorcist: Believer and makes me looking forward to The Exorcist: Matyrs which is coming out in March 2027. It is well acted, well written and directed superbly by William Friedkin. This is definitely a film that should be seen by anyone who enjoys horror. 

Old (2021)

Originally reviewed on October 26, 2021

M. Night Shyamalan films have a mixed track record. I feel I write that about every M. Night film but it's true. He reached his career height with films like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable and I still like Signs but then he sunk to a career low with the dull After Earth but has been on a steady return to form with his last couple of films and this film seemed to be going back to basics. A simple story that doesn't rely on computer graphics.The set up of the film is that a family arrives at a tropical beach resort and on an excursion they arrive at a beach that ages them quickly.

When they eventually decide to try and leave the beach, they are brought back to the sea so that explains why they can't leave although it took them an awfully long time before they attempted this. This film is based on a graphic novel which I confess I haven't read so I don't know how much this film deviates from the source material but I am hoping that there aren't as many characters as there are in this film because a problem that this film has is that there are too many people in the film. Too many people that we are supposed to follow and yet there need to be extra people to die in these films but there were just too many central characters.

There is a nice mystery at the heart of the film but the thing about mysteries is that you have to start dropping some hints about what's going on and M. Night never does this. Plenty of strange things happen but we never get any idea of what's going on until the end by which point I have really stopped caring and just want some answers.

Of course M. Night has to have a cameo as the coach driver but then towards the end of the film its revealed he is part of some sort of experiment where the resort is a front for a science research base that are using people on the island to test medicines on illnesses. It explained why so many people in the film had illnesses. Prisca had a stomach tumour, Chrystal has hypocalcemia, Charles who has Schizophrenia and Patricia who has epilepsy .The ‘surprise’ that Trent and Maddox survived wasn't really a surprise but served as a satisfactory way for things to wrap up at the end.

This film is one that could have lost about 30 minutes. I checked the clock timer at one point thinking that I was close to the film but discovered that only 1 hour and 20 minutes had passed. I think if this were 80-90 minutes long then the whole film would have moved along at a much better rate. I don't think it is a great film but its nowhere near as bad as After Earth but with a few tweaks, this could have been a good horror film. I wasn't really interested in things until we got off the beach which is in the final 10-15 minutes. I think this film is going to bore a lot of people but if your prepared to stick with it until the end then at least you will be satisfied.

Malignant (2021)

Originally viewed on October 13, 2021

Malignant is a James Wan film who curiously has a comic strip also named Malignant but apparently this is separate. The very first scene in set in 1993 takes place in a hospital and the acting is terrible. It makes you feel like it's a parody or a b-movie. The movie then moves to the current day where we meet Madison who is pregnant and has an abusive boyfriend/husband who smacks the back of her head against the wall and this is the catalyst for everything that happens in the movie.

The crime scene woman is played by Ingrid Bisu who co-wrote the story and is also James Wan’s wife and that explains why someone who looks so out of place in the film managed to get such a prominent role. There is also a bit where she is in the evidence room, hides when Maidson is running wild and then thats it. The scene with the cancer monster fighting all the cops was silly but I have to say it was well done. I did think a the end when Madison is free that it wouldn't be the end of the story for her because the police wouldn't let her go and even if they did then the families of all the dead police officers would not let it rest.

I don't often talk about houses in my review but this film used a house which was very similar to most houses that appear in James Wan films and at one stage me and my friend think that its the film from Insidious but it's not. Also the woman is in the attic and it turns out that its the attic in Madison’s house. When she fell through into the living room it was quite a good reveal but that's about it as far as good things to say about the house because the smoke machine was being overused to make the house seem interesting. 

The whole idea that something is growing out of the back of Maidson’s head that is like a tumor that is using her mind is quite good and the whole surgery is quite grim and gory and it seems out of place because the rest of the film seems like a Insidious/Conjuring type film. I think that had the film been gory for most of the film then it would have worked out better but the tone is all over the place.

The final act makes up for the film although I saw it with a friend who called the big reveal quite early on in the film. The jail cell scene was really good because it was the first time that the film did anything interesting. The hospital room seen is laughably bad because the sister’s acting is terrible and slightly undoes the good work in the previous couple scenes and is reduced to plot exposition by going through tapes and sneaking into the abandoned hospital.

Malignant is a very strange film. This is the weakest James Wan film but when you’ve made a billion dollars with Aquaman then you can probably get away with make substandard stuff like Malignant. Definitely disappointing.

Last Night in Soho (2021)

Originally reviewed on November 3, 2021

I don't know the last time that I was looking forward to a film quite as much as I was looking forward to Last Night in Soho. I have been waiting to see this film since last October but the pandemic kept pushing it back and for a long time I was looking forward to this and No Time to Die to the most. The set up of the film is that Eloise (Thomasin Mackenzie) travels from her home that she shares with her Gran to attend a fashion school in London but after spending one night with her nightmare dorm mates she takes up lodgings with Ms Collins played by the late great Diana Rigg. She soon starts seeing events involving Sandie from the 1960’s who is trying to become a singer but soon becomes involved with Jack (Matt Smith) and we see Sandie being ‘killed’ and the film is Eloise trying to get justice for Sandie as she seemingly starts to lose her mind.

I really love this film. Firstly, the performances are really good. Anya Taylor Joy and Thomasin McKenzie are really good and are complete contrasts of each other. Joy’s Sandie is a confident and ambitious person whilst McKenzie’s Eloise is shy and always seems like she is fighting to stay in control of what she is seeing. Matt Smith is really good as Jack. He starts off as a charming guy who can make things happen but very quickly shows his true colours and basically becomes a pimp. Terence Stamp I think has a slightly underwritten role but manages to make his character seem just as unlikeable as Jack. For a long time I honestly thought that Stamp and Smith were playing the same character. I think this might be because of how the trailers made it seem but in reality Stamp’s character was the cop that we saw in one particular flashback. Michael Ajao is very good as John who becomes Eloise’s love interest and always seems to want to help her and even when she freaks out when they are about to make out he is still trying to help her. I thought that it was a lovely performance from him. Perhaps the single best performance comes from Diana Rigg who at first seems like she is just the cranky landlady but in the final act the films reveals that she is in fact Sandie and the blood that we saw wasn't from Sandie but in fact from Jack which I genuinely didn't see any of that coming and to be honest I wouldn't have tried to work it out cause I was just enjoying what I was seeing and all the great visuals that cinematographer Jeong Jeong-hun who worked on stuff like Oldboy and the first IT film. He makes this film work and if it weren't for the great visuals then the film would have failed miserably. Diana Rigg goes out in style with a performance that might have only mae sense in the final 20 minutes but it was bloody good. The last shot of her is in a burning room and she is sitting on the end of the bed and it just a great visual and its obvious why she doesn't feature too much in the promotional material because it would have ruined the twist.

The things that dont quite work are the gang of classmates that seem to exist purely to snigger at Eloise for being slightly different to them. The night when there is the party in the dorm and she decides to move out is exactly what I would have done. The characters don't really contribute to anything although Jocasta was by far the worst. Also at the end the film decides that she can just resume her career with no apparent repercussions for nearly stabbing Jocasta with some scissors but these are minor things because everything else is amazing in this film. Some might think that the film is style over substance then I think they are missing a lot from this film. It’s not the best Edgar Wright film because its not better than Hot Fuzz but its a damn good second best and shows that Edgar Wright is more than just flashy cut scenes and transitions.

Censor (2021)

Originally reviewed on October 12, 2021

Censor is a film that I have been interested in since I heard people say good things about it. The film follows Enid who is a film censor who lost her sister years ago and after her parents declare her legally dead, she starts to get a bit unstable and believes that an actress in a film she is watching is her long lost sister. The title sequence did a great job of establishing the world that Enid is in. There are plenty of shots of movies that got caught up in the video nasties histeria of the 1970’s and 1980’s. I did spend a small portion of the film wondering what the actual censors were thinking whilst watching this film giving it the 15 certificate it got.

After the initial introduction the plot starts the ball rolling with Enid’s downward spiral when her parents pull out a death certificate whilst they are out for a meal which I thought was a bit tactless but it takes a while for Enid to start to show that anything is wrong. There is one moment where she is watching a film and she starts getting flashbacks and she gets emotional and its well done because its not over the top or cliched. I thought it was well handled.

This film centers around Enid and the thing about Niamh Algar’s performance is that its very understated for most of the film but when the story goes to the woods she becomes a different person and I thought for the entire film it was a great performance and keeps you interested. Michael Smiley’s performance is worthy of mention cause he plays a producer who makes tasteless films and so when he suffers a horrible death, its hard to feel sorry for him. 

The final act of the film is slightly confusing and I did start to lose track of what was going on. The final few moments where we see Enid take her sister back to their parents and the parents appear delighted but the picture cuts out to show the reality shows how far Enid has gone. I enjoyed this film a lot. The films looks amazing and the central performance from Niamh Algar helps me through the portions of the film that lost me. Prano Bailey-Bond directs this film very well and should be credited for keeping things tense and atmospheric from the very beginning to the very end.

The Influencer Project (2026)

This was a mystery screening at my local cinema and I had absolutely no idea what it could be. My best guess was that it could have been Clayface as it was the only horror film I was aware of so I was slightly disappointed when the BBFC title card said 'The Influencer Project' which is the first time that I was even aware that this film existed. The film had a trigger warning which is something that I don't recall seeing in a newly released film which I suspect that this is going to be the norm. The film follows influencer Chiara King (playing herself) who is on a trip to Amsterdam and is being followed by a masked stalker.

As the film progresses the tension builds up quite nicely and I don't know if it was because Other Mommy annoyed me so much but I enjoyed this film a lot more than I was expecting. The film starts off with a young girl who starts a video and ends it by hanging herself. The main issue with the film is that it isn't terribly original. You can tell from the moment the masked figure appears that they will have something to do with the young girl and that is exactly what happens as he turns out to be the father and Victor is the brother. 

The film does end with Chiara committing murder on livestream and it would have been nice to have maybe 10-15 minutes seeing the fallout. It did remind me of the ending of Ready or Not. The film ends pretty much the moment that Victor falls to his death. Chiara King does a good job as an influencer and being terrified of being followed. The scene at the flea market was well done because the search for the masked guy seemed to come out of nowhere and was a short intense moment. 

There always comes a moment in these films where they ask (usually in a found footage film) why they don't stop filming and there is poor reason given. The question is why Chiara doesn't go back home and it's because she would stand to lose I think £100,000 so there is a huge financial reason for staying in Amsterdam. 

This is the sort of film that you would see on Amazon Prime. Maybe it might even end up on Tubi but I think it's too good for Tubi. Once you get past the fact that influencers are quite insufferable people then you can enjoy it as a decent 90 minute horror film and this shows Other Mommy how to do a horror film which must be embarrassing for those at Blumhouse. This film has the same amount of blood than Other Mommy but this film has a significantly smaller budget and yet I think uses a more creative way and perhaps simplistic way.

Despite how good the film is, the most horrifying thing in the movie was that shot of Simon Cowell.

Other Mommy (2026)

From the director of pandemic film Host and The Boogeyman (which were both good) and Dashcam (which wasn't), we get one of the worst films I have seen this year and currently the worst horror film of the year. Other Mommy looked like it was going to be classic Blumhouse film. The trailer made the film look like it might be worth watching. The film follows Bella (played by Arabella Olivia Clark) who has a sort of imaginary friend who she calls Other Mommy. When the film starts, Bella already knows Other Mommy and so there is no real introduction given into what is going on. There is no real explanation why Bella of all people can see this entity.

We meet Frank who is called Uncle Frank in the way that people who aren't related to people who have kids but are close enough to be called Aunt or Uncle but for some reason Bella doesn't like Frank so she asks Other Mommy to get rid of him. To be fair Arabella Olivia Clark is the best thing about the film. I find myself sympathising with her. Jessica Chastain was a bit bland as Mommy but when she was Other Mommy I found her to be effectively creepy. 

My main issue with the film is that I just found it a bit bland. The main family just don't seem to be clicking in a narrative sense. Karen Allen comes in for a 10 minute stint and does very little so I was a bit annoyed that they wasted her. Dichen Lachman pops up for her stint and is also wasted. The whole seance in Grandma's house felt rushed and didn't feel like it was built up to in an effective way. 

I did find myself laughing at one point although I don't think it was intentional. When they go back to the house and seem to be acting like things are normal and they walk to the dining table and it is completely full of knives and other deadly weapons. I don't think it was intended because there weren't any other humorous moments. The tone is another problem with this film. It doesn't want to go quite  too serious like Obsession or Backrooms but doesn't want to go completely schlock like the Conjuring films or Insidious and they somehow manage to just be nothing at all which is quite a skill.

There are good moments such as when Frank got killed but to be honest the good moments are few and far between. The 'twist' that Daddo (Jay Duplass) wasn't Bella's biological father wasn't quite the twist that they thought it was because it was obvious from quite an early stage. Also it didn't seem to quite make sense why it would be a good time when Other Mommy was trying to kill them to pour there heart out as it didn't work and was never going to work.

The ending felt like sequel bait. The mere hint that Other Mommy may be gone felt like they couldn't end the film on a good note for some reason. This will probably make its money back so there will undoubtedly be a sequel but if it's going to be anything like this film then they shouldn't bother because it was a massive disappointment. My expectations were low and they still weren't meant. I think that Blumhouse really needs to up their game because when stuff like Obsession, Backrooms and Weapons exist, then you can't get away with putting out this type of rubbish. This film made Whistle look like a masterpiece. Whistle wasn't great but at least it attempted to have an atmosphere and try to be scary.

Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

Originally Reviewed on July 8, 2023

Let’s be honest, the Insidious series isn’t the greatest in movie history. The first one was ok, the second was not great and I don’t even remember the third one with the fourth one being interesting but only because it featured Lin Shayne in the lead role. This one returns to the main family with Patrick Wilson taking the helm behind the camera. The set up is that Dalton is off to college but his suppressed memories start to come back and his relationship with his dad Josh (Wilson) is somewhat strained.

The first half of the film is very boring. There was very little in the way of plot and it seemed like people moping around and Dalton being a dick to his dad and his dad not really sure what he should be doing. Once the plot does get going things get good but it takes a long time to get to this stage and not even jump scares make any difference. There is one jump scare that I thought was quite good and it was when Dalton was in the MRI scanner and the monster climbs towards him. 

It’s not the worst film in the series but it’s not the best. The first half really lets the film down because if I was reviewing the second half then this would be a pretty decent horror film but sadly he lack of action, the lack of any energy from the film or actors does the film no favours. I thought that Patrick Wilson does a good job in the directors chair but I think that the script lets him down. Ty Simpkins is the real star oft the film but doesn’t come across very well to begin with as he is horrible to pretty much everyone but does mellow out. 

The film does feature Rose Byrne at the beginning and at the end and she’s fine in that but to be honest I don’t think her limited involvement in the story was because of her availability but because there was little enough for Patrick Wilson to do that it would have been just as big a waste of Byrne if she were more involved in the film. 

I have a feeling that this film is not going to be the last in the series because like most Blum films they are cheap to make and will make way more than their budget back. I hope in the next instalment there is more thought put into the plot. 

On a side note, when I went to the cinema I had never seen so many people get up and down than during this screening. It was lunchtime on a Saturday so there was a decent number in the screening and yet people were getting up and down showing that people weren’t that engaged in the story.

The Fanatic (2019)

Originally Reviewed on August 8, 2020

I’ll be honest, the only reason why I chose to watch this is because I had seen some videos on YouTube talking about how bad this film is. Benedict Cumberbatch said in 1917 “Hope is a dangerous thing”. I disagree, curiosity is a dangerous thing because it leads to decisions like watching The Fanatic. This film sees John Travolta playing an obsessed fan who has some sort of learning difficulty and his friend is a paparazzi photographer. His behaviour to Hunter Dunbar becomes more erratic.

Is “I cant talk long, I gotta poop” the greatest opening line in movie history? Greatest in the bad sense of the worse maybe but as opening lines go it’s a memorable way to start a film. 

The film tries to make Hunter Dunbar seem like the baddie because its his behaviour that causes Moose to be more erratic but the problem that the film has is that it fails at doing this simple task. After everything that Moose does, its almost impossible to feel anything but sympathy for Dunbar. Even after finding out he has been cheating on his wife which a normal film would make him a scumbag, you think that doesn’t warrant what he goes through. This is a failure of Fred Durst’s part because he knows how to point a camera and make a film go from A to B but in terms of characters and motivation and stuff like that he fails miserably. 

What exactly drove John Travolta to this part? What made them have Moose be mentally challenged? Why does this film exist? The answer to all three of those questions and many more remains the same, I don’t know. I cant make my mind up whether Travolta is trying to play the role for a laugh or whether it’s a serious tale about fan obsession. There are some scenes which seem to be Travolta having a good time with the role and then there are more serious scenes. I thought the moment where Dunbar is playing Limp Bizkit and saying he was a fan back in the day was a cheeky nod which in a decent film would have been funny but here its just cringe worthy. 

The best thing about this film and that is a loose term is Leah. I thought that Ana Golja was actually quite decent. It’s not her fault that she is given such lousy dialogue but the character does gets some browny points because she tries to be a friend to Moose. The animation that pops up throughout the film is quite good and those are the two good things about this film because apart from that there is pretty much nothing good about this film.

There a good story here but its gets lost in a series of bad decisions and even worse dialogue, you end up feeling sorry for the wrong characters and despite being only a 90 minutes film, it felt like twice the length. It’s not the worst film of the year because despite the poor quality of the film it was worth watching it just to see John Travolta reach the low point of his career. The Fanatic has to be seen to be believed because if it’s a race to the bottom between John Travolta and Nicholas Cage then Travolta has a head start.

The Grudge (2019)

Originally Reviewed on August 6, 2020

I hadn’t heard good things about this new Grudge. The first three US versions were all good with the first being the best and the third not that bad for a straight to DVD movie. This version however does have a cheek calling itself the Grudge because it bears very little connection to the previous trilogy. The set up exactly the same but they spent about 90 seconds in Japan and spend the rest of the film flipping between 2004 and 2006. 

The film has some good performances. I was surprised that Lin Shaye was in this film because its not a Blumhouse production so I am assuming that she was loaned out like they use to do in the old Hollywood studio system days. It does seem to be written into law that if you need an old woman to play a role in a horror film then Lin Shaye gets first refusal. She is actually the best thing in the movie even though she’s only in it for about 10 minutes if that. Betty Gilpin was in The Hunt which is one of my favourite films of the year and now she’s been in one of the worst films of the year. It’s a shame really because she does well with whats she given and her character is married to Sulu or John Cho’s character Peter. The performances are good but they are sadly let down by a script that does everything it possibly can to separate itself from the series that made it so good.  

The film has one of the worst endings I think I have seen to a horror film in quite sometime. The film ends with Muldoon being taken away after hugging what she thought was her son. Then the credits roll over silence and that is the movie. I thought that The Nun was one of the dullest films of 2019 and I think that The Grudge 2020 is this years The Nun. There were some ok moments but its lacked any of the tension and drama of the originals. Even the third one has more atmosphere than this one. This is actually worse because at least The Nun has some atmosphere but this is just lazy and misses the point by quite some margin.

The Owners (2020)

Originally reviewed on October 26, 2020

I picked this film purely because of one cast member. Sylvester McCoy. Being a Doctor Who fan I am always interested in something if a former Doctor or companion is in it. Doesn’t matter whether its film or TV if I recognise the name then I will give it a go. This can be a risky strategy but the synopsis was quite interesting so I thought it was worth a go. The setup of the film is that a trio of robbers try to rob a house but can’t get into a safe and then the titular owners (including McCoy) arrive back and the robbers hold them hostage to get the code and then things turn and it turns out that McCoy isnt the doddering old man that he first seems to be.

The three robbers are various degrees of horrible. Gaz (Jake Curran) is the most loathsome and his death was the most rewarding because he was about to saw Ellen because Richard kept messing up the combination. This was a good performance from Curran because its not easy to make someone loathsome but Curran managed it in the relatively short amount of time that he’s on screen. Nathan (Ian Kenny) was in the middle because he had moments where he seemed reasonable and yet seemed desperate to show Gaz he had a mean streak. Kenny also did a good job and it did seem a shame that he died because he did show some sort of decency. Terry (Andrew Ellis) was the nicer one because he’s only there really because his mom cleans at the house and he fed Gaz & Nathan the information.

I thought Sylvester McCoy was really good in this as Richard. The character goes through a personality shift and whilst he is good when he’s nice Richard, when he becomes nasty Richard that is when he is great to watch. Rita Tushingham is also good as Ellen. There is an indication that she has dementia or something like that but whilst she’s not as involved in the story as McCoy is, she does contribute a lot to the story. Maisie Williams is the headline name because of her involvement in Game of Thrones but I don’t think she’s the lead in the film. Ok in the second half of the film she does become the lead but that’s by the virtue that Gax and Nathan are dead and Terry is munching food on the couch. They were clearly using her name because they thought it might draw people to the film but apart from that she’s ok. She does have a great scene in the kitchen when the smoke machines

Whilst I like this film there the ending is slightly questionable. I like the idea that Mary is thwarted from leaving but the idea that Terry is the one that ‘accidentally’ shoots here seems slightly odd. Then there is the sudden revelation that the safe door had their daughter behind it and they lock Terry in with her. The final scene is with Terry’s mom worried about her son and Richard & Ellen acting like they don’t know anything with Ellen seemingly compus mentis. This raises a question as to whether Ellen was pretending to a greater extent than Richard. 

The Owners is a good horror film. I might be biased because it has Sylvester McCoy but I honestly think that there is a lot here to like. The film is an enjoyable horror film that should be watched because I’ve seen most people refer to it as a British Don’t Breathe which I can’t confirm but I haven’t seen that film but I’ve heard good things about it so that comparison might be a good one to have.