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Reviews
Betrayal (2023)
Badly executed
You ever know someone who was extremely self-important and acted like everything they did needed to be met with applause and attention? Unfortunately, that's what we have here. I went into to this looking for an interesting true crime story and instead spent several hours watching two fairly unlikable people talking to each other. There's no denying that the man at the heart of this story was a scumbag... but his wife comes across as a spoiled and whiny person who makes everything more dramatic. "These were people IN MY OWN TOWN," she complains. She complains about him telling her he still loved her. She complains that some of his friends wrote letters vouching for his character, all the while acting incredulous. The podcast host just comes across as an entitled person who thinks everything they say is important. It's hard to take her seriously when she's sitting there telling her friend how brave and strong she is with a contrived look of concern on her face.
Another great part was his wife acting disgusted that one woman sent Spence naked pictures and let him record her giving him oral sex. "What kind of woman would do something like that? She asks.
Well, I guess we can tell what kind of sex he was getting at home.
And then there's some of the women he cheated on her with. One in particular made me fight back a chuckle as she told her story of meeting Spence and sensing that he was interested in her. "I don't even remember how I ended up giving him my number," she says. Well ma'am, you gave it to him. He didn't force it out of you. You were sober. Then she relates how she was a victim because she met him in a parking lot the very next day and had sex with him. Again, ma'am, you gave a man you were attracted to your phone number and met him the next day for sex entirely of your own volition. You are not a victim.
Spence had an affair with one of his wife's friends and apparently she was somehow a victim too. It just gets to be a bunch of people taking no responsibility for their own actions.
The last episode that focuses on his teenage victim is a little better. It's not a fun story, but at least in this one we really see the criminal side of his actions.
I agree with others that this whole thing could have been cut down to about an hour. There was just too much useless information, too much repetitive talking about his affairs and way too much of the podcasters. I've seen serial killer documentaries that were shorter.
Brazen (2022)
terrible
First, I want to say it's very unfair that so many of the negative reviews for this movie are based on the lead actor's personal politics, because the reality is this movie deserves to be judged on just how truly awful it is and we can also be pretty sure the people who hate Milano didn't watch the movie to begin with.
What this movie does is give some wooden acting and cheap production and direction to an already cliched and unoriginal story by a pretty mediocre romance novelist. Everything about this plot is cookie cutter. I had to hold back the laughter when Grace was talking to the detectives and said one of the suspects was her former brother-in-law, Jonathan Breezewood "the third." "He's a bigshot attorney," Grace said. Keep in mind, this character is supposed to be a famous author herself. What self-respecting writer would use such a hackneyed phrase?
So the murdered sister was a teacher who had a secret second job as a webcam model. Gee, how original. And her ex-husband whom she was in a custody battle with was a suspect. Again, snore. And then of course one of her students who was a slightly awkward literature nerd happened to have a special interest in her. Is this a movie script or a mad libs exercise?
One of my favorite scenes (before I got too bored to keep watching) was when the detectives went to visit the corporate office of the website she was modeling on and meet with the CEO to ask questions about her clients. First, let's acknowledge how stupid it is that the OnlyFans-like website she was using just happens to be headquartered in the same town she lived in. Now add on how stupid it is that detectives would talk to a corporate executive to try to get information about who the woman's subscribers (which the movie calls clients) were. This is simply not how an investigation like this would work at all in the real world. They would most likely have to subpoena that information or at the very least get it from a low-level security employee, not the CEO. It's how a very simple-minded or purely unmotivated person would write it though. And the best part of the scene is that the CEO's office walls are covered in giant TVs that are supposed to be showing a bunch of different models live streaming, but if you look for even a second you'll realize all the screens are showing the same 10-second loops over and over again. Do they really think the CEO of OnlyFans has dozens of screens streaming porn going on at all times in their office?
I rarely stop a movie after I've started it, but this one was just trash. It doesn't even have the cheesy, campy entertainment factor of similar Lifetime and Hallmark movies. It's just a dreary, stupid, pointless waste of time.
Big Sky (2020)
Horribly planned
I saw all the trailers for this show that made it seem like a kidnapping/serial killer mystery. The first episode completely removes any level of mystery and leaves you with a lot of melodrama. I kept watching to see what happened to the girls. The show is okay I guess for about 7-8 episodes. Then it just devolves into sheer stupidity for what I thought was the last episode. Characters do things that don't make any sense, and there are some truly absurd parts. There's a small-town pastor who drives a Tesla, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever except that it becomes clear the writers NEEDED him to be driving a Tesla so they could put a self-driving car into the story to write themselves out of a corner. Then there's a car chase involving the Tesla in which they realize the car is on autopilot and all they need to do is get in front of it and it will stop. There was a helicopter that had managed to cover a ton of distance and catch up to the car chase, but no one thinks to have the helicopter fly ahead of the Tesla and stop it. No, they decide the two women driving a big truck should try to speed up, pass the Tesla and put on their brakes. But, oh no, just as they pass the Tesla, there JUST HAPPENS to be the front bumper of a car sitting in the middle of the road that causes an accident.
I couldn't help but just sit there and laugh at this idiocy.
And then I realized this wasn't the last episode. Not even close. Despite everything in the commercials and promotions for this show focusing on the missing girls, it turns out the show pivots halfway through the season to a completely different storyline with a subplot that ties back to the first half.
The sociopath character and his mother in this show are laughable cliches, but it gets even worse when you see his "disguise" later in the season. The second half plot involving an old rancher and his sons is much less interesting and just as dumb. There's a minor character who shows up for one episode who uses a bolt pistol as a weapon just like the character in No Country For Old Men.
Even though this series is based on a book series, it really feels like the writers just grabbed bits and pieces of other books and movies and tossed them together to make this unimaginative show that I can't imagine lasting more than a season.
Evil Eye (2020)
There's no movie here.
The concept here seemed good, and with the casting choices and Blumhouse banner, I expected it at worst to be a step above the usual evil boyfriend movies you might expect from the Lifetime Network or a similar channel. Unfortunately, this one is just extremely thin on plot and even thinner on suspense.
A superstitious mom with a tragic past living in India very slowly becomes convinced for no legitimate reason that her daughter in the US has started dating a bad guy. Does he do anything to make us think she might be right? No. Not until the very last 10 minutes.
Unlike most movies in this vein, the boyfriend doesn't act creepy or overly controlling or violent or jealous or whatever else you might expect. This lack of suspense makes the first 75% of the movie seem like just a boring romance with a crazy mom thrown in for kicks. The entire middle third of this movie drags on until finally, graciously, something happens. And then it's pretty much over except for a short wind-down followed by a predictable "gotcha" scene at the very end.
This would have been much better as a segment in an anthology film or as a standalone short. It feels like they really had to pad it to make it feature length.
Ghoul Catchers (2019)
Decent considering the budget.
Don't go into this expecting it to be a horror/comedy like it has been billed. It's just a straight comedy with one very cheap ghost effect for about 10 seconds. This is a found footage/mockumentary comedy about three pretty cliched characters that relies on some really dumb jokes.
There's a dumb, child-like guy who lives with his mother, doesn't realize people carry their cell phones with them everywhere and apparently can't see slides at the playground. His level of dumb is ratcheted up to the point that the jokes don't land. No one is that dumb.
There's a well-meaning, good-natured dumb guy who tags along with everything because he wants to be liked, even when he clearly shouldn't. He eats a ton of Indian food before going on the ghost hunt because he's never had it before an somehow didn't think eating all that spicy food could be bad. This sets up the next 15 minutes to be one long, extended fart joke.
Then there's the overgrown man-child dumb guy who is extremely selfish and doesn't like that his best friend has grown up and become a responsible adult. He's the kind of guy who's rude to everyone but they still hang out with him anyway.
The other guy is the long-suffering ex-best-friend who actually grew up and got a job and tried to ditch his idiot pal but agrees to go along after he's badgered into it.
The ghost hunt at the center of the movie is very short. Then there's an extended section at the end of the movie that drags on waaaaay too long.
I've seen worse writing, acting and jokes. There are a few one-liners that hit okay but get drowned out by larger unbelievable setups and scenes. The after-credits scene/outtake is one of the funnier parts of the movie and seems possibly ad-libbed. Considering this movie was made for $1,000, it's honestly not the worst.
Dark Encounter (2019)
Not great, not terrible
There was a point about 15-20 minutes in where I was about to turn this off, but I stuck with it only because it was late and I didn't want to start something else.
Dark Encounter starts slow as we're introduced to the characters. The family is coming home from a memorial, and there's a lot of exposition to let us know that a young girl disappeared.
Next up is the alien encounter. I have to be honest, it's just cliche as heck. Guy sees lights in the sky. They fly over his house. Then they're out in the woods and see lights again. Their truck dies. The radio turns on and off. You've seen this before in a dozen other alien movies.
Once the action moves into the house, it's the same story. All the windows have differently colored lights flashing in. Something rattles the door. The lights in the house flicker, and an old timey radio starts playing oldies. The people run up and down and all around the house, including the cellar/basement. They took a lot of this stuff straight from other movies, like a part where the mother's cross necklace starts to lift off her chest or when they're in the kitchen and a bunch of large knives fly out of a knife block, turn around in mid-air and shoot across the kitchen at them.
And of course there are those glimpses of the alien walking through the house. No one ever sees him except for in a quick reflection in a knife, and then he's gone.
I never understood why this is what people think an alien abduction would be like. We've seen all these same elements in abduction movies countless times before. Why would aliens spend 30 minutes scaring people with flashing lights and magnets?
If you've seen Close Encounters, The Fourth Kind, Dark Skies, Fire in the Sky or even that cheesy made for TV movie Incident in Lake County, you've seen all this stuff before.
Eventually the family gets out of the house and takes off running for the highway, where a cop car conveniently drives up within a minute.
The movie soon shifts to the next day, where we find out that alien has been hiding in a closet waiting for the family to come home. You know, as aliens do.
Turns out these aliens have spent all this time and space fuel just so they can show the family visions of who killed the little girl. And what visions they are! We fly high above the earth and into space, through our galaxy and then through the entire universe in a very nice but unusual FX sequence.
This is an awful lot of effort by these aliens when they could have just dropped a note in the mail, but what do I know?
Sadly, despite their omniscience, the aliens don't have the ability to tell the family where the girl's body is. That's left to the killer, who fortunately is in the house experiencing all this with them.
The acting here is solid. The FX are well done considering the budget, and the cinematography is good. The writing overall is decent. There's no cringey dialogue. Unfortunately the lack of creativity in the middle section of the movie and the questionable ending add up to something that might impress someone who hasn't seen an alien abduction movie before
The Kissing Booth 2 (2020)
Horrendous
First off, who thought a cheesy teen romance comedy needed to be two hours and 12 minutes long? That's 17 minutes longer than the first Thor movie! My wife wanted to watch this tonight, so I reluctantly agreed. She announced about an hour into it that she couldn't watch anymore, and I was elated.
The performances by the actors are the only somewhat bearable thing about this garbage. Beyond that, this movie makes zero sense and seems to have been written by people who don't know anything about the real world.
Example: When 17 year old what's her name goes to visit her 18-19 year old boyfriend at Harvard, they casually walk into a bar, order some beers and hang out toasting with some old guys. No one is carded. No one stops to wonder if the girl who barely looks 15 might be old enough to be throwing back some brews.
Oh, and let's not overlook the fact that everyone in these movies seems to have expensive homes in nice neighborhoods and go to a top-flight prep school, but the girl's dad constantly acts like they're poor and he can barely afford to send her to college.
There's just a lot of really bad, nonsensical writing like that throughout this movie. The writers must have knocked this out in an afternoon, or maybe it was written by some AI software. I don't know. I do know even my wife was yelling at the TV and the characters for their constant buffoonery and childish behavior.
Another thing I find really uneven about this movie and the just slightly better first movie is how they're basically the same tone, maturity and production of a Disney Channel or TeenNick production, but then out of nowhere they disrupt the relative wholesomeness of it with a couple of F-bombs and sex scenes that don't belong. Imagine you were watching an episode of Austin & Ally with your kids and suddenly Ross Lynch told someone to eff off and Laura Marano stripped down to her bra and hopped in bed with a guy. That's basically what these movies are. I have to imagine they had the movie shot and in the bag and some executive producer came in and told them to dirty it up a little. It's just odd.
Outmatched (2020)
Horrible
Hoped this might be decent given the actors involved, but it's just another mindless generic sitcom where most of the jokes fail to land because they have zero basis in reality. The show is about a couple of parents who have succeeded in raising a group of genius children. As their oldest children are hitting their high school years, the parents suddenly out of the blue realize their children are uptight nerds who have no life experiences. The concept is taken to an extreme. for example, the first episode is about the parents just wanting to take their kids to the boardwalk for a day. The kids can't handle the idea of having fun outside the house and prevent the trip from happening. One of the worst jokes of the episode was when the mother says she finally got her son to wear swim trunks but he called them "water khakis." So we're supposed to believe these parents have never taken their kids swimming before? For a show that's supposed to be about smart kids, it's amazingly dumb. Speaking of which, Jason Biggs' father character is made outrageously dumb, like when he claims he doesn't know what the word "bodes" means, acts like he's never heard opera before (then how did he raise a musical prodigy?) and mistakes Michaelangelo the painter for Michaelangelo the Ninja Turtle. The writers should be embarrassed for producing this.
Deputy (2020)
For shame!
Oh no, another TV show with political underpinnings! How ever will the conservatives survive this horror? Of course. They'll do it by coming to IMDB in droves to leave 1 star reviews.
Deputy isn't a great show. It's your basic lone wolf cop show with a hero who talks in a gruff voice and always somehow has a 5 o'clock shadow. He wears cowboy hats and sunglasses and drives an old pickup.
But unlike other similar shows, Deputy doesn't cater to its demographic's politics. The show does introduce more left-leaning political topics here and there, most notably in the first episode. Unfortunately, the writers do it with all the subtlety of a semi trailer full of explosives running into a brick wall. I'm not sure why writing has gotten so simplistic lately, but it will sometimes hit you over the head. For example, in the last episode the hero made a reference to God and was sure to say "Him... or Her." It just didn't fit with the character at all and felt very blatant. It's as if the writing room is full of people who don't understand that characters don't have to share their same convictions.
Haunted (2018)
Ridiculous
I'm not a big believer in ghosts at this point in my life, but I do like to read and hear stories about supposedly true hauntings. Unfortunately, this show should be called the "Reject Files" because they clearly got the most outlandish stories that no one else would put on TV.
In one episode, a man who was abused by his religious mother as a child tells the tale of how ghost children came out of a well in their basement and how he left gifts for them. There was an awful lot of crying that made it very clear to me that he created this ghost story as a way to deal with his childhood trauma.
One episode that was so bad that it made me laugh was season two's "The Mimic." A 20-something woman moved into an old house with some friends and believes a shape-shifting creature dwelled in the basement and took the form of her friends. Hilariously, another man who later moved into the same basement regales us with a story about how supposedly the creature came down the stairs looking like the woman and proceeded to seduce him and make out with him before turning into a hideous pile of goo.
One of the interesting elements of this show is that the people telling the stories bring family and friends with them, many of whom have never heard all these details before. One of the best parts of the show is when the storyteller starts getting really emotional over some completely absurd story and the camera cuts to one of their friends who is sitting there with a look on his or her face that says they're not happy they came and probably aren't going to keep in touch after the shoot.
The episodes contain dramatic re-enactments that are fairly well done. There are some random gratuitous nude scenes in some of the episodes that wouldn't seem so out of place if we were watching a fictional horror anthology, but this being a show about allegedly true stories, it seems odd. This show would really be much better if they left the awkward confessionals out and just expanded the re-enactments and made it into a Creepshow-style fictional series instead.
House of the Witch (2017)
A big steaming pile of nothing
There's nothing coherent going on in this movie. Some teens sneak into an old house, and then for some reason an evil witch spends an hour scaring them with a bunch of random cliches pulled out of other horror movies before killing them one by one. There's a spider-walk sequence straight out of the famous deleted scene from the Exorcist, an escape scene copied from the end of the Descent, and a scene with a bunch of tree tentacles pulled from the Evil Dead. And all of it is directed so poorly that none of the scares land for even a second.
Especially egregious was the final scene where they chose to play audio clips of "clues" the characters gave throughout the movie over and over again, I guess to be sure they beat it into our heads what exactly happened. The clips were blatantly obvious, and I don't think most people would have needed help to figure out the ending, which was yet again another cliche.
I like horror movies, and this was easily the most pointless, random and poorly made one that I've seen in quite a while.
Ghost Wars (2017)
Good concept with sometimes laughable execution
I had hopes for this show seeing Vincent D'Onofrio in the cast along with a few other recognizable names. Budget restraints don't bother me as long as the writing is strong, and in this case the acting and concept are the only saving graces.
The story centers around Roman Mercer, a small town outcast. You can tell he's an outcast because he wears cut-off denim vests, leather jackets and studded belts and broods a lot! Look at him, being all outcast-y. Roman can also see ghosts and apparently even though he knows everyone thinks he's weird, he just goes right ahead and keeps talking to them in public.
Roman is finally leaving town on the bus when a ghost appears in the road in front of the bus driver. The driver apparently skipped a couple of days in bus driving class, because when a ghost appears in the road in front of them, he jerks the wheel and slams on his brakes, flipping the bus on its side as it careens towards a cliff. This scene was so bad I chuckled a little bit.
Roman was sitting near the back of the bus, so he manages to get out before the bus teeters over the edge and everyone dies. So of course when the police show up on the scene, one of them (whose mother was on the bus) leaps to the only reasonable conclusion and starts yelling at Roman that he should have died instead of his mom. Apparently being a weird skinny guy makes everyone think you're capable of somehow sending a bus over a cliff and escaping. They ain't the sharpest bunch.
When people finally realize that ghosts are attacking the town, a group of them organizes and tries to kill Roman. Poor guy. Thankfully it turns out that he really isn't that much of an outcast because several people in town are sympathetic towards him, including the priest, sheriff and a bartender.
There are a lot of stupid scenes in the first couple of episodes. You're going to see people in dangerous situations just standing around waiting to be killed instead of running. People do completely stupid, unbelievable stuff, and dialogue is often cringe-worthy.
I'm not going to give up on the show yet, and if it gets a lot better I'll come back and change my rating. For now, this is just an okay show hampered by goofy writing and clichéd characters.
Dimension 404 (2017)
Watchable
I'll start with the good. The FX work on this show is solid coming from the Rocket Jump team. This is what they excel at, and I commend them on rising from viral videos to now having 2 series on Hulu.
The acting is mostly decent, but the actors aren't really given deep roles so it's not like you're going you see any outstanding performances. There are a handful of recognizable faces like Patton Oswalt, Lea Michele, some sitcom actors and narration by Mark Hamill.
None of the episodes were so bad that I had to turn it off, but they weren't really that good either. This show begs for good writers. Each episode follows a very, very basic plot that feels like it never really got past the concept and storyboard stage. Girl is obsessed with a 90s cartoon, the cartoon comes to life, and she has to fight evil. Guy is obsessed with arcade games, an arcade game comes to life, and he has to fight evil. None of these stories are very original or complex.
On top of the airy writing is the curiously bright production. I don't know if they did this deliberately or just didn't know what they were doing, but the look and feel of this thing is similar to a light afternoon kids show. I'm pretty sure there are grittier episodes of Goosebumps and Are You Afraid of the Dark than anything you'll find in Dimension 404.
Watch it if you have nothing better to do or if you need an introduction to sci-fi anthologies. It's certainly not the worst thing on Hulu.
Heartbeat (2016)
A waste
I'm not one to dismiss a show after the pilot episode unless it's absolutely unwatchable. The pilot of Heartbeat wasn't great. Dr. Panettiere is an amalgamation of different TV doctor tropes, particularly 1 part House, 1 part Mindy(including a handsome British doctor), and 2 parts Grey's Anatomy. In the pilot, we see a flashback to our main character's first day on the job at her hospital, where she disguised herself as a different doctor so she could assist in a surgery because she thought the surgeon was dreamy. In the real world, a doctor committing an act of fraud like that would be in a lot of trouble, especially one just starting her career. But since this is a TV show, the handsome British doctor was impressed by her and happened to be wearing a t-shirt with a picture of her ex-husband, who by the way is a famous rock star. And apparently a famous rock star who has nothing better to do than hang around the house all day cooking for her and taking care of their kids. You know, like a typical rock star does.
Anyway, the show clearly has good medical consultants, because that part of the show was well done. So I decided to give Hearbeat a second chance.
And here's what Heartbeat did:
They started the second episode with our lead character getting a fire truck to fake an emergency so she could follow them and drive her Porsche over the speed limit. And when she gets to the hospital, the administrator that she frequently clashes with decides to overlook the gross misuse of emergency workers because she got to look at hunky firefighters. The plot of the episode was even worse. A pair of middle-aged soul-singing conjoined twins come into the hospital and find out one of them has cancer. Did I mention one of the twins is a lesbian and the other is straight?
Two episodes was enough for me. The show isn't funny enough to be a comedy, but it has a light-hearted attitude that keeps it from being a believable drama. Everything gets wrapped up neatly, and no one really has to deal with consequences from their misbehavior aside from briefly hurt feelings. Add in the ridiculous soap opera touches, and it's just a mess of a show that betrays the solid cast they assembled.
Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life (2016)
Wasted opportunity
The concept isn't terrible, a few of the jokes are decent, and the acting is all over the place. What is really sad is that this show has no ideas. Every week they just get in ridiculous amount of trouble that any normal person would find a way to avoid, and they've already been repeating themselves halfway through the first season.
For example, in the pilot episode, Cooper and his buddies have their TV stolen. They track it down to a house where some sketchy guys live and try to steal it back, but Cooper gets caught and kidnapped. In exchange for getting Cooper back, they have to give the guys an expensive brand new TV.
A few episodes later, Cooper gets his phone stolen. They track it down to a sorority house where a party is going on. Cooper's brother is in his brand-new SUV and encounters the teenagers who stole the phone. They steal his clothes and set his new SUV on fire.
There are some small differences, but these two episodes are almost exactly the same plot. In fact, if you break it down, almost every episode has a similar story arc. You can expect at some point in every episode they're going to tick off a dangerous person and either end up running for their lives or getting punched in the face. In fact, in the episode that's on right now they just ticked off their landlord and he shot a hole in the ceiling.
Hellevator (2015)
Reveals the issues with reality "horror" programming
Hellevator is nothing new. Seven years ago a similar game show called "Estate of Panic" ran for six episodes before it was canceled. It was essentially a horror-themed version of Fear Factor which pitted a small group of strangers against each other in various challenges, such as finding hidden objects in a room that was full of water or searching for cash in a spider-filled room as the ceiling slowly came down. As an added twist, the contestants had to find a way out of the room before time expired or they would be trapped in the room and eliminated from the competition. Estate of Panic worked in a weird sort of way thanks in part to a great performance by Steve Valentine as the creepy host and caretaker of the estate and the fact that the show never took itself too seriously.
So along comes Hellevator, which promises us big things with some of the names attached to it. The series has been billed as being from "the producer of Paranormal Activity" Jason Blum. Unfortunately,it appears that Blum's involvement is limited, as the producers listed on the show are all veterans of the game show realm instead of horror movies.
The show is hosted by the Soska Sisters. Most casual viewers may not know that the Soskas are actually horror movie directors known for See No Evil 2 and American Mary. Sadly, it seems that all the twins have been given to do here is provide some occasional off the cuff commentary (which is mostly flat) and push a few buttons to move the scenes along.
Interviews leading up to the premier had the Soskas saying that Hellevator would allow viewers to see what real people would do when placed in scenarios from horror movies. Again, unfortunately it doesn't live up to this billing. For example, one challenge had a contestant pull fake organs out of mutilated corpses and place them on a scale to try to find the correct weight. Another challenge forced a contestant to try to guess which containers to place color- coded lights into while walking on balance beams. If she stepped off the beams and touched the ground, she received a very light electric shock. The challenges are all timed, and the contestants have to make it back to the elevator before time runs out or they'll be left behind. On their way back, they might have an actor jump out at them from around a corner, similar to what you would find in any run of the mill haunted house at Halloween time.
The major issue here is that most viewers are not going to be the least bit scared while watching this. Some of it is gross, but not scary. We know this is a game show, which means we know nothing bad can really happen to them outside of not winning the money. We can laugh at their reactions to the jump scares like we might have when watching the hidden camera show Scare Tactics, but the appeal there is limited.
I would love to see a game show that really pits contestants against classic horror scenarios. Throw some teens out in the woods in the middle of the night and give them six hours to survive without being caught by a masked killer. Put some people in the middle of a fake town and have them try to survive a horde of zombies. Have some contestants try to avoid being killed by a demon as they look for clues about what it is and how to stop it.
But something like that would require a decent budget, some creativity, and most importantly a lot of effort, so that's why we have the fake guts and funhouse scares of Hellevator instead.
The Maze Runner (2014)
Intriguing concept, but terrible writing and execution
My wife wanted to watch this because she liked the Hunger Games and was hoping this would be at least half as good. I had already heard plenty about the book series and even read a few chapters, so my expectations were much lower. What you get here is a series of action sequences strung together with ridiculous exposition and a back story that is so contrived it makes the Hunger Games sound like historical fiction. Not that it really matters - ultimately the film is just these kids in a maze for 105 minutes with some unexpected and convenient stuff happening in the last 10. Any form of metaphor, theme or meaning within this is basic and shallow at best. Don't go in looking for any kind of relevant social commentary.
And a lot of this could be overlooked if there were at least some interesting characters, but instead we're treated to the usual tropes, who go about their duties with little development or charm. They're convincing at least, but bland as a Dodge Avenger.
Anyway, I know a lot of the 14-25 crowd will disagree with my review, but that's okay. They are who this movie was made for. It's a competently made film with enough action to entertain you for a while, but it's not remarkable or exceptional in any facet.
House of Bad (2013)
Horrible
A horrible, poorly-done, incredibly stupid movie. To go into everything wrong with this film would take more space than I have here. Don't waste your time.
Oh, and as for all those reviews that gush about this movie, they're pretty blatant. One of the reviewers has only reviewed two movies in 11 years. They're both movies directed by Jim Towns. Another one has only reviewed two movies as well. They're both movies starring Sadie Katz. If you guys want to review your own movies, at least have the guts to post your own name so we can see who you really are. Or how about you put out a film that actually deserves praise instead.
Spooksville (2013)
An adult's review
I grew up with a lot of great supernatural shows like Goosebumps, Eerie Indiana, Bone Chillers, Round the Twist, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and So Weird.
Unfortunately, it seems like there aren't many good shows for kids today that deal with the supernatural. Most of them are really cheesy shows like My Babysitter's a Vampire, Wizards of Waverly, or this new Nickelodeon show Every Witch Way that are more about high school drama than scares and have really bad writing and acting. Then there were the really campy, groan-inducing shows like "The Troop" that played mostly for laughs.
So imagine my surprise when I ran across an episode of Spooksville and actually enjoyed it. The actors in this show are downright believable. They don't ham it up and overact the way all the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon stars do. The characters for the most part are normal kids dealing with supernatural forces, and they dress and look like real kids. They don't dress like rockers or pop stars. You won't see any neon skinny jeans or designer shoes on this show.
And better yet, the writing is above average. This show doesn't insult your intelligence with thin plots and cheap laughs. There is real character development, a good continuous storyline, and some solid standalone episodes.
I can only hope that we see more shows like Spooksville in the future instead of the schlock that is passing for teen entertainment on Disney and Nickelodeon these days.
Bethenny (2012)
A sad reflection of our society
I was at home one day and the cable was out, so I happened across this show. All I can say is that it saddens me to see how many ignorant women are buying into Bethenny Frankel's ideas of how they should live. Seriously people! THIS is the woman you want to turn to for advice? A spoiled, elitist rich housewife who's addicted to plastic surgery? No wonder our society continues to become more and more shallow and empty.
This woman is as vapid as they get. She's a failed actress. She's admitted that she has more than one eating disorder, even though she has also tried to market herself as a fitness guru and nutrition expert. She's giving out relationship advice, even though she hasn't spoken to her own mother in more than 10 years and was already estranged from her father. She markets herself as a lifestyle expert, yet she has admitted that before the Real Housewives show took off she had run herself into the ground and could barely afford to pay her rent.
Frankel once told people on the Real Housewives that they should never exploit their children by bringing them into the show. Then she left the show and got a reality show that was all about her AND HER KIDS! She criticized co-stars for their naked pictures, but then it was revealed she did a nude scene in a movie a few years earlier!
And THIS is the woman that stay-at-home moms and housewives across the country are supposed to be looking up to? I think it's bad enough how many people look to Oprah to make all their life decisions for them, but Frankel is even worse. Learn to think for yourselves, folks. You don't need some fake reality trash who could have easily become the next Paris Hilton to tell you how to live.
Blue (2012)
Acting saves otherwise weak writing
I'll be honest; if this show was on a major network like ABC on a Monday night, it would be just a little bit more fast paced but otherwise considered a typical TV drama. I think some people are pulled in and lightly brainwashed by the "independent" nature and the slow pace of this series.
The acting is certainly the highlight, but the writing is a horrible mess. Everything in this show is a massive stereotype or cliché, and it seems the writers didn't even do a cursory level of research into escorting before coming up with their scripts. In one scene, Blue texts out that her price is $900. I did my own research (don't get any crazy ideas) into escorting for a college class. An escort making $900 for an hour would have to be a famous porn star, not some part-time nobody soccer mom. In the real world, Blue would be lucky to get $400 an hour and would probably have to travel from city to city to keep the cops off her back.
Some of the scenarios just make me laugh. Blue's boss tells her she has a client in the bar downstairs that she's been seeing for 25 years. "He's a famous actor," she says, without a hint of irony. As if any famous actor would stay with the same wife, let alone a middle-aged prostitute for more than a little while (just ask Charlie Sheen).
Of course, Blue is a woman emotionally damaged by an affair with a much older man when she was a child, and one of her clients turns out to be the man's son who she has not seen in years and who just got out of prison after a five-year term. Talk about coincidences, huh? You just get out of jail and the prostitute you hire is the girl you had a huge crush on and lived next door to as a kid, who was actually boinking your father.
And then there's Blue's son, the extremely intelligent but troubled young kid with antisocial behavior issues who calls his mom by her first name. And her mother, the emotionally distant old cougar who likes to voice chat with her daughter from the bathroom of a nightclub while she's on a date with a black man about 20 years younger than her.
The dialogue is a pretentious mess of ham-fisted preachiness. One of her coworkers worries about men not being interested after she loses her body. Another says that men are parasites who suck all the energy out of women. All of the conversations are stilted and forced.
This show is essentially a daytime soap opera/prime-time network drama, but the casting and the production of it make it seem like something more. It's entertaining at least, but it's hard not to laugh at how ridiculous some of it is.
Bad Ink (2013)
Seen one...
...seen them all.
This is another show where a couple of guys in tank tops and fedoras run a tattoo shop. The "twist" is that these guys specialize in covering up embarrassing tattoos. They go visit potential customers or just walk around asking random people if they have tattoos, and then the people tell them their embarrassing tattoo story before going to the tattoo shop to get it covered up. Then you see the finished product and everyone is happy. The end.
The supposedly unique premise of this show really doesn't do much to separate it from the other 500 tattoo-related shows out there. You're probably better off watching Dave Navarro's show, if tattoos are really that interesting to you.
Ben and Kate (2012)
New guy
So what they did here is basically find a way to clone New Girl by replacing Zooey Deschanel with a guy. I'm tired of these shows where the characters are so odd that they become essentially unrealistic, yet somehow we're supposed to love them for their oddness.
On New Girl, Jess is written to be so socially awkward that it goes way too over the top. I mean, she started tap dancing in a 5-star restaurant because something upset her. In the real world that would get you institutionalized or medicated at the least.
Enter Ben, who is well into his 30's and likes to walk around wearing hockey and wrestling masks. When he realizes that his ex-girlfriend (who dumped him TWO YEARS AGO)is getting married, he can't stop himself from shouting even though his niece is in the car, so he just starts shouting gibberish words.
When he plans to crash the wedding, no one talks him out of it and tells him to get a life and move on already. In real life, this guy's friends would demand he get therapy. Instead, his friends band together and help him. And even then, he's so out of touch with reality that he can't even rehearse his speech without screwing it up.
I realize that TV would not be interesting if it was completely realistic all the time, but shows like New Girl and Ben and Kate go way too far in trying to make these characters into screw ups (Ben can't even back up and turn his car around for crying out loud!).
Can You Survive a Horror Movie? (2012)
God this was stupid.
When I saw this on Chiller and read the description, I thought it would be interesting. Nope.
The show has three really annoying hosts: two Jersey Shore wannabe guys and an awkward girl. After discussing classic horror movie scenarios, they engage in tests to see if they could "survive" these scenarios.
Except that this show was horribly planned and none of the challenges have much of anything to do with surviving.
The challenge to survive a zombie invasion requires the hosts to PUSH a zombie. That's right. Push a zombie. The hosts then take turns wrestling people dressed as zombies. Their goal is to push the zombies out of the circle without getting bitten. The zombies pretty much just stand there doing nothing as the hosts struggle to push them. It was even dumber than it sounds.
Part two has the hosts discussing how to survive attacks from animals such as giant sharks. Then, the hosts face another survival challenge. This time they have to crawl on their hands and knees through a tunnel filled with mice. No, I'm serious.
Another segment deals with being buried alive. For the challenge, one host is put in a coffin and some dirt is thrown on the lid. About one shovelful, to be exact. The host then has to call a series of numbers on his cell phone until he gets the right one. You know, just like real life.
It gets dumber from there. The last challenge has the hosts sticking their heads in tanks filled with things like chopped liver and fava beans, dog food, split-pea soup, and pig's blood.
This is basically a really bad extended episode of Fear Factor, but instead of real contestants you get three paid actors. They are "competing" for the chance to appear in the sequel. Let's hope there isn't one.
Falling Skies (2011)
Bad from the start
I'll admit to being way behind on this series. I thought the previews looked good before season one aired, but I never got the chance to watch it. Now, having finally got around to watching it, I'm glad I didn't have high hopes going in.
The series begins after an alien attack has wiped out the world's militaries and sent all of humanity underground. How they did this is really hard to say, because the aliens seem pretty darn incompetent.
The freedom fighters in this series travel in a large caravan up an open street in broad daylight. The aliens don't see them, apparently. The freedom fighters set up camps in groups of hundreds in the middle of towns that have already been destroyed by the aliens. The aliens don't find them, even though their ships are constantly flying over.
At the beginning of episode two, our small group of heroes sends a dog out onto the lawn of an armory as a decoy. Immediately an alien mech comes out and targets it. The stupid humans rush in and rescue the dog. The mech somehow fails to shoot anyone. The next day the humans decide to return to the armory anyway, so of course they only send 5 or 6 people. They get inside and manage to fire guns and yell at each other, yet it now takes several minutes before the mech shows up. It still fails to kill anyone.
The aliens in this series are convenient. They show up only when they need to, and they rarely ever manage to kill or hurt anyone. Our plucky young band of heroes get themselves into mess after mess and almost always get out of them. It's kind of like Hogan's Heroes with aliens, except Falling Skies is unintentionally funny.
When you add in the fact that every episode has to meet the Spielberg- mandated heartwarming moment quota, it gets pretty old. Dad hugs son, son wishes his mom was still alive, son gets a Rip-It for his birthday and everyone gathers around and watches and smiles as he rides it. The bad acting and sappy sentimentality further damage the already shaky suspension of disbelief problems.
And yet, I'm still giving it a 4 out of 10 for at least being entertaining, in a bad B-movie sort of way.