The Watcher 4
Tiny movie reviews for Talk To Me / The Equalizer 3 / They Cloned Tyrone / Five Fingers of Death / Strays / The Executioner / Cobweb / Love & Death / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more
El Conde (2023) ★★★★★: A brillant allegory on Neoliberalism, this movie imagines Chiles dictator Auguste Pinochet as a 250 year old vampire eating hearts.
There's so much going on here, so much subtext and references to follow, it's overwhelming at times, but it makes up for it with a brillant script full of witty dialogue and the most absurd scenes I've seen in a long time and on top of that, it's hilarious fun. It even get's quite poetic at times, with the flying-nun scene simply taking my breath away. If you ever wanted to see Margret Thatcher as a heartless bloodsucking vampire-lady, you don't have to look the history of british economic politics any longer, and young Pinochet licking blood from the guilloutine that killed Marie Antoinette during the french revolution is just so absurd and funny, that moment this movie won my black beating heart in an instant.
Limbo (2023) ★★★★★ A minimalist outback noire shot in gorgeous black and white, as brittle as the landscape. It's about guilt and hopelessness, and holding on to what you have left. Limbo sure is a slow movie, and the barebone style of the story about a cop investigating a decades old murder of an aborigine woman isn't for everyone, but i loved it.
They Cloned Tyrone (2023) ★★★★★ What a fantastic and fun movie. Tonally, it reminded me of Attack The Block, where a street gang was under attack from aliens. Here, it's clones coming from a sinister corporation. This is such a fun ride with a lot of social critique going on in the subtext, implying talking points from structural racism to capitalism and police brutality. Tyrone never smears its politics in your face but you still can't shake the feeling that it's about more than fun, which is how you should do these things. It's a genre movie, after all, and a pretty excellent one at that.
Five Fingers of Death (1972) ★★★★★ An excellent Martial Arts film with fantastic choreography and some pretty bloody fighting scenes, this one tells the classic story of martial arts school rivalry getting out of hand with one master hiring some Samurai and a brother betraying his family. You'll recognize not just the soundtrack from Tarantinos Kill Bill. One of the best Shaw Brothers' movies I've seen in a while.
Talk To Me (2022) ★★★★☆ If you buy the basic premise -- kids using ghosts as a drug-ersatz without really freaking out about the fact that, you know, oh god there's dead people in your living room possessing your friends aah -- then this movie is a hell of a ride, despite some illogical flaws in the script and some weird character decisions which are necessary to make the plot go to a certain place. The cleverness and originality of this movie make more than up for this and are worth it alone, but then there's also the ultra terrible-very-cool-gory and disgusting ghost design which creeps you out really, really nicely and the foreseeable but satisfying ending.
I understand this movie, directed by brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, comes out of some Youtube-channel called RackaRacka i've never heard about before, which also makes this film one of the best cinematic things to come out Youtube culture as of yet. I'm intrigued, and am looking forward to what the Philippous spin up next.
No one will save you (2023) ★★★★☆ A young woman has to fight off an alien invasion, except it's not about the alien invasion at all but her years of loneliness because she killed her best friend when she lost her mind and nobody likes her anymore. The alien invasion part is riiffing on pretty much all genre tropes you can think of -- the lightbeams, the classic UFOs, the tall grey men aliens with the big black eyes --, but it does so with style and some good, weird moments. I already loved Brian Duffields Spontaneous, and this is confirming him as a talent to look out for in genre cinema.
Love & Death (2023) ★★★★☆ I'm not big on watching series these days because there is just too much out there, so i pretty much watch nothing of all the Starwarses and Marvels and all those other Fantasy-romps. But I was in the mood for a longform classy crime drama with top notch actors and this miniseries featuring Elizabeth Olsen and Jesse Plemons delivers.
It tells the true story of Candace Montgomery who murdered the wife of her love affair with an axe in 1980, and it does so with excellent performances from Olsen and Plemons and a script depicting a decent examination of the psyche of characters which takes its time. If you're in the mood for a character driven classy crime drama, this is an excellent choice.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) ★★★★☆ It's not Spiderverse with it's rich animation styles, but it's quite good, has some really stunning sequences and it just looks pretty cool. Story and script are alright but kinda forgetable, with the pseudo-claymation mixed with some 2D-animation styles taking the front seat. It's just great to see the ninja turtles jumping around in this new style which is decidedly un-CGI and not anime nor realistic. Fun!
My Animal (2023) ★★★☆☆ Pretty good queer werewolf drama that's unfortunately a little low on the werewolf side of things and which, besides that, only tells a rather unsophisticated queer love drama about a lesbian icehockey goalie falling in love with a figure skater resulting in bullying and rejection. But very good acting, interesting characters and pretty good camera work with an eye for minimalistic, stylish shots make this low budget effort into a pretty decent genre movie. It also features Stephen McHattie in a supporting role, who played the radio DJ in Pontypool, one of my most favorite low budget zombie flicks of all times.
Cobweb (2023) ★★★☆☆ Psycho-Parents hide your mutant sister in the walls and she comes knocking. I liked it besides it's flaws and a somewhat unsatisfying ending which doesn't really resolve what is really going on. But it has enough punch and weird ideas to keep you entertained and to make this a worthwhile entry to genre cinema.
To Catch a Killer (2023) ★★★☆☆ A goodish okay thriller that could have been better if they wouldn't rely on clichéd tropes so much. Shailene Woodley should play more cops, i liked her in that role. While this wasn't really a bore, it's trodden paths didn't make this exciting either. Woodley and some decent camera work with nice shots save this standard excercise.
Strays (2023) ★★★☆☆ I mean it's a movie with dogs making fart jokes going on a quest to bite a dick off, and you get exactly what you expect. While it isn't exactly hilarious, i had a pretty good time watching this and Will Forte playing an asshole just always works. If you're 12 at heart and love dogs, this movie is for you.
The Boogeyman (2023) ★★★☆☆ Based on a shortstory by Stephen King, this tells the rather simple story of a monster in the dark and not much more. The simplicity stands clearly in the way of a better film, but it works and delivers which is what you want from a movie like this.
The Executioner (1974) ★★★☆☆ Martial Arts gangster romp with Sonny Chiba beating up yakuza and karate fighters. The movie makes up for some bad choreography with barely clad women and some brutal gore effects in one of which we see a guy's eyes beaten out of his skull. Fun! Tries some humor too and largely fails. For a camp action stomper from the seventies it's not bad, but it doesn't hold up to todays standards. Still, it's good enough for a sunday fun trip with some japanese exploitation cinema.
The Equalizer 3 (2023) ★★☆☆☆ I gave the other Equalizers a rerun before watching this and while this may be the best looking effort of this franchise, it's still too simplistic, mean and sadist to be actually good. I could take this from a sleazy exploitation flick, but this is mainstream cinema, so this is not a good movie. I still like revenge movies so i have to confess that i enjoyed it. Make of this what you will.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) ★★☆☆☆ There are a lot of forgetable Draculas in cinema and this is one of them. Which is a shame, because i was looking forward to this movie since i first heard about it in 2015 or so. I always liked the idea of telling the story of the Demeter, the ship that brought the Ur-Vampire to London, but this is so generic it's just another mediocre vampire flick lacking any original idea. A wasted oportunity, sadly -- but for a generic monster movie, it's entertaining, which is not nothing.
The Meg 2 (2023) ★★☆☆☆ I went to the theater to watch a stupid ass giant shark movie and wasn't disappointed, even got a stupid ass giant kraken on top. But the stupid ass movie was too stupid for my ass and it was a bit boring during the second act which is the worst for a stupid ass giant shark movie like this, but what did i expect: Nothing -- which is exactly what i got.
Gran Turismo (2023) ★★☆☆☆ Two hour commercial for a car maker and a videogame company, whichs underdog-gamer-makes-it-big-story lacks any surprises. It's entertaining for what it is, but nothing more. Another mediocre entry in Neill Blomkamps oevre and i'm giving up on the guy.
Mother, May I? (2023) ★★☆☆☆ A couple moves into his recently inherited childhood home, where the wife slowly begins to behave and dress like his recently deceased mother. Wants to be a psychological haunted house drama, but ultimately fails. I didn't precisely hate it, but the pseudo-depth psychodrama about childhood trauma getting resolved in spooky roleplay which may or may not involve ghosts was just annoying.
Perpetrator (2023) ★★☆☆☆ An incoherent mess with a horrible script and bad acting stands in the way of a better movie not muddling his feminist message. The film wants to be a cronenbergian low budget genre-bender, but stays a confusing wreck stitched together from many recent genre entries from Raw to The Bad Batch with some laughable dialogue. They tried something experimental-ish for a trashy genre flick, and i liked the sheer audacity for it, but this movie was incomprehensible at times and it sucks.
The Devil Comes at Night (2023) ★☆☆☆☆ A boxer has to fight of a satanic cult in his newly inherited home of late father. While this isn't the worst crap i've seen coming out of Uncork'd Entertainments ghastly sewer of trash, it is a stinker. It's not that bad for an Uncork'd movie, but it's down there with their other crap and i should’ve known better.
See, i just can't get myself to delete all those so-bad-you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it movies from The Asylum, ITN Studios, Gravitas Pictures or Uncork'd because i always think i miss out on that one decent trash pearl and i'm always disappointed. A critic whose name i forgot once said that being a horror buff means to dig yourself to a huge mountains of crap to find the gems, so i keep on watching stinkers like Sharkula, 3-headed Shark Attack or Bikini Model Mayhem and expect to find at least some of the gritty exploitation quality you can make out in older movies from the 60s or 70s — but no, not today.
All these movies from those companies are soulless, cheap, bland, bad, terrible and stupid garbage. They look bad and cheap and they are all the same. It’s always bad actors talking stupid dialogue in some badly lit rooms, and then nothing happens.
Red Letter Media recently decribed these movies as 'Watchbait', stupid crap shot with an iPhone hooking on somewhat famous horror franchises with an endless variation of titles like: Frankenstein Shark Asylum, or Amityville Haunting or Oujia Poltergeist Massacre, you get the drift.
On some lazy sundays, when i'm in the mood for the cinematic equivalent of "Fastfood which you lick from the floor of a backroom toilet in the middle of nowhere", i spend a whole day watching nothing but movies like these, enjoying my bafflement at realizing that stuff like this actually really exists and that there are people associating their names with flicks like this.
The Devil Comes at Night is not that bad and the badness of stuff like Haunting of the Queen Mary or Insidious Red Door below is much more unforgivable because these are well produced movies that want something, where this one just aims at being stupid fun. But it is bad, and it comes out of a bad neighborhood. That one star rating is for kind of standing out among the usual output from the beforementioned production companies.
Haunting of the Queen Mary (2023) ☆☆☆☆☆ Haven't asked myself what and why something is happening in a movie this often in a long time. Nothing works here, from the casting to the visuals to the script and the direction. A confusing stupid mess, i hated every second of this crap and i wonder why i sat through it. I guess i liked some of the production design and some okay camera work here.
Insidious: The Red Door (2023) ☆☆☆☆☆ Embarassingly bad and unintentionally funny. The only good thing i can say about this is that it is not as bad as the Haunting of the Queen Mary, though i'm not even sure about that. Just avoid both at all costs.
Retribution (2023) ☆☆☆☆☆ Ridiculous bad dialogue, bland characters so flat they even lack a cliché, a lame story and a Liam Neeson who looks just tired from all the bad action movies he stars in.