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david-brun
Reviews
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Meh...
I don't think anyone watches an Evil Dead movie for its intricate storyline, for the great character development, for the complex situations, for the Oscar-worthy acting. That being said, this is by far the worst movie on the franchise, because it's not only simplistic and plain the way the other movies are, it's even dumber, it's less elaborate in every way, misses the mark on the classic Evil Dead "funny parts" and just tries too damn hard to be a horror movie.
There are buckets of blood spilled, there's gore, there's violence, there's a touch of goofy wannabe humor (and it's mostly a miss), everyone is soaked in gallons of blood by the second half of the movie, but still, all of it seems way too "meh" and even quite boring many times, there's nothing scary, nothing gross or even unnerving in this film, it really tries too hard to be scary or repugnant, but never gets there.
This feels like adding water to a cocktail. You're gonna have more liquid in the glass, but it's gonna be just diluted and less tasty. That's what this movie does to the Evil Dead franchise.
Dumb story, dumb situations, flat characters, stupid dialogue, super obvious moments, cringey nods to the classic films, all of it bathed in blood. Skippable film, adds nothing to an already very simplistic and formulaic horror franchise (that at least is considered a classic and has a cult following).
The Hole in the Ground (2019)
A hole in the ground and a bunch in the plot
The slow paced and the long dragged out scenes of nothing that led to more nothing made this a yawn fest. Truly, this movie could've been done in 40 minutes. Instead, they did 1h30 of driving around, having breakfast, house renovation (with a cooking spatula at first, having a perfectly working tool for that in the house), picking up your kid at school, more house renovation, having dinner, playing with your kid, lots of "mommy, mommy" and "I love you", slow walking around the house, etc.
Then the whole thing about people behaving in the most unnatural way, in ways that no regular human being would react to those situations presented in the plot.
And then the plot holes, too many to count but I don't wanna give away any spoilers.
It's just unreal how someone can write a movie without a care about portraying real human beings behaving in ways that make sense and then top it up by just not tying all those loose ends that his/her own story created.
The 3/10 stars are for some good cinematography and some good acting (specially the kid).
No One Will Save You (2023)
What the hell was that?
Awful movie. I might be getting too old for this, but lately it seems like the more ambiguous and open ended the movies are, the more people are in awe of them. To me it's just lazy storytelling. It's a bunch of pretentious directors backing themselves into a corner with a mess of a script and then just going "it was always my intention to keep it vague and ambiguous and weird it like this because I'm artsy and deep". No dude, your work is equivalent to a comedian that stops the joke just before the punchline, turns to the audience and goes "now create your own end of the joke". That's not a commendable job. It's easy, it's lazy, it's cheap. But still we see a bunch of reviews loving how deep films like these are, how they have deeper meaning, struggling to understand what was the message the director really wanted to convey. To me, these people are looking for artsy meaning where there's none and so they fill in the blanks left by a lazy incomplete script with whatever stupid explanation they prefer in their heads.
This movie has no premise, no build up, no explanations. It's just a chick going about her day, seems to be a pariah in her little city and then BOOM, full blown alien invasion and that's the rest of the movie. There it is, take everything for granted, it starts where "Signs" ended, basically and you have to go with it.
What were they doing in that little town? Why were they body snatching people? Why is there a murderous doppelgänger all of a sudden stabbing her and why does she cry and hug the doppelgänger when she kills her? Why are aliens riding the bus? Come on, people. Are you just giving high scores to whatever piece of crap these a streaming service puts out?
No dialogue, generic CGI, stupidest aliens, poor decision after poor decision by the main character, lack of consistency throughout events depicted.
This weird chick manages to kill a bunch of these super powered aliens (they can send you flying through the air just by moving their fingers), but they keep coming for her. Then after many tries and a bunch of them victimized by this chick, the aliens manage to abduct her, but they have a conversation (yeah, the only dialogue in this "masterpiece" and it's just grunts and noises) and decide to let her go, unlike the rest of the people in the town. Why? Well, you'd have to know alien language to get it, What a cop out!
And then, to finish everything beautifully, we have a long and corny DANCE SCENE, where everyone is body snatched by aliens except our main character who is just fine with it, and dances away and is all smiles.
Trash. Utter trash.
Flashback (2023)
Childish nonsense
Somehow the main character here realized how to go back to the past by visiting her memories at the time of death (when your life flashes before your eyes, supposedly) and then just slow her breathing (?) and living in the memory, so then she can change the future (actually, the present - it's only the future in the POV of the memory).
Why does she need to change it all the way back from the very beginning and in such a drastic way and not right at the point where the tragic thing happens, is also beyond explanation.
All of that nonsense wrapped up in a wannabe cute and quirky love story. Empty and silly.
Disco Inferno (2023)
Pointless
I dont get the point on producing something like this.
Without giving top much away: They start with a ludicrous premise that you feel needs to be explained in order for the audience to know how did we get there om the first place, but it never is explained. Then we move to years later where there are obvious connections to the aforementioned premise story, but even then, things just happen out of the blue and there's just no satisfaction given to the audience in terms of the writers going "so this is how we got here from there, see?"
You end up with a feeling of "but why?"
Pointless, shallow and meaningless. At least its short.
Svetlonoc (2022)
Disconnected mess
The movie starts alright, with a nice premise. But then when the story begins to play out, it's just a weird messy chain of events that not always seem connected, things happen where you'd expect more of an explanation to you - the audience - or more of at least a conversation between the characters, but no, it goes from scene to scene without really connecting or making sense. Many times I found myself thinking "wait, what?" or "But why?"
The transitions from a moment to another feel wrong, it's like it lacks pieces of the movie where they actually show how things play out, or the characters having actually normal human behavior.
One example from the top of my head is, both main and co-main characters are inside a cave at night, even though they could be sleeping in a house like they were before. One of them starts freaking out because of *reasons*. She's just uneasy inside the cave and that's that. Runs out of the cave into the woods. Suddenly there's a wolf just a few meters from the cave and the character runs back to the cave, apparently scared of the wolf, meets the other person who stayed behind, hugs her crying, never mentions the threat of the wolf, and then they do breathing exercises together and go to sleep. Aaaaaand scene! Like WTF?
The characters are frustratingly one dimensional, flat, cliché and derivative. Apart from the main and co-main, the rest just seem like NPC from a video game. They just come in for a scene, have some time on camera (mostly doing something "mean") and then just disappear for sometime, before they show up once again to be a**holes one more time.
Then there's the overly used super dragged out scenes in the forest, where a character is just walking around, surrounded in mist, looking at things (mostly treetops or the sky) mesmerized, drone New Age music in the background, nothing happens and then just cut to something different once again. And you don't really know how it went from one thing to the other.
Hints of witchcraft and sorcery are also thrown here and there, but again that's never explored, it's superficial and light.
The movie, overall, lacks depth, lacks better developed characters, the storytelling here is just so bad, so disconnected, so random, that it really ruins a good premise and what could've been a good story. Also, weird choice of dividing the film in "chapters" that do nothing to give structure to this failure of a storytelling attempt.
Inside Man (2022)
Plot holes! Plot holes everywhere!
Another TV series where they seem to be writing for audiences who have NO IDEA how a human being behaves and reacts to things.
This is bad in so many levels. Exaggerated acting, unlikeable characters, implausible plot, weird situations that people keep getting into for seemingly no reason. And let's not forget the ridiculous characters like women killer made into comedy relief cuddly gentle giant, a pervert who we're supposed to feel pity for, a vicar that the town loves but apparently has zero people skills at the same time, obnoxious and mean teen tutor (like that will get you far with teenagers!), journalist who sucks tremendously at her job, can't even ask the right questions and has enough money to just go across the Ocean for the sheer possibility of an interview. Then there's also the Sherlock-esque woman killer but at the same time heroe who we just have to assume is a genius because *yes* and has a background story that's never revealed even though we're teased with it every episode. Oh! And he's in jail, in death row nonetheless, but a jail that just lets him have as many visitors as he gets, long-distance and long-duration calls, walk around with his cuddly murderer buddy, strike deals about his sentence, all this and more. And what about the stupidest teenager in the world, who spends a lot of time and energy banging on a door and screaming for his dad to hear, but forgot he had his phone in his pocket and he could've just called. I mean, which teenager nowadays just ignores his phone? (Oh, BTW, we see him in another scene showing how he just can't leave his phone alone).
I'm just gonna stop here, there are so many plot holes, so many utterly unrealistic things (like ignoring the actual trail of computer archives and emails, the idea of throwing human feces in the kitchen garbage, the obnoxious police chicks with all the sassy attitude, the emotionally unstable wife character, the perfect timing for key events to unfold, the huge amount of unproven wacky theories that are just taken as fact when the death row inmate blurts them out, the inability of just about everybody to just have a calm and normal conversation that stays on track, etc, etc, etc), that it's just too much to write them down. What an idiocy of a TV series, seriously.
Soul Reaper (2019)
Oh wow....
Can't even begin to describe the levels of sucking this cheap ass B side improvised flick has reached.
Acting is BAD from the get go, the first two lines from the first two characters are already horribly delivered and set the tone for the rest of the movie.
What follows is a script so badly written that you're constantly thinking "wait, what?", while the acting goes from bad to worse. Then there's the "special effects" which are CHEAP, look amateurish and just plain laughable. All of f that backed by the horrible horrible horrible soundtrack. Yeah, these people couldn't even get the music right for this one. What a mess.
I only give it one star because I can't give it a ZERO. Really, on a scale from 1 to 10, this movie deserves a "NO".
Willy's Wonderland (2021)
Cage fights stuffed animals without saying a word
Cage silently cleans, drinks pop, plays pinball, kills a furry robot, repeat.
All happening over the laziest backstory, full of plot holes and awkwardly put together.
Filmmakers can't get lazier than this, that's for sure.
A Haunting at the Rectory (2015)
Laughably bad
At first, this felt like a porn movie without the sex scenes. That's how bad and corny the acting, the characterization and the representation of what should be the 30s was.
Then, we get a sex scene. So damn lousy, though, that it's the part of the movie that has the less "porn-y" vibe to it so far.
After that, it's all a dragged out piece of boring crap, acted out abysmally by the cast, with a sprinkle of something paranormal happening like 5 times, but that everyone just brushes off after a few minutes of mildly worrying about it.
And then a lazy and predictable ending to wrap it all up.
The Weekend Away (2022)
Netflix needs to stop producing films
Man, what a convoluted mess of a movie, a whole ton of impossible and unbelievable situations that leave behind a bunch of plot holes and lose ends.
People react to things like no one would react in real life, the police are stupider than just any citizen running around trying to solve stuff, a peeping Tom with no password on the computer to access his videos, a woman who has a gift for knowing exactly where to search for things when she needs them (code name on a phone, a specific key on a keychain, files on someone else's computer), a police officer who manages to chase a woman to a roof only to trip, fall off and die (yep), incredibly fast cooperation among European police from different countries (which was damn useless before and when not even both countries belong to the EU at least), weirdos everywhere you turn because Eastern Europeans are weird, right?
Man, this is all kinds of bad.
I don't know how something like this gets green lighted, Netflix should really stop producing movies, it seems like they run every wacky story plot anyone presents them.
Inventing Anna (2022)
WTF is that accent?
Too damn dragged out, long, embellished and even boring. This could've been a great documentary but they decided to sell it to the "you go girl" Grey's Anatomy fan base, instead of the true crime stories fan base.
And then they casted the Ozark chick to the role of Anna, even though she couldn't do a German accent for her life. She's portraying this Russian/German character, but instead she sounds like a hillbilly trying to pull off a British accent and failing miserably at it. Did she forget to ditch her Ozark character for this movie? I don't know, but it sounds awful and ruins a chunk of the experience. Typical casting of hype over talent.
El páramo (2021)
It's alright
The bleak atmosphere and the constant dreadful feeling that "something's coming" is what this movie relies on to try and be scary.
Not bad overall. It did manage to create some tension in some moments and some suspense.
It could have had less "walking around in the dark house" scenes, less "mamá!" screams by the boy which got annoying really fast, there are scenes so dark that you can barely see anything and overall, it could've had 20min less of duration, because there were way too many filler scenes and worthless parts that dragged for too long (for example, do we need to witness the boy count from 1 to 31 just sitting there on the tub?).
Still, compared to the stupid films that Hollywood (and Netflix, for that matter) are vomiting onto the audience and passing them as horror masterpieces, this was way more enjoyable.
Polishing the storytelling a little bit, trimming unnecessary fat and giving a bit more background about the "creature" would have elevated this to a new level.
Prey (2021)
Who greenlights these for Netflix?
Man, what a bad movie. Simplistic plot, one dimensional characters with the worst decision making skills and no chill, they're snapping at each other the whole time for absolutely nothing, repetitive running and hiding in the woods, blasé looking killer chic with the stupidest reason for killing, victims run while the killer slowly walks, yet the killer is always nearby, she kills them but also sometimes just lets them go, slow boring flashbacks that take the story nowhere and the dumbest soap opera drama "plot twist" if you can call it that, about a love triangle involving brothers that you can see coming from miles and still adds nothing to the movie and is totally unnecessary, ugh, I could go on....
Watching Netflix is getting embarrassing, do they just put out whatever absurd movie gets to their hands or what?
F you Netflix. F you right in the ass.
Aftermath (2021)
I feel insulted
This is extremely bad. Like, truly bad. So many questions unanswered, so many unlikely situations, so many plot holes. The dialogues are cringe-worthy most of the time and the acting is crap, the typical low budget acting, when whatever they're saying or doing doesn't feel completely *right*, there's always something off.
Then, inside the wacky story there's the typical hysterical wife and the husband who doesn't believe her (even after he himself having experienced suspicious situations), there's the shrugging off of things that no one IRL would shrug off, there's cops not doing their job and just plainly screaming at the victim, there's a dog that only sometimes decides to alert others about an intruder, there's even a comedic relief duo ffs....
On top of all that, the "intruder" is a damn ninja, fast, invisible, a master of hiding and camouflage and also likes to toy with his victims by opening faucets here and there, jiggling doorknobs, retrieving tennis balls from under furniture, playing vinyl suddenly, causing the occasional thud noise, using other people's mobiles without their consent. But then he's also feral and crazy and incapable of comunícate with words. He manages to avoid a whole camera surveillance system while chasing his victim (who appears in the surveillance footage), but couldn't stay away from a hand held camera places on a shelf and pointed directly at the couple's bed.
This is insulting to anyone's intelligence. And the fact that there's people actually giving good ratings to this piece of trash makes me lose even more faith in humanity.
Marighella (2019)
Great movie, rating affected by far right Brazilian raters
This is a great movie, an eye opening bio-pic detailing the story of this controversial figure in recent Brazilian history.
It's full of historían approved data, biographically irrefutable events, a story that makes sense from beginning to end and an amazing cast delivering great interpretations and emotions.
Now, how come the low score? Well, that's because of the political situation in Brazil, the divisiveness between left and right, with a far right ex-military president who actually defends the dictatorship against which Marighella fought and was a victim of. His supporters come here, without even having watched the movie, since way before the movie was officially released, and trash it in the reviews.
I'm giving it a 10/10 to help raise its score, but truthfully it might actually deserve something like an 8/10, because it does suffer from some overly emotional or dramatic parts that most Brazilian movies do.
Still, a great movie worthy watching.
Think about it: If it raised such an enormous response, that far right supporters had to come and trash it on the reviews, like little keyboard activists, there's something there...
Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun (2020)
Stupid YouTube for airhead teenagers
I might be getting too old and, at 40 y/o, I might not understand new trends anymore.
This just felt dumb and empty. It's stupidity for the sake of stupidity. And there's nothing funny. I forced myself to watch 3 entire episodes and when the 4th was already playing and I had not laughed once, I was like "ok, I've done too much" and had to stop watching it.
I can't understand all this 10/10 reviews. If they're real, I can only attribute it to a teenage YouTube fan base, too lazy to think, too simplistic to want substance in what they consume, too dung to try and figure out anything remotely more complex than these 3 idiots jumping around, singing absurdly dumb songs and making dumb faces like 8 year olds.
The world is screwed if this is what younger generations find that deserves a 10/10.
Us (2019)
Inconsistent and weird in a bad way
This flick is all over the place, so inconsistent, so many plot holes, so many questions unanswered by the end of it. It's weird, but not in a flattering way, sometimes it gets to borderline stupid.
It's really bad when you're gonna watch a horror movie with supernatural, fantastical events, and still you find yourself having to suspend all disbelief way more than what the fantastical events call for. And then when you have to do it repeatedly, it's either purposefully testing your level of intelligence or it's just a bad script.
I can't believe this movie has such a high score, even though I've seen reviews trashing it in the comments but still scoring it 6 or above.
Giving this piece of garbage a 5 is already too much.
I mean, people, let's all think about the flawless horror movies in history, then let's go down a step and remember the great horror movies in the history of cinema, let's think then of the good and decent ones, then let's think of the regular and the maybe not so good ones but still memorable.... does this hyped up trash really deserves a spot from the middle up among all that cinema history? I don't think so....
Jordan Peele had already disappointed me tremendously with his other work in the horror/sci-FI/fantasy realm but since the score on this one was decent enough, I decided to give it a try. Man, I'm never watching none of his work again.
Oh, and by the way, the plot-twist at the end, yeah, saw it coming from miles. And it's so bad it managed to create even more inconsistencies and plot holes.
Ghost Stories (2017)
A huge let down... spoiler ahead:
It's all in the main character's head while he suffers from a coma-like condition.
Such an easy way out they took with this one, how can people give it high scores?
The Mortuary Collection (2019)
Entertaining, fun and creepy
A fun to watch anthology movie for a Halloween movie session or just a lazy cold Sunday afternoon. Loved the vibes from shows like Tales From The Crypt, Creepshow, Twilight Zone, Monsters, etc.
As any anthology film, some stories are stronger than others, but all of them are fun to watch, most with a twist and a hidden moral message.
Go without much expectations and you'll enjoy this, specially if you are a fan of Tales From The Crypt style stories.
La llorona (2019)
Painfully slow and boring
The film shows its pace from the get go, with a bunch of ladies praying in whispers for about 3 minutes. Then, we get a scene of an old man walking around a dark house for minutes and minutes on end. When something happens, then you think "alright, it has started". But no.
Having watched this on Shudder, EVERYTIME the film cut to a new scene (and sudden cuts from one scene to the other are a constant here), I quickly learned that I could easily skip forward 15 to 30 seconds (sometimes even more) of that scene to something actually start to happen there. And I don't mean something interesting, I mean simply a boring dialog or a bit of something that would add a little to the story, but those things are short and scarce, so there you are quickly fast forwarding again. Basically, for every one or two minutes that I watched, I fast forwarded 15 to 30 seconds of pointless nothing.
Having lived in Central America for a long time, I was aware of La Llorona lore, and this didn't do it any justice. Also, very aware of the genocides and political/military abuses in Guatemala and other countries in the region, for a film that's supposed to tell that story (with a bit of mysticism mixed in), to me it felt washed out, too simple, pointless, almost a disrespect to the things that happened and to aboriginal victims and their lore.
Then, after a boring story, the payout is not even worth it, you know what's happening all along and then when the outcome is what you expect it to be, the main story ends, but before the actual movie ending, there's space for one more slow paced scene where you know what's gonna happen at the end. So, don't believe the high scores, this just plainly sucks. Waste of time.
Knock Knock (2015)
How did this even get made???
I never review movies here, but this was so terribly AWFUL that I felt compelled to come here and warn everyone, do not watch this. Bad acting, terrible dialog (dialog?), horrible writing, no plot. Basically, the dude is home alone, has sex with two bimbos and then they start wrecking his house and torturing him in the stupidest ways, always laughing like two retarded children on acid, and the dude basically just screams "please no, please noooo" the whole time and that's the movie. NOTHING. ELSE. HAPPENS. I actually feel dumber after watching this... and I think it also might have given me cancer. F.U. Keanu!