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Pod (2015)
Low Budget Indie Film and it shows
The entire movie must have been made on a budget of $55.00 tops. It is really poorly done with shoddy props, pretty lousy actors and a story line that seems to borrow from loads of past science fiction and horror films. For all the talk about a "Pod" it has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot of "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers!"
But it seems to play off other films where the "hero" or "victim" (however you may identify the younger brother) who is mentally erratic and cannot seems to get out his truthful story without sounding utter insane.
The three siblings are a good composite of modern families. The oldest is a domineering Alpha male with a great dose of arrogant self-assurance leading to his being disliked and distrusted by his younger siblings (which turns out to be for very good reasons by the films conclusion.)
The Younger brother is a mentally damaged Iraqi War veteran with a very unbelievable horror story to tell! The youngest one, a sister, is an independent young woman who resents the dominance of the eldest and gives a sympathetic ear to her ailing brother.
A curious aspect of the character make up is that the eldest brother is a psychologist who seems to have some mental issues of his own (much like real psychologists!)
The plot while interesting seems like an old chestnut and the ending is so predictable that it serves as a cherry atop this manure sundae!
Give it the skip!
Another Evil (2016)
THIS IS NO COMEDY
Within the first 10 minutes of this film, it became quite obvious that there was no comedic aspect in this story line. The story is pretty much like a stream of consciousness affair which make most of it pretty damned boring. To spend 95% of a movie to build up to a quick conclusion is pretty much a wasted movie in my book.
The characters are decidedly not likeable, they are also NOT hate able either, in fact, part of the problem is that for most of the film they are just not anything, they are just there!
The lead, being the homeowner, is just a blah character with nothing to relate to at all, just a bump on a log whose greatest excitement in life is that his house is haunted.
Mark Proksch is a great disappoint in this role as he channels Colin Robinson's utter lack of personality until he loses it at the very end of the movie, only to return to dullness in the final scene. The flow of the movie is disjointed in that bits and pieces of the flow are utterly unrelated to the main plot and to each other!
The conclusion does not follow the final few scenes, and one major part of the ending goes totally unexplained. Ask yourself this if you watch the movie....why is the son in the condition depicted? What in the last 5 minutes of the movie caused this - it just doesn't add up!
Sundance really flushed their moey down the toilet on this one!!!
Room for Rent (2019)
Horrible Movie for one main reason
I love cheapo horror and science fiction movies, and I find that English ones seem to have the most engaging plots. But they are often ruined for me by the inclusion of one of the absolutely worse actresses to ever stain the silver screen!
Once again, this film had a fairly original idea at the core of its plot and would have been a good movie except for Lin Shaye, who is the most talentless actresses to star in these types of films.
She is totally incapable of expressing anything close to a human emotion and is often portraying characters far younger than her obvious age. She is stiff and looks to be totally unprepared to act out her role, much like a school child frightened to be on stage!
Will someone be kind enough to tell this old bag that she cannot act and is ruining what might have been a decent film??? I guess as long as they keep paying her, she will not be merciful and retire!!!!
Gods of the Deep (2023)
INCREDIBLY BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The entire movie is horrible! The special effects are terrible, for example a pressurized hatch which must contains tons of pressure is made of the kind of quarter inch steel plate used on industrial stairways in factories, the windows of a submersible are very obviously made of plexiglass and the giant sea creature has "wing like" webs under its arms that are either crepe paper or starched cloth!!!
The cast needs a few years of acting school, they are soooooo bad. The makers of this farce also tried to make it appear at first glance to be made up of a-list actors: the Jim character is played by a Ryan Gosling wanna be, the Engineer is played by a John Rhys-Davis wanna be, and Mr Pickman was played by a Donald Sutherland wanna be! That might fool you for a second, but it becomes obvious that they are second rate players immediately!!!
Finally, the story itself is a rip off of H. P. Lovecraft's work, but with all kinds of pretty juvenile subplots thrown in to the mix, along with TONS of predictable situations and actions!
After watching this my apartment smells like stinking and rotting fish, THAT IS HOW BAD THIS MOVIE IS!!!!
Bone Eater (2007)
OMG this was horrible
I have never been so appalled by the sheer amateurishness of special effects: the creatures was as laughable as a prop in some Halloween Haunted House! Probably the only effect that was more laughable than the creature was his horse which appeared under a cloud or fog in order to obscure the inadequacy of the construction.
The creature was very much like the 1950s stop motion movement of the Harryhausen movies, very jerky without any natural flow!
That aside the characters were all over blown and stereotypical e.g.: the sheriff was the super Dad and the righteous lawman, the daughter was the spoiled teenage rebel, the chief was the wise old man, etc.
The performance of the cast was on a par with the typical soap opera performance with sweeping gesture and hamish overacting! The sheriff had to be the absolute worst offender for overacting!
One review is by an obvious participant in this production and he complains about those who criticize the film for being UN-politically correct on Indians, that is not a gripe for me, BUT I do have to say that the portrayal of Indians was stereotypical and hilarious! I lived in New Mexico for 4 years in a town with a large Apache population, some of them were neighbors and friend and NONE of them spoke in stilted English like in this film, most of the greeted you "Hey Dude, wasss up." And none of them had long stringy hair dos with bead and feathers braided in them!
My last comment is that the music sounded like the old clippety cloppity cowpoke music of old 1940-1950s westerns, in fact I broke put in laughter when this kind of music played during climatic scene.
WHAT A DUD!!!!
The Bye Bye Man (2017)
Combination of pieces of other films
This movie brings about feelings of DeJa'Vu because it doe use several concepts from past horror movies. A little "Nightmare on Elm Street," "Candyman," and a little hint of Stephen King's "IT" are mixed together to create the entire story.
I am not saying that this "borrowing" is a horrible thing, but it makes the entire affair so predictable that there is no real suspense once you clearly see the continuity of the pieces. You have the feeling of what's coming up next through the film.
It was done pretty well and the actors put in solid performances, showing very good expression of emotion (especially the lead playing Elliot.)
It is just ashamed it lacks a oomph quality to shock and peak one's curiosity! Bye Bye Man himself is just another Candyman!
Blood Vessel (2019)
Entertaining, but not very original
Now, to get this movie all you must do is take a script from the film "The last Voyage of the Demeter 2023" and the script of the fil "Death Ship 1980" and shuffle the pages very well and Voilà you have this story!
There are equal parts of each story borrowed to develop this movies.
Death Ship is about survivors who are "rescued" by a Nazi prison ship (never existed) who are one by one killed off by an evil supernatural presence until only a family escapes.
Then you have the last voyage of the Demeter in which a ship at sea is carrying a vampire (in that case Dracula) and he kills off the entire crew and survives to terrorize another day.
In this one add the Nazi ship full of evil and the vampire and once again Voilà you have this film!!!
Human Resources (2021)
Strange, But quite good!
There were aspects of this film that were annoying and did not make sense, but it came together to be a pretty damned good horror story!
The ending explains absolutely NOTHING about the origin of the situation and the root causes of the evil force at play here are left undetermined right up to the credits rolling, but it still was an exciting wrap up.
The acting was quite good with the main character have a very irritating personality, but that was a flaw in the writing and not the acting.
By the last ten minutes you have your concept of who is the good guy and who is the bad guy totally upended which was an unexpected twist, but it contributed to the fairly good conclusion.
The pieces did not fit together seamlessly by any means, but they did bring the film to a satisfying end.
Transmorphers: Mech Beasts (2023)
Which is dumber, the movie or me for watching it?
I really need to question my own intelligence because I watch the trash vomited up by Asylum and I expect that this one might actually be a good movie. It absolutely NEVER is a good movie, each one seems to plumb the depths of just how bad a film can be!
The acting is always lousy, the dialogue nonsensical and the plot an un-understandable mixture of scientific gobbley gook that makes no sense.
Then there is the 1980s Atari special effects that look miserably cartoonish. The settings are always some abandoned warehouse with trash scattered around and relatively no damage considering it is ALWAYS the site of an epic battle just moments before!
This one actually sets forth that the ENTIRE world's survival depends on a sergeant and her two kids plus their stepfather! And venture a guess who are the only people to survive after they save the world!
What a pile of manure!!!
Il nido (2019)
WOW, is this bad!!!
I gave this film 3 stars purely for the atmosphere of the film. Otherwise, it a long and tedious and seemingly endless all leading to a pretty lousy twist at the end that did not warrant the long and strange storyline to build up to it.
It is listed as a horror story, but except for the twist there is NOTHING horrific in it except for extremely creepy mother and extended family and their bizarre ways.
The characters are all pretty creepy, not in haunted or supernatural ways, but in reflecting people who make your skin crawl with their personalities.
Even the boy comes across as a sinister figure, although he is not. The story makes him a tragic figure and one deserving of the viewers sympathy, but the way he is played and his dialogue makes one feel unsettled by him.
It is not horrible, but you choose to watch it keep No-Doz and strong caffeinated coffee handy to keep you awake till the end!
Ravenswood (2017)
Great story and Ending, But.....
I realize that low budget horror films about young victims try to get the most attractive women and men that they can afford and often neglect their acting talents for their looks. This is a classic example of this type of situation. The lead actress playing Sofia/Sara is an attractive person, but is completely devoid of acting ability!
The rest of the cast has it good moments now and again, but generally they do not perform very well.
The plot is a very good one, but it is portrayed in a haphazard way that certainly has very little continuity, so something is lost in scenes that just don't seem to follow in a logical pattern.
There are many goofs, all pretty minor, but especially when the early scenes are set in the 1950s it is just not convincing!
The ending is a twisted twist ending and is the crowning moment in the entire film, I did enjoy it and it made watching the film more worthwhile!
Mister White (2013)
Astoundingly BAD ACTING!!!!!!
The premise to this film had fantastic potential and the storyline/plot could have been a VERY effective horror story, but the acting of the entire cast was so subpar that a kindergarten class could have made a better adaption of the story!
Played correctly the elements of the plot could have built upon each other and become a compelling horror/drama which would have built tension right up the conclusion, but it is impossible feel fear and tension when the acting is so bad that it resembles a clownish cartoon comedy.
The main character "Tyler" is wooden and at times goes in the opposite direction making overblown emotions into a caricature of a disturbed or haunted person. He was absurd in the part and brought the role into the realm of parody! In other words he STANK!
The rest of the cast was barely a step above his dismal acting. They were all wooden and the teenaged "mean girls" and bad boys sounded as if they were reading the script out loud for the first time in a monotone voice.
The ruination of a good plot by horrendous acting puts this film in the tragedy category!
WHAT A WASTE!
In Fear (2013)
One word; BORING
There is little to no plot in this film, it is 99% a film of two people endlessly wandering through the countryside totally lost.
The two main characters are pretty good actors and they are wasted in this endless nonexistent storyline. There is an overarching theme to the film, but it is just an excuse to rerun the same scenario repeatedly to fill time. Imagine traveling a 3 block road circle again and again with each circuit being Exactly the same every time!
I literally nodded off a few times while watching this mindless drivel and being taken aback when the conclusion explains absolutely NOTHING! We never learn why this is happening, who is causing it, what is their motive and whether this is a well-developed evil plan or if it is some supernatural force.
The entire movie was a waste of time and is neither mystery nor horror!
SKIP it!!!
Jonah (2023)
Disjointed, plotless mess of film!
Usually the plot will make or break a movie, this film has no plot whatsoever! It is utterly disjointed with unrelated storylines that go no where and never get connected other story elements.
The main character is a drug addicted "journalist" that investigates fringe paranormal stories and seems totally gullible right up to taking on this abduction story. He and the female lead (Margot) cross back and forth from believable to insane and both pretty much end as bizarre individuals.
The boy is an empty character who plays no role in the story albeit that he is supposedly the subject of the film.
One of those films that make NO sense, but if you say that film critics will claim it was too deep for you to understand!
Crypsis (2019)
Repeat of EVERY "bigfoot" movie EVER made!
Movies about huge primitive human/animal creatures tend to be similar, but this one in simply a string of scenes from every bigfoot creature movies ever made.
The acting if pretty poor and the storyline is a bit twisted on who is betraying who in luring people out to a remote island with legends of a creature, just to prove or disprove it exists.
The gist of the film is pretty much to see how the creature kills each of them and yet even that aspect is pretty boring since there are not that many ways for a creature to kill people on a deserted island, that has no weapons and no shelter.
It is a pretty poor addition to this type of film and ends up being REALLY boring after only a few minutes into it!
Occupation: Rainfall (2020)
Decent, but pretty typical
The acting was okay and the mixture of characters was decent, but the theme and storyline were pretty shop worn and used way too many time in past alien invasion films. Right down to requisite human interests side lines of romance, betrayal and power struggles among the human side. The attempts to lighten up the epic length film with humor were abysmal failures and extremely in appropriate to the rest of the content.
Every aspect of the film was a rehash of every other invasion film, even the young side kick who stows away with the mission group "to get in on the action" and the one human character who "truly" believe in "Peace" despite the obvious determination of the aliens to betray her trust at every turn in the story.
It has great special effects throughout which makes it worth watching for the fun of it, but after they wear off that isn't much left to entertain!
Stranded (2023)
Why was this film made?
I am guessing that the creators of this mess assumed that making a very low budget film was bound to make them at least a small profit, that could be the only reason ANYONE would this pitiful excuse for a movie.
The dialogue is not even realistic, the bickering and arguments between the siblings are so unnatural that they sound like nasty chatter with no point or meaning. The characters are utterly shallow and bland. It is like listening to a hive of angry bees incessantly buzzing in a hostile way endlessly.
The acting was horrible from EVERY SINGLE cast member, no exception! And the lack of a storyline made the whole enterprise drag on endlessly.
In the end the whole thing was POINTLESS!
Family Possessions (2016)
Toss up on what is worse: Acting or story!
The things that is initially apparent is how dismally bad the acting is, within seconds the inability of the lead actress to convey even the simplest emotion is on full display. Her expression of startled fear looks like a 3rd grader in a school play. The other characters are just slightly better than her, but the character of her mother delivers every line in a flat monotone voice that exhibits no emotion at all!
Then there is the script, which tells a very simple story, so simple that it comes across as pretty dumb. And the matter of fact type details just don't add up. The Dunn family moves into a community where they have not even visited in many years and yet all the family members seem to know where everything in town is located and EVERYTHING can be gotten to on foot! It is all centered in a North Carolina small city with a fair population and a considerable land area, but things are all a short distance away from each other and everyone seems to know everyone else.
The camera work in this film is very amateurish. One annoying practice of the past was to use camera angles and zoom focusing to relate surprise and/or shock value (right out of the 1970s Made for TV movies) and those techniques are riff in this film.
All these ingredients combined make for a poorly constructed film of a very simplistic storyline acted out by a horrible cast!
Nothing of any value to see here!
Grandmother's House (1988)
Like a cheap 1980s MADE FOR TV Movie!
When the film description on Amazon Prime contains NOTHING about the movie, but is a long cascade of praise for the Director and how it is a classic...PICK ANOTHER MOVIE!!
Right from the onset the "grandkids" are the most creepy thing about the plot. Given that their father has just died, you'd expect some sadness and melancholy, but they act as if they have never met their grandparents and are very unfriendly towards them.
Neither seems deterred from having fun with the girl looking for some romantic actions within the first 10 minutes of the film. And the boy gives off sinister vibes from the first minute!
The plotline is confused by scenes that turn out to be the boy's dreams or fantasies, so you are never sure if it was real or not,
As the story DRAGS on to the ending one realizes that this is a 1980s "cause dejour" movies and the long strangles plot leads up to a "forbidden" subject that actually does not really make sense and the entire reveal last about 3 minutes before the credits roll!
The acting is pretty bad, especially the kids, but even "Uncle Leo" is not in top form for this one! Give it the skip!!!
The Sacred (2009)
What an ethnic disaster
For a story about Native American "Sacred" lands there are NO Native American actors in it whatsoever! And I noticed the information here on Imdb sanitized the story line quite a bit to take the edge off the not only the lack of authenticity, cultural appropriation, but also the depiction of the "sacred" quality as pure and utter evil.
The White shamaness has bugs crawling out of eyes within the first five minutes of the opening and all the violence gives not a hint of spiritual JUSTICE as portrayed by the plot line summary included on the site!
Native culture is shown as being very cruel and fond of senseless violence and torture and there is no hint of a divine justice related to the violence depicted. Plus, it is just a REALLY bad storyline!
Aquaslash (2019)
Totally twisted excuse for a T & A Slasher Flick
The most glaring thing about this movie is that ALL the characters are low lifes who deserve the terrors that they are subjected to, EXCEPT that two of the creepiest characters come out smelling like a rose at the end.
The main body of characters are recent high school graduates, but they are ALL absolute reprobates engaged in wild sex, alcohol and drugs from the first minute after the opening credits end. The male hero is a very nasty and arrogant character who has no charm or appeal throughout the film.
Another very disturbing aspect of the film is that the two main black figures are depicted as dumb (references are made to how long it took them to graduate) drug users and pushers and extreme sexual predators! They also bully everyone around them.
All around this was an excuse for EXTREME gore and as much sexual exposure as possible without any real plot!
REALLY rank excuse for even a slasher film!!!!
Lu Xing Sha (2020)
Much like a live action cartoon
The storyline is like a 90 minute cartoon with carboard characters - The good ones are portrayed as 100% virtuous and without flaw, while the bad guys are sheer evil and without any good characteristics.
The Chinese make films like the Japanese did in the 1950s filled with childish episodes and comic "relief" from a buffoon character and usually an overweight guy to boot! Expect that in spades from this film with the hero's side kick always saying very juvenile lines and falling all over himself whenever the going gets rough. Another typical addition is the cutesy little child who says funny thing from time to time and in this case a child who the sharks wants to eat, but due to bizarre circumstances never seems able to catch!
Special effects are really bad, the shark changes size drastically from screen shot to screen shot. It is under the boat and is well over twice as big as the boat and as it drags the boat it appears about half the size of the craft, but don't be disappoint because within minutes its width fills a four-lane highway and then in seconds is as big as a building!
It is worth 3 stars because it is entertaining and make you laugh more than it make you cringe!
Island Escape (2023)
Twisted logic storyline
The storyline in this time warp story is so convoluted that it doubles and triples back on itself leading to an ending that is completely nonsense!
The characters are pretty good and flushed out to a good degree, so that you get comfortable with them and by mid movies your are sympathizing with their plight and rooting for them, but even the relationships get so intertwined with the storyline that a good deal of even that aspect becomes fuzzy.
The subplot of the romantic aspect of the story is really bad and since the female lead bears a striking resemblance to "Mr. Bean" the few romantic scenes are hilarious. The female lead is a disaster - too scrawny to be the rough and ready mercenary type and too boyish and homely to add to a romantic subplot!
The ending makes you scratch your head and say "what the hell" to yourself as the credits roll!!!
Death Aquarium (2021)
Was stupidity a prerequisite for a writing job?
There were so many factual errors, bad science, inconsistencies and nonsense to fill 50 pages on this cheap Asylum travesty.
Heating and cooling ducts with air vents quite visible, are identified as underwater tunnels that huge creatures are somehow crawling through, flooded hallways are deemed impassable despite that there being about 6 to 8 inches of water in them! Crawling into a tiny overhead ventilation duct led to a narrow walkway and not to "the office with different color carpet!"
The comedy between the 'tour guide" and the birthday guest was completely flat!
And as usual the story was about a strong willed and righteous female lead overcoming all the evil plotting of ALL the EVIL male characters.
Asylum needs to give their "message" movies a rest! The action and adventure did NOT carry the preachy moralizing of the movie!
Grade A+++++ STINKER!!!!
ShadowMarsh (2022)
CONSISTENT: Bad from beginning to End!
None of this storyline was consistent at any point in the entire film! All the details were contradicted within minutes of being introduced! There were no deaths in the town and then there were many unsolved ones stretching back decades.
Never is it explained who the "evil" people are, why they are evil, and what is their intention??? It is all a mishmash of possible motive and meaning, but it NEVER gets tied together!
The dialogue of the film is exchanged by adult characters and yet so much of it comes out sounding like this is a stoner film and this only places people at the place they are killed, it does not flesh out any of these characters!
The man playing the uncle has a great mellow voice, but not even an ounce of acting ability!!!