bryan-davis-keith Reviews

No Solicitors (2015)

Might Have Been Better as a Porno

[3/10 · 9 January 2018]

The film is already shot like a porno with dialogue on part with most pornos. The film does well as a no-holds-barred violence exhibition, with gruesome torture and medical procedures throughout (even though the gore is amateur hour). However, the entertaining set pieces are derailed by grating, over-the-top acting that renders the film as painful to get through as what this family's victims go through. In its current form, it's 20 minutes too long, which is a problem for a movie that's 90 minutes and change.

Shame...with a budget and a rewrite this could have been something.

Death Island: Paranormal Retribution (2017 Video)

Some Effective Sequences Not Enough to Save Blair Witch Wannabe

[5/10 · 8 January 2018]

Structurally, this film is as close to a knock-off of The Blair Witch Project as it can be, from the opening scenes with the locals to an overabundance of selfie camera shots of fear.

While the film's story of a documentary crew fighting amongst itself as the going gets tough has been done a million times over (and better), there's a few sequences in this film that are surprisingly effective. Errantly discovering two armed meth cooks, and being stalked in the pitch dark woods by men with laser-equipped firearms are scenes that top any of the tension generated by the film's paranormal storylines, and leave one wondering whether Death Island would have been better off with a more natural death.

Bigfoot Country (2017)

Surprising Deaths Overshadow Sasquatch

[4/10 · 8 January 2018]

It's a straight to video production...the acting is largely terrible, the dialogue even moreso, and there's some real amateur qualities to the camera work (watch in the introduction shots how the drone footage appears to capture a parking clearing, yet suddenly jerks away from it). The build-up scenes in the film until the monster arrives are insufferable.

Having said that, the film does much better once it gets into the meat of its story. The deaths in this movie almost make it worth watching, as they come unexpectedly and with surprising intensity. The movie does miss a real opportunity with its ending though (an ending all but stolen from the previously made and far superior Backcountry), leaving the viewer with another tease of a monster as opposed to tackling the very human evil that marks the film's final few minutes.

Not worth the Amazon rental price, but might be worth a look if it becomes a free stream down the road.