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denise-nachtigal
Reviews
100 Degrees Below Zero (2013)
Hyperbole.
I couldn't get past "I don't deal in hyperboles". I knew I was in for a treat when they used that word for the first time. I thought maybe because the character had an accent, that English wasn't supposed to be his first language, and that someone would correct him later. That never happened. In fact they just double down on it 10-15 minutes later.
There is something new, wondrous, and utterly mystifying every 5 minutes for you to pay attention to as you literally exclaim, "What the f@#&?!" before choking on laughter. 2/10. It's not "so bad it's good", it's just "so bad it's awful and dear GOD why am I still watching this?"
I'm only 23 minutes in.
It's gonna be a long 1.5 hours. 😂
Encounter (2021)
Definitely Worth Watching
I'm a huge, massive, sci-fi fan and I went into this expecting aliens and cover-ups.
!!!!!!!SPOILER!!!!!!!
What I got was not that. What I got was a movie addressing PTSD. Was I disappointed? A little, at first. This is not my kind of movie genre at all, and had I known from the start it was all in his head, I probably wouldn't have bothered watching it. As it is, I started suspecting Malik might not be right about 1/4 way into the movie, so when it was confirmed, I can't say I was terribly surprised. However, I kept watching till the end though, and I truly enjoyed it. It is a bit suspenseful, a bit of action, heartfelt, sad, and angering too, to an extent.
It's a good movie, and I would definitely recommend it to others, but maybe not label it as sci-fi.
Las tinieblas (2016)
Big Suspense, But Falls Flat
I keep reading how this is a coming of age movie, but as far as I could tell, the only thing the kid learns is not to trust his dad about EVERYTHING, but maybe some things. That could be enough to make a decent movie, I mean, all kids need to eventually learn that their parents don't know everything and maybe sometimes they omit things to protect us from the harsh realities of the real world.
Except, everything seems to more center around this mysterious thing in the woods that hunts them, and also that the air is toxic outside, (but not really). Not to mention:
~Why does the little sister say "the darkness is inside his (dads) room"?
~Why does dear old dad have an army of creepy marionettes in the attic?
~Why is dad making fake monster noises when there's maybe a real monster out there?
~Why does a wolf keep showing up?
~Why did the strangers say they could take the kid to his brother, but that was a lie? What was the point of that? To just...lure the kid away? What was the plan there exactly? Were they going to eat him? Even when the girl was alone she's still like, "Hey, I can take you to your brother!" So it's not like they were trying to just get into the house. She was trying to LEAVE with him.
~What's the point of the 'earth not revolving' bit? I mean, if I hadn't have read that in the description, I NEVER would have known that because it's never mentioned once anywhere in the movie unless I missed it somewhere? The only thing you know is that it's perpetually dim. It has absolutely no other relevance than to explain the lighting, which is just...why?
The questions go on and on and on but there's really not any answers to any of them. The only thing the kid actually learns is that dad said the monster got the eldest, but actually dad killed him because apparently he wanted to leave and take the siblings with him. I mean, I get not wanting to be alone, but wouldn't it have made more sense to just explain to the oldest that, yea, there's a real monster out here somewhere.
I think.
I'm still not 100% positive on that.
Maybe it was just the wolf that the little girl kept seeing out side the window, but then again it just pops into existence in the basement when dad is trapped down there, so I guess maybe the wolf is just a visualization of some other pending threat.
Whatever. I don't know. This whole thing just started interesting with a lot of mysteries, but then it went like, 45 layers deep or something which is way too deep for my personal tastes. Your mileage may vary, but for me, this just felt like a pretentious, read-between-the-lines, if-you-don't-get-it, you're-just not-deep-enough-to-understand, sort of movie.