bretthodgins Reviews

Doctor Who: The Bells of Saint John (2013) Season 7, Episode 7

Scarier than Blink, scarier than Midnight

[10/10 · 29 May 2024]

This is still to this day the scariest episode of Doctor Who I've ever seen. I revisited it after 73 Yards in 2024 - a contender for that spot - and still see this as the most perfect example of horror in the series. Think about it: when everything else is stripped away from us we can still be aware of our surroundings. For the Great Intelligence to be such a vile creature as to strip even that away from us while still forcing us to be conscious is one of the most horrific things I can imagine. I don't know what would be worse - to be condemned to that for all eternity or to be stuck in that purgatory for decades - since you were a child - and then forced back into a body that the Great Intelligence has been puppeting and has aged without your psychological presence.

Echo 3 (2022–2023)

Delta Force but make it Idiot Plot

[2/10 · 5 January 2023]

Here's how every episode goes: a thing happens. Something does something completely idiotic in response to that thing happening. Characters spend the entire episode trying to make up for completely idiotic thing that they did. It looks like they're going to be successful. At the climax they turn out not to be successful because one of the characters does something completely idiotic. Cliffhanger ending. You genuinely now don't have to watch a single episode of this horribly written/directed garbage.

The actual action set pieces aren't the worst but the exact second the focus is put back on the characters they go right back to being the dumbest human beings on television.

Nope (2022)

Not Like Get Out or Us but a Great Film Throwback

[9/10 · 30 July 2022]

Let's get one thing first: this is not a horror movie in the modern sense. This is an old school monster movie a la 1950s/1960s era Godzilla and King Kong movies. If you go into this expecting a movie like Get Out or Us you'll be disappointed.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

A Comic Book comic book movie

[8/10 · 9 May 2022]

Your enjoyment of this movie will be down to if you enjoyed reading the comics. This is the most like a comic movie Marvel has made yet. It's a completely different style of entertainment.

Tank 432 (2015)

Do you enjoy watching nothing happen for 1.5 hours? Then this is the movie for you

[1/10 · 10 December 2021]

Both myself and my father are owed 90 minutes of our lives back by everyone involved in this "movie." And I use that term loosely. Under no circumstances should you subject anyone to this movie unless you're looking to use it for advanced interrogation but do know that that level of torture is less ethical than just waterboarding someone.

Eternals (2021)

More "Snyder Cut" than "Justice League"

[7/10 · 27 November 2021]

Is this the best MCU movie yet? Not by a long shot. But they manage to establish the Eternals, Celestial, Eros, Black Knight, and Blade and still make it work.

Black Widow (2021)

A throwback to Phase 2 with one flaw

[8/10 · 9 July 2021]

The Taskmaster reveal was underwhelming. This could've been fixed easily with an end credit scene set post-FFH where Ross and Fury are storing Mysterio's equipment in a maximum security facility and in that scene we see that the Taskmaster gear had been stolen. With it looking like the MCU wants to gear up for Thunderbolts it's a real shame that Taskmaster will likely be a 1 off.

Monster Hunter (2020)

Who wanted this?

[3/10 · 24 February 2021]

3 stars because at least it's better than anything Uwe Boll has ever done.

Nightflyers (2018)

Too messy

[3/10 · 11 April 2020]

The show just keeps trying to add on new twists in an attempt to seem clever and in the end it's just a jumbled mess. Furthermore, it can't seem to decide how much information to give the viewer before throwing the twist at them. On one hand you've got something like Cynthia in the ship's system being extremely telegraphed and on the other you've got "the captain is a robot" coming out of nowhere.

What Did Jack Do? (2017)

David Lynch's last 2 brain cells having a conversation

[8/10 · 1 February 2020]

And somehow - maybe because it plays into David Lynch as a director so well - it's entirely worth the watch

Black Christmas (2019)

Who asked for this?

[1/10 · 13 December 2019]

Not only do you make a garbage remake of a horror classic but you make it a PG-13 version? Absolute trash. Someone should be arrested for this dribble.

In the Tall Grass (2019)

Triangle but lesser

[6/10 · 2 December 2019]

If you've seen the Melissa George film Triangle then you're familiar with the temporal causality loop/path to redemption plot this film centers around. The thing is none of that is a part of the original King/Hill novella. I thought it was a very interesting way of retelling the original story, even if it didn't bring anything new or innovative to the horror community.

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

So close to a great movie.

[6/10 · 14 September 2019]

What MMT has at its core is amazing - a plot that's completely unique bordering on convulated and a prevailing sense of unease thanks to an amazing performance by Jones. There's two main problems, though.

1) the CGI is terrible. Eyeball. Perfect example.

2) it seems like they tried to force a lot of fighting into it which is clunky at best and that's even if you ignore the fact that Mahogany's superhuman strength should make fighting a mute point.

All in all I think this movie would be excellent if remade today with better CGI and a more "Resident Evil 7 instead of Resident Evil 4" approach.

Gehenna: Where Death Lives (2016)

Been done better before

[5/10 · 24 February 2019]

This isn't an inherently bad movie but it's just kinda "meh." The twist would be cool if Triangle, Devil's Pass, Altitude, Interstellar, and others hadn't done it first and with more subtlety and better development.

Await Further Instructions (2018)

5/10 for accidental satire

[5/10 · 15 February 2019]

This movie tried to make a point about how we're slaves to our televisions but it did so by having a sentient tv kill some of the most objectively unlikable characters I've ever seen. If anything I'm an even bigger fan of tv now.

PS- babies can't read.