I am going to post some of my film reviews in this thread.

[Metalhead]

Great review, useful to know. This sounds dull yet scary. How do they get the finance to make this kind of lacklustre stuff? Though the spatter fest maybe justifies the dullness. I was watching Teen Wolf recently while feeling at low energy and stuck on the sofa. But I just ran out of interest as there's no real development of the situation except to get more violent and bloodthirsty, which undermines the sometimes fun of the humour.

I'd contrast it with the Locke and Key series, that was more inventive and original, with good tension and a storyline that worked. Think they are making another series. But Teen Wolf was still way better than some of the mediocre teen spatter films.

Low budget horror movies usually make their money back, so they usually do get financed.

 

[Thinx]

Lvx Æterna (2019)

Grade – 1.5 / 5

Rating – Unrated (Equivalent to an R)

Running Time – 51 Minutes
​

Welcome to the world of the single most pretentious piece of advertising I have ever seen. Lvx Æterna was intended to be a spectacular Yves Saint Laurent advert, but under the creative control of Gaspar Noe, it turned out to be more of a cinematic practical joke. Anybody who is sensitive to flashing lights should avoid this short film at all costs, as the last ten minutes will definitely trigger seizures in many people who see it. Anybody who is a fan of Noe’s previous films will not find much of his humanistic touch here, but then again, this was intended to be an advert.

Charlotte Gainsbourgh and Beatrice Dalle are the two leads here, and they look smashing in their Saint Laurent clothing, but their characters are not given that much to do other than wander around a chaotic set for most of the running time. The film set on display here is truly chaotic, so fans of trashy reality television might get some enjoyment out of this staged pandemonium. I could tell that Noe was reaching for a satirical bite on the nature of filmmaking here, but his sledgehammer approach to this subject matter renders it rather childish by the time the end comes around.

I was not expecting the usual Noe masterpiece, and I did not get the usual Noe masterpiece. The split-screen camera work which is used throughout most of the film certainly did add to the feeling of chaos that Noe was striving for, so on that note, I could say he certainly did pull off what he tried to do. What really made the film an unpleasant experience, however, was the last ten minutes. Flashing colorful lights take over the screen, and even though I do not suffer from epilepsy, I did feel that having these lights go on for ten minutes straight, no break, no respite, the cast still going through the skimpy story in this lighting….. Noe, you asked for too much from me when you pulled this particular stunt here.

Does this make people want to go out and buy Yves Saint Laurent clothing? Was this advert really intended to promote such consumerism, or was it a pretentious artistic statement through and through? Noe has made unpleasant films in the past, but being unpleasant emotionally and being unpleasant in a sensory hell kind of way are two completely different animals. This is one of the very few films I have seen that turned out to be physically painful to sit through.

Another great review. Sorry i only have Likes to offer since the upgrade, my browser is old and unwilling to find the rest of the emojis or change to a better version of itself. Wow this film sounds dull. And a waste of the investment of time and money. Why don't they donate us their money if they don't have better use for it? I reckon I could make a good spatter film with pumpkins featuring. Orange spatter.... and this year we went for some Zombie pumpkins with warty skin. Though so far their offspring look worryingly normal. I hope cross pollination with Jack o lanterns and other pumpkins isn't causing them to seem normal? But still they may burst with orange spatter when least expected. ..

 

[Thinx]

Low budget horror movies usually make their money back, so they usually do get financed.

My emojis came back! Yes I guess it's quite a good market to make these films for.

 

[Metalhead]

The Prowler (1981)

Grade – 3.5 / 5

Rating – R

Running Time – 89 Minutes​

The Prowler is little more than an unashamed slasher movie that is overloaded with pure ‘80s sleaze. What sets it apart from most other films of its kind is the technical skill behind the camera. The cinematography and the cameraman stalks the victims just like the brutal killer in the movie does, and the use of POV shots often has the viewer wondering if a killer is just behind an unaware victim or if it is just another trick up the cinematographer’s sleeve.

I will admit it. The cinematography here does a lot more to mine suspense out of a standard slasher movie here than anything else on display. The camera moves in sleazy and voyeuristic ways before sneaking up behind the victims for the kill. The suspense derived from such sleazy camera tricks is pretty genuine.

There is also the special effects work by legend Tom Savini, which is top notch. The kills here are particularly grisly and graphic, even by ‘80s slasher movie standards. Whether it is a double impalement of a lovemaking couple with a pitchfork or a knife through the top of the head eventually poking out of the guy’s chin below, these are very well-done practical gore effects.

The plot here is very silly and it is also somewhat misogynistic, as the killer is a GI who starts his homicidal spree just because his girlfriend would not wait for him while he out fighting in WWII. Then over 30 years after the unfaithful slut and her new rich arrogant boyfriend have been double impaled with a pitchfork during the small town’s graduation dance, the town decides to host a new graduation dance for the first time since that double murder occurred. The killer comes back to kill the horny young men and women who had nothing to do with the girl who dumped him during WWII.

The final reveal of who the killer is turns out to be rather ridiculous. The final jump scare at the end of the movie was more than just a bit gratuitous. However, The Prowler shows how a little bit of technical virtuosity can elevate a trash movie into a tension-filled nightmare-making machine.

 

[Metalhead]

Nope (2022)

Grade – 4 / 5

Rating – R

Running Time – 130 Minutes​

Anybody expecting another outright horror movie from Jordan Peele will likely walk away from Nope feeling disappointed. As a dark comedy, however, this movie works quite well. There are many different ways to interpret the allegory here, as many of you reading this have already noticed. I will advise reading those theories until after watching the film for oneself first, though. Nope is a genuine work of art that will provoke thoughts and discussions on what it all is about.

The reliable Daniel Kaluuya appears here as OJ, a man who inherts a stunt horse ranch after the owner gets sliced up by falling debris. Keke Palmer plays his sister, Emerald, as an outspoken and proud contrast to OJ’s relatively silent slow burn. Branden Parea plays a Fry’s salesman in the kind of role that I am quite certain would have brought more customers to buy things from Fry’s. Steven Yuen plays a former child star that milks a grotesque tragedy from his early life for some tourist dollars as an adult. Michael Wincott is a big-money photographer who is eventually lured into this drama.

All these characters come together when what appears to be a UFO starts sucking up people, cows and objects into it. What is this UFO and what is it supposed to represent? There definitely is a thematic connection between the story of the child star’s grotesque tragedy and the thing stalking the strip of California gulch land, but I will not go into details about that here. There also is a point made here about how some people will risk their lives for the perfect photo opportunity.

There is not the same level of hair-raising tension here that we saw previously in both Get Out and Us. Peele’s sense of humor is still with us and that is very welcome. CGI spectacle is just not as scary as what the director’s previous work has offered us. This spectacle is very nice, and it is sometimes gorgeous to look at. But it also made me wish that Peele would not take this particular route as a horror genre filmmaker again.

Even a weaker Jordon Peele genre production is light years above most of what makes up mainstream horror cinema these days. I know I have not discussed much about what the plot is here, but I did that for the same reasons why the trailers were so obtuse. The less one knows about this film, the more one will get out of watching it before it is over. I really do not want to add spoilers here.

 

[Metalhead]

The Black Phone (2022)

Grade – 3 / 5

Rating – R

Running Time – 103 Minutes​

Ethan Hawke plays an extremely creepy serial child killer in the low-budget retro-themed horror movie, The Black Phone. This kind of movie plays off the ‘80s “stranger danger” vibes that were everywhere in the media at that point in American history. The plot is not very original, and this whole film holds a dour tone that might turn away some viewers expecting a more fun time with this. But the plot is clever, and the violence is appropriately brutal.

Hawke’s performance is creepy, to the point where it made me wonder why so many of his victims did not just run away when he first approaches them. All of his insanity is on the surface of every scene he is in. His serial killer is unnaturally creepy, but also the screenplay has Hawke playing this role on a single note. On the other hand, Mason Thames plays a believably frightened and desperate victim trapped in the killer’s soundproofed basement for most of the film’s running time. At least this victim has the voices of the killer’s previous victims trying to guide him into safety – they contact him through a disconnected phone on the wall in the basement next to the mattress.

There is also a subplot involving this boy’s abusive father, and his younger sister who inherited psychic abilities from her long gone mother. This film probably would have worked better with some of these subplots pruned or carved out completely. The real fireworks in the film takes place between Thames and Hawke, and it ends with a battle that puts anything in Gladiator to shame. This would have worked better as an hour-long film, frankly.

Still, there is much entertainment value to be had in the retro vibes that capture a lot of late ‘70s/early ‘80s United States culture. The fashion, the architecture, the hair, the clothes, the “Stranger Danger” paranoia, and the effort to make a movie that would appeal to middle schoolers while traumatizing them at the same time – this is one of the most authentic ‘70s movies made outside of that decade. Director Scott Garrison knew what he was doing here. The biggest problem to be found here is that it feels like the Joe Hill short story this movie is based upon has been padded with extra fat to make this film an acceptable for theaters feature length.

 

[Metalhead]

Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 (Miniseries) (2022)

Grade – 1 / 5

Rating – TV-MA

Number of Episodes – 3

Network – Netflix​

I remember hearing about the disasters that happened at Woodstock ’99 when they originally happened. This was a case when 250,000 Limp Bizkit fans were sent to an abandoned military base with no shade in the hottest part of the year, not allowed to bring in bottles of water but were totally allowed to spend $4 for bottled water if they did not want to die of heatstroke, with cleaning subcontractors not doing any parts of their jobs and security personnel were essentially nonexistent. Of course, they are going to burn the place down the first chance they get.

Like most of Netflix’s documentary miniseries, this demands pretty much no deep thought from its audience. This is a surface-level gallery of atrocity, which has become a popular thing on Netflix these days. In the end, it holds the viewpoint that the greedy promotors were the real evil villains here, but we could also add the men who were sexually assailting women there to that list, as well. The whole intent of this project is summed up in its name – Trainwreck.

But the real question to be asked here is who is better on cashing in on cynicism – the promoters of Woodstock ’99 or the producers of this sex and violence laden sensationalism? The editors here really loved including shots of topless women in the audience to the point where I can safely say that those shots make up at least a third of all the historical footage on display here. It’s Netflix, they can put in as much nudity as they want to, so long as the guys don’t have to show anything in any of the shots chosen here. For long stretches of its running time, this looks a lot more like one of those infamous Girls Gone Wild videos from the early 00’s.

There are better ways to tell this story than putting on a skin show (focusing on only the conventionally attractive young women in the audience) during a documentary about a disaster where sexual violence was infamously rampant. I am also aware that this production was made to rip off HBO’s supposedly far superior documentary on this horrific weekend – I have not seen that yet. There is no information here in this docuseries that could not be found immediately in so many well-written articles about the event. Like Woodstock ’99, Trainwreck is a shameless cost-cutting for maximum profits effort.

 

[Metalhead]

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Grade – 2 / 5

Rating – R

Running Time – 87 Minutes​

The original Friday the 13th is a classic in tasteless horror entertainment. The first sequel in this long-running franchise decided to be sleazier than what Sean S. Cunningham initially brought to the table. Camera angles zoom in on female camp counselors wearing short shorts. Every camp counselor looks like he/she just arrived there from a salon wearing ‘80s makeup. That tells me none of these people are qualified to be camp counselors.

This sequel has a ton of more gratuitous sexual content than the first film, where the game of Strip Monopoly that ends before any real nudity popped up seems tame in comparison. This film also initially amped up the gore from the first film, but then the producers had to cut out all of the more excessive footage to avoid receiving an “X” rating from the MPAA. This film was even sleazy enough to have a cute dog approach the masked serial killer in one scene.

Friday the 13th Part 2 is a more shameless cash grab of a movie than what the first one was. It works as cheesy and campy entertainment, but it has nothing as impressively insane as Betsy Palmer’s performance in the previous film. This film introduces Jason as the mad slasher, but he does not get his hockey mask until Part 3. The only other notable thing here is that the franchise did not waste any time getting heavily into softcore nudity to go along with the hardcore violence after the first film made a lot of both money and controversy.

In the end, there is not much to discuss here. I enjoyed my time with this, even if I am quick to acknowledge that it is even more amateurish than the low budget first movie. The key to enjoying Friday the 13th Part 2 is to turn your brain off, keep your expectations low, and know it’s garbage but it’s not boring garbage.

 

[Kalinychta]

Nope (2022)

Grade – 4 / 5

Rating – R

Running Time – 130 Minutes​

Anybody expecting another outright horror movie from Jordan Peele will likely walk away from Nope feeling disappointed. As a dark comedy, however, this movie works quite well. There are many different ways to interpret the allegory here, as many of you reading this have already noticed. I will advise reading those theories until after watching the film for oneself first, though. Nope is a genuine work of art that will provoke thoughts and discussions on what it all is about.

The reliable Daniel Kaluuya appears here as OJ, a man who inherts a stunt horse ranch after the owner gets sliced up by falling debris. Keke Palmer plays his sister, Emerald, as an outspoken and proud contrast to OJ’s relatively silent slow burn. Branden Parea plays a Fry’s salesman in the kind of role that I am quite certain would have brought more customers to buy things from Fry’s. Steven Yuen plays a former child star that milks a grotesque tragedy from his early life for some tourist dollars as an adult. Michael Wincott is a big-money photographer who is eventually lured into this drama.

All these characters come together when what appears to be a UFO starts sucking up people, cows and objects into it. What is this UFO and what is it supposed to represent? There definitely is a thematic connection between the story of the child star’s grotesque tragedy and the thing stalking the strip of California gulch land, but I will not go into details about that here. There also is a point made here about how some people will risk their lives for the perfect photo opportunity.

There is not the same level of hair-raising tension here that we saw previously in both Get Out and Us. Peele’s sense of humor is still with us and that is very welcome. CGI spectacle is just not as scary as what the director’s previous work has offered us. This spectacle is very nice, and it is sometimes gorgeous to look at. But it also made me wish that Peele would not take this particular route as a horror genre filmmaker again.

Even a weaker Jordon Peele genre production is light years above most of what makes up mainstream horror cinema these days. I know I have not discussed much about what the plot is here, but I did that for the same reasons why the trailers were so obtuse. The less one knows about this film, the more one will get out of watching it before it is over. I really do not want to add spoilers here.

I can’t imagine being disappointed in Jordan Peele. I think people are just too stupid to understand or appreciate his films. He’s brilliant, one of our great underrated filmmakers. I still think about Us every now and again. I’m going to watch this movie and then read your review after.

 

[benaspiringwriter]

Hi Metalhead,

Thanks for the invitation. I enjoyed following how your mind works. And so, well, the first thing I like about the first film review on this thread is its very first line ‘I am here to report that’ , and in it’s very first paragraph the phrase ‘its safe to say’; both veritably constitute music to my impish, playful prose style loving ears. On the one hand, I often reread Steve Silberman’s book *Neurotribes; the legacy of autism and how to think smarter about people who think differently*, which includes a chapter called ‘fascinating peculiarities’, which is a phrase ripped from autism pioneer Leo Kanner’s 1940’s papers, however, in my current opinion, is also an accurate description of certain ‘quirky brilliant’ autistic prose styles, such as in my opinion, yours is.

Indeed, I sometimes read the film reviews along with all the other culture in *The Observer*---a great newspaper, and one that has been going since the late eighteenth century(!)—and the likes of Mark Kermode would never have the guts, frankly, to display such a proudly playful, impish tone in their film reviews, although they are still great critics in their own right. Although it is displayed in other areas in your review, too, this moment highlights how inspiring and powerful it is when us aspie born critical thinkers act boldly and playfully in the world. This said, having had so many emotional set backs, personally, I am sometimes guilty of just following the crowd, however, not always! At any rate, I digress.

For a second thing I like about the first film review on this thread, is where you say ‘Colin Farell is virtually unrecognisable as The penguin, and that is a compliment’. This is, in my opinion, although a near objective case can be made, a great example of winning partially deadpan humour. As you may have noticed I like to include a touch of comedy in my writing, too, even if you know how to write plausible film reviews, but I’ve never been able to master the art.

A third thing I like about your first film review on this thread is when you say ‘The Gotham city here is even darker and more brutal than what Christopher Nolan managed to conjure up with his legendary Dark Knight trilogy.' I get the sense that this was a fairly easy, fairly obvious piece of analysis for you, but it’s arguably an example of the kind of precociously encyclopedic nature of how many autistic spectrum minds work, which often is not a manner of thinking achievable by neurotypical minds.

A fourth thing I like about your first film review on this thread is when you say
‘But as a supremely suspenseful mood piece that has the audacity to go places in the Batman comic book canon that all other live-action films before it never even bothered to mention, this film reigns triumphantly’; for this is an example of how autistic spectrum people can sometimes show an intelligent devoutness to, say, cultural phenomena, that neurotypicals often will, almost cowardly, avoid, because they think it isn’t cool to do so. (it isn’t— generally speaking—of course. But it should be)

A fifth thing I like about your first film review on this thread is when you say ‘’But this vision of Batman has a purity to it that works, canon be damned.’ I don’t know of the film criticism equivalent, but over in literary criticism land, so to speak, there are themes which you inspirationally seem to manifest in your own work (i.e being a latest refreshing antidote to the type of cultural figure criticised in said sub-department of the discourse) , namely books such as the 2010 feather-ruffling tome *Whatever happened to Modernism?* where the Polish don Gabriel Josipovici argues that the garlanded, feted likes of the (sometimes cinema consuming) writers Amis, McCewan, Rushdie etc were all partially self satisfied, complacent types, whereas most modernist artists form the early 20th century , such as Kafka, suffered terribly from perceived critical-esteem begotten inferiority complexes.

At any rate, to summarise, then. I really like your film review. However, here’s another thing. Seeing as first you, and now I, have been considering things thematically superhero related, what do you think of that admirably simultaneously biodiversity and neurodiversity championing figure Greta Thunberg’s idea that those on the autistic spectrum both have, and should joyously wield, ‘superpowers’? Of course, the original coiner and, in a sense, courier of the phrase ‘superman’, F. Nietzsche, eventually went mad, so perhaps following Thunberg’s invitation to praxis minded imaginative thinking, is not always without risk! But as B. Pascal once said ‘all life is a wager’. Indeed, you may have noticed that I have not touched much upon film theory in these comments on your excellent review. This is because film has— in retrospect slightly tragically, I think— not been a focus of mine historically speaking because I’ve been so obsessed with literature and politics. This is, I fully admit, a poor strategy when it comes to my track record.

However this post is about your work not mine. And, frankly, I wouldn’t change any of it. It’s great quality, man! Keep em’ coming, that’s what I say. As for if you and the other guys and girls active on here, say in a couple of years time, wanted to make some sort of documentary about autism—the ones currently on youtube are okay, although the high functioning side of autism is not as prominent as I think it should be ;as I've said in previous posts, I am a walking blend of both high functioning and low functioning—then just drop me a PM.

I am curious about that, certainly. But that is all in the future. And futurology is, in my opinion, an understandably maligned subject. Although, as a parting aside, I am curious about your opinions on two— for me, concerning film theory, rare— opinions that I have serendipitously picked up along my hitherto life course, and have, frankly, never properly discussed with people; firstly, A. Bazin’s illuminating ideas in his ‘The ontology of the photographic image’, and secondly Jean-Luc Godard’s statement that ‘photography is truth; cinema is truth 24 times per second”?! For there is a 1960 philosophy book by H. G. Gadamer called *Truth and method*. The several previous centuries residing philosopher R. Descartes once wrote a book called *Discourse on the method*. Epistemology is, obviously but importantly, that branch of philosophy to do with human knowledge, and ontology is —ibid—all to do with ‘being’ a human being. So, then. virtuosos like Bazin and Godard in their day turned oft rapidly-gathering-dust philosophy treatises into giddy, psychedelic visual life; bonafide budding virtuosos like your good self do the same but in the field of film theory. Ah! Philosophy and film begin to symbiotically interact, once again! And the world is thus full of so much richness and wonder. Perhaps, then, all of us just need to believe in ourselves a bit more, as it seems you certainly did when you wrote this fine piece of film criticism. I’m convinced of it. Nice one, fellow writer!



Speak soon, hopefully. Comradely,

Ben

 

[Metalhead]

Evil Dead Trap (1988)

Grade – 2.5 / 5

Rating – Unrated (18+)

Running Time – 101 Minutes​

I have seen very few horror movies that were as relentlessly sleazy as the infamous Japanese classic, Evil Dead Trap. Its mostly female cast is made up of porn stars, who are given as much of a personality here as they most likely were given in their other films. Seriously, these are some of the dumbest slasher movie victims I have ever seen in the history of horror movies.

For starters, when a member of a television crew receives a snuff tape in the mail along with a blatant invitation to a remote abandoned military site, why didn’t that woman just give the tape to the cops and let them handle it? Because she wants higher ratings for her show, that’s why. She drags her crew out to that remote location looking for a hot story. They split up into tiny groups immediately to cover more area to look for evidence of the murder having taken place there. The only man in the crew starts raping the woman he was left with. The fact that his death takes place off-screen while all the violence against the women in this film was shown in explicit detail makes me suspect that there is some misogyny at work in this production.

So, we have a cast of characters without character development making horrible horror movie victim decisions and being picked off one-by-one with sometimes excellent and sometimes not-so-great practical gore special effects. Throw in a couple of gratuitous softcore rape porn scenes that added nothing to the plot. Then add a demented and totally insane third act reveal of the killer’s identity. That moment is worth the admission price alone, if you are not already running far away from this film after all I said above.

For a low budget sleazefest, this does have a striking visual style to it that totally ripped off Dario Argento. There even is a synth soundtrack that sounds a lot like Goblin, so the producers here wanted to make it clear. Evil Dead Trap is retro grindhouse in the best of ways. Nobody is coming to this for the plot. This is all about the shock and the awe. It does not even pretend to have any goals on its mind outside of the shock and the awe. There is not a single moment here of moral redemption, no deep meaning, no philosophy, no message to take home.

Evil Dead Trap is inexcusable garbage, but it is laughably entertaining inexcusable garbage. It has the most laughably tasteless ending scene I have seen in a horror movie. It is even more tasteless than the last ten seconds of Pieces. The sole redeeming values here are the cinematography, the lighting, and the music. There is enough atmospheric dread here to satisfy fans of the films it rips off, especially since most of those films were not much better than this one is.

And just think, all of this trouble could have been avoided if they just sent that tape to the cops.

 

[Thinx]

Great review. You watched it so I don't have to! It sounds awful.

 

[BrokenBoy]

Evil Dead Trap (1988)

Grade – 2.5 / 5

Rating – Unrated (18+)

Running Time – 101 Minutes​

I have seen very few horror movies that were as relentlessly sleazy as the infamous Japanese classic, Evil Dead Trap. Its mostly female cast is made up of porn stars, who are given as much of a personality here as they most likely were given in their other films. Seriously, these are some of the dumbest slasher movie victims I have ever seen in the history of horror movies.

For starters, when a member of a television crew receives a snuff tape in the mail along with a blatant invitation to a remote abandoned military site, why didn’t that woman just give the tape to the cops and let them handle it? Because she wants higher ratings for her show, that’s why. She drags her crew out to that remote location looking for a hot story. They split up into tiny groups immediately to cover more area to look for evidence of the murder having taken place there. The only man in the crew starts raping the woman he was left with. The fact that his death takes place off-screen while all the violence against the women in this film was shown in explicit detail makes me suspect that there is some misogyny at work in this production.

So, we have a cast of characters without character development making horrible horror movie victim decisions and being picked off one-by-one with sometimes excellent and sometimes not-so-great practical gore special effects. Throw in a couple of gratuitous softcore rape porn scenes that added nothing to the plot. Then add a demented and totally insane third act reveal of the killer’s identity. That moment is worth the admission price alone, if you are not already running far away from this film after all I said above.

For a low budget sleazefest, this does have a striking visual style to it that totally ripped off Dario Argento. There even is a synth soundtrack that sounds a lot like Goblin, so the producers here wanted to make it clear. Evil Dead Trap is retro grindhouse in the best of ways. Nobody is coming to this for the plot. This is all about the shock and the awe. It does not even pretend to have any goals on its mind outside of the shock and the awe. There is not a single moment here of moral redemption, no deep meaning, no philosophy, no message to take home.

Evil Dead Trap is inexcusable garbage, but it is laughably entertaining inexcusable garbage. It has the most laughably tasteless ending scene I have seen in a horror movie. It is even more tasteless than the last ten seconds of Pieces. The sole redeeming values here are the cinematography, the lighting, and the music. There is enough atmospheric dread here to satisfy fans of the films it rips off, especially since most of those films were not much better than this one is.

And just think, all of this trouble could have been avoided if they just sent that tape to the cops.

Sounds laughably bad.

 

[Metalhead]

Infinity Pool (2023)

Grade – 4.5 / 5

Rating – R

Running Time – 117 Minutes​

Brandon Cronenberg has proven himself to be fully capable of following up his father’s great work with the satirical horror film, Infinity Pool. This is a brilliant take on the decadent and sadistic things that rich people can find themselves getting up to on a tropical island with a corrupt third world country legal system. It is a gleeful downward spiral into depravity that offers no pretensions of being anything else than that.

Mia Goth once again proves herself as being a horror actress to keep watching in her performance here. The increasingly unhinged character Goth plays is worth the admission cost alone. She easily intimidates the character played by the usually overpowering and masculine actor Alexander Skarsgård. Fans of both of these performers will certainly be impressed with the show they put on here.

This is one of those movies where the less one knows before going into it, the more one will get out of it. The trailer tells too much of the story right off the bat, which is something I am not going to repeat in this critical review. Needless to say, it is a trip into body horror that doubles as biting social commentary. It also serves up enough softcore sex and hardcore violence to originally earn an NC-17 rating, so this is not for the faint of heart. It also takes the concept of nihilistic self-abuse to unheard of extremes in what was previously presented in cinematic history.

I found Infinity Pool to be a greatly entertaining dark comedy, but I could see how other viewers would want to run very far away from it. Anybody looking for a hopeful view of humanity is encouraged to look elsewhere. The soundtrack and the cinematography combine with the subject matter to create a pervasive sense of unease that accelerates and grows deeper with every passing moment, and there is no reprieve from this at any point in the 117 minute running time. If this sounds appealing to you, then this is a film that should be seen at the cinemas.

 

[Metalhead]

Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022)

Grade – 2 / 5

Rating – PG-13

Running Time – 145 Minutes

Whitney Houston was one of the greatest musical talents of her generation, and the biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody is always at its most enjoyable when the music takes center stage. Whitney’s personality shines through her music, which is lip-synced by Naomi Ackle. The film itself, however, has no personality of its own. It runs for 145 minutes, yet it contains no moments of emotional gravity. It is as shallow as a centimeter deep puddle.

Director Kasi Lemmons keeps Houston’s story moving at a breakneck pace, never allowing any moment to linger long enough to leave much of a lasting impression. While I can consider myself grateful that this film did not turn out to be the gallery of misery that other filmmakers might have turned it into, I still felt myself wanting something with more of an emotional punch than a Cliff Note’s rundown of Houston’s career. This storytelling here is so vague that people who do not walk into this film with full knowledge of Houston’s life are likely to be confused by the purple tone of the screenplay.

The cast does the best they can, with Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sanders and Nafeasa Williams giving this production more effort than it called for. There was no saving this film from its vacant attempts to be a feature length VH1 special, though. This film moves by very quickly, but I would have preferred a miniseries with enough time for the cast and the story of Whitney Houston to breathe and grow organically. This is, essentially, a biopic filtered for audiences suffering from ADHD.
This film does end on a high note of going back in time to show Houston performing her legendary medley at the 1994 American Music Awards ceremony, after setting up some time to show Houston rolling up a dollar bill outside of a hotel room bathtub. These moments should have carried some weight, but like the rest of the film, they are only presented here out of a duty to cover every major event in Houston’s life for mere seconds at a time. Lemmons wanted to make an extended musical video, apparently, so all of the tragedy of Houston’s life is glossed over and mentioned seemingly only out of obligation. At least the music is consistently great. Houston deserved a better film than this simple shrine to her vocal talents.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

I rarely watch movies now, but it's nice seeing you post your reviews @Metalhead.

 

[Thinx]

Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022)

Grade – 2 / 5

Rating – PG-13

Running Time – 145 Minutes

Whitney Houston was one of the greatest musical talents of her generation, and the biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody is always at its most enjoyable when the music takes center stage. Whitney’s personality shines through her music, which is lip-synced by Naomi Ackle. The film itself, however, has no personality of its own. It runs for 145 minutes, yet it contains no moments of emotional gravity. It is as shallow as a centimeter deep puddle.

Director Kasi Lemmons keeps Houston’s story moving at a breakneck pace, never allowing any moment to linger long enough to leave much of a lasting impression. While I can consider myself grateful that this film did not turn out to be the gallery of misery that other filmmakers might have turned it into, I still felt myself wanting something with more of an emotional punch than a Cliff Note’s rundown of Houston’s career. This storytelling here is so vague that people who do not walk into this film with full knowledge of Houston’s life are likely to be confused by the purple tone of the screenplay.

The cast does the best they can, with Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sandwrs and Nafeasa Williams giving this production more effort than it called for. There was no saving this film from its vacant attempts to be a feature length VH1 special, though. This film moves by very quickly, but I would have preferred a miniseries with enough time for the cast and the story of Whitney Houston to breathe and grow organically. This is, essentially, a biopic filtered for audiences suffering from ADHD.
This film does end on a high note of going back in time to show Houston performing her legendary medley at the 1994 American Music Awards ceremony, after setting up some time to show Houston rolling up a dollar bill outside of a hotel room bathtub. These moments should have carried some weight, but like the rest of the film, they are only presented here out of a duty to cover every major event in Houston’s life for mere seconds at a time. Lemmons wanted to make an extended musical video, apparently, so all of the tragedy of Houston’s life is glossed over and mentioned seemingly only out of obligation. At least the music is consistently great. Houston deserved a better film than this simple shrine to her vocal talents.

2 more great reviews, although I think I will be avoiding both films based on your comments! Thanks for saving me a few hours of my life!

 

[Metalhead]

2 more great reviews, although I think I will be avoiding both films based on your comments! Thanks for saving me a few hours of my life!

I really wanted to like the Whitney Houston film, too, because I am a fan of her music. I know that is not very metal, but her singing voice was incredible.

 

[Thinx]

Maybe there will be another film that's more worthy of her, in the future?

 

[Metalhead]

Death Spa (1990)

Grade – 3 / 5

Rating – Unrated (18+)

Running Time – 88 Minutes​

Death Spa is a terrible direct-to-video horror flick no matter how one chooses to frame it. It is a microbudget gorefest where young and attractive gym rats get butchered in a variety of creative ways, usually involving gym equipment AI going haywire. It is also very anti-PC when it comes to trans representation, but it does this in such a truly bizarre fashion that laughter is really the only appropriate response to that particular angle.

There are a couple of red herrings in the plot as to who is responsible for the gym environment going haywire and maiming the guests of the very ‘80s gym environment most of this film takes place in. There also is an incredibly large amount of gratuitous female nudity, so if that is what you want to see, this film delivers that in spades. You have the womanizing gym owner whose wife committed suicide one year earlier, his sleazy lawyer who insists the gym should go on with their Mardi Gras party despite all of the mysterious “accidents” happening there, the computer programmer who also is the gym owner’s brother-in-law, and the snotty gym rat who dismisses a woman trying to flirt with him by telling her, “I’m Beta, you’re VHS.”

The film’s final 20 minutes is an orgy of low-budget carnage that reaches hilarious extremes. Why would a woman stick her hand in a blender while trying to get it running to begin with? The fish at the gym’s sushi bar is so fresh that the cop trapped in the freezer becomes its lunch. But enough about the gore. About the only thing missing from this very ‘80s Mardi Gras party is the mountains of cocaine that the producers of this nonsense were probably snorting while this was filming. Death Spa is a true relic of its time and it should be appreciated as such.