Feel free to check out Week 1 and make sure to follow along on Twitter:Â http://x.com/CPeachfuzz
Kill Me Again – I initially really loved the plot to this movie, serial killer trapped in a time loop, stuck in a small diner for him to do whatever he wants in. I also really like the lead actor, Brendan Fehr who got his start (more or less) on the series Roswell. He always stood out among the other cast. He never really broke out as a star, only really showing up in bit parts here and there over the years. So, it was nice to see him star in something. I did enjoy this movie for the most part, it started to feel like they were running out of ideas however towards the second act. Everything they setup, they did already in the first act. And then the ending happened. They took a gamble; knew they were taking a gamble and it failed big time. They seemed to know they wrote themselves into a corner and the way to explain everything like the time loop just came off as ridiculous. I honestly hate this ending, and I think ruins the movie. They take a play right out of the playbook from Groundhog Day, where he’s trying to get the girl, and each attempt he tries to recreate that moment but makes it weirder and weirder. Take that scenario and make Bill Murray’s character a serial killer. I really liked this turn in Kill Me Again, turning this serial killer into a good person, but in the end have him resort to his old ways. But the movie took it too far. Not to mention didn’t make sense. There’s a character in this time loop who is clearly in on it, but how they explain it doesn’t seem to make sense. I’ll give it a RENT but just be prepared for a disappointing ending.
Shell – And here I thought The Substance was bad. Same basic plot, but this time you turn into a giant lobster. This was a funny coincidence because before I watched this movie, I watched the finale to Peacemaker, where they talk about lobsters being immortal, but die because they outgrow their shells. And then I watch this movie which is about tapping into the fact lobsters are immortal, using it as a way to treat aging. This is a Paramount+ original, and so is the next movie on the list. This really is The Substance, even down to the off humor that doesn’t work. The whole movie felt cheap, kind of giving off this 90’s skinemax vibe. It’s also set in the future for no real reason. I honestly hated this movie and is the first big SKIP for the week.
Vicious – This is the other Paramount+ movie, and it just really bored me. There’s more or less only one actor, so they relied heavily on jump scares grabbing your attention. Which I guess worked since it was the only thing keeping me awake most of the time. You’d doze off and something loud would happen. Usually, it didn’t amount to much since there’s only Dakota Fanning in this. She sometimes interacts with herself in a mirror or gets some poorly done makeup SFX thing to chase her, but the movie is really either her yelling at a box, yelling at a sand dial, or her phone. The plot got pretty incoherent towards the end as well, like even the movie didn’t fully get its own lore. I really have no idea what happened afterwards. Which is a running theme since the next film on the list is even more nonsensical. This movie wasn’t bad, just not very interesting. RENT.
Good Boy – This was high on my list to see. The idea of a haunted house movie, but told through the dog’s point of view, trying to warn his owner is super fascinating. However, that is not what we get. For one, the dog, regardless of how great the dog was, didn’t really do anything other than stare at things. And if he isn’t standing, staring at nothing, he’s standing on things, staring at nothing. The dog doesn’t protect anyone either. At one point, they gave the dog jump scare dream sequences. Jump scare is pushing it as this film doesn’t really attempt to scare you. The plot was nonsensical, guy gets sick, moves into his grandpa’s old house where I guess some kind of unexplained thing is living in this cave in the cellar? And the sick guy gets sicker for some reason just like the grandpa did. Yet the guy was already sick before moving in, so… I don’t really see or understand why any of what’s happening is happening. At one point the dog finds the grandpa’s dog’s bandanna. But then at the end we find that dog’s corpse and he’s still wearing the bandanna… huh? I loved the dog, but this gets a RENT, and only for the dog.
Hostile Dimensions – Ran across this on Prime, I wanted to see if anything premiered on there without me knowing about it. This came out last year, but the trailer had me intrigued, as it reminded me a bit of those backrooms videos on YouTube. If you haven’t seen those, they’re pretty good. Anyway, I thought this was a fun watch. I would have liked to of seen more cool worlds and the horrors that exist in them, but with budget restraints I get why we don’t get too many. The plot I think also needed more explanation as to what exactly was going on. It seemed like a guy created this door, met a god and made a deal with him to make sacrifices in a set of dimensions. I don’t know why, or what the end goal was. The film does I think attempt to explain stuff, but I was still left confused. Might just be a me problem. Anyway, this is a RENT.
The Astronaut – Seemed like most of the budget went into getting the actors, everything felt so cheap, the sets, the creature design. Majority of the film is just montages of our lead working out and having tests run on her. There is a twist ending that I didn’t see coming, but it wasn’t really told to you in a way that had any kind of impact. It was kind of just oh, okay. I get it now. Wait that’s dumb. That was mostly my reaction at the end. Everything felt repetitive, lady works out, gets tested, night comes and creatures come to the house, but the house is strange, setting off the alarm, so she runs into the bunker where we just cut to her a sleep, acting like it was all a dream or hallucination. I lost count of how many times they ended a scene with her just passing out, ending up somewhere else in the house. RENT.
Solvent – Winner so far for the worst movie I’ve watched all month. It’s absolutely terrible. I was in the mood for a found footage horror movie after how great the new VHS movie was. And the trailer for this was interesting enough, so I picked it over the new Strangers Part 2, which came out yesterday as well. I’m guessing that was a mistake, because no matter how bad the new Strangers film is, it has to be better than this. First, our lead never stops talking. Ever. The guy never shuts up, not for a minute. There’s zero atmosphere, tension, scares, because he doesn’t shut the hell up! It isn’t even like he’s saying anything important, as most of the time he’s just rambling on about nonsense. The plot is also nonsense as it’s about an old nazi who liquefies himself and puts himself in a pipe down into a wine cellar. There’s also something to do with urine, so we get a ton of shots of our lead’s dick peeing into bottles. The editing is also all over the place, even cutting in flashbacks, I remind you, this is a found footage movie. There are even action shots we see that don’t make any sense given the format we are in. Just a giant trash pile, gets a HARD SKIP!
Want EARLY access to our videos, uploads, and movie/script reviews? Members get them FIRST! Follow this link to our Discussion Forum.
