June 8, 2020 “The Deeper You Dig” (** out of four) was an overly cerebral horror thriller about a roadside accident and how its tragic aftermath affects a mother (Toby Poser), her daughter (Zelda Adams), and a stranger (John Adams) and blurs the line for all of them between the living and the dead and sanity and unsanity. Undeniably creepy at times and augmented by John Adams’ deranged music score and solid performances but film eventually wears you out with its unpleasantness and macabre touches. Both Adams and Poser co-directed and obviously watched Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” series and “The Shining” a few times before. Continue reading →
June 7, 2020 “Hammer” (**1/2 out of four) was an earnest but limited melodrama about a father (Will Patton) who finds himself in the midst of a personal crisis when he finds his estranged son (Mark O’Brien) running from a botched drug deal and has to decide whether to help him and repair their relationship or to leave him to the wolves and to dying. Neither as powerful nor as compelling as it could have been, as story never shifts into high gear, but still holds you in its firm grip thanks to solid performances and writer/director Christian Sparkes’ involving storytelling. Similar story told with more grit and fire in 1986’s “At Close Range.” Continue reading →
June 7, 2020 “Outback” (**1/2 out of four) was a mildly tense melodrama about a young couple (Brendan Donoghue and Lauren Lofberg) who go for a vacation in the outbacks of Australia but find themselves stranded in the middle of the desert with no water and no food and no escape and have to preserve themselves (and their sanity) to stay alive. Sturdy movie in the vein of “127 Hours” and “Castaway” holds you in its grip without ever being riveting or fully engrossing. By the end, though, film does connect with you enough on a tragic level to make it worth seeing. Continue reading →
June 7, 2020 “Becky” (** out of four) was an over-the-top horror melodrama about a meek teenager (Lulu Wilson) whose weekend vacation with her father (Joel McHale) turns ugly when a group of convicts (Kevin James, Robert Maillet, and others) descend on their home and she escapes into the woods and has to psychologically and physically turn the tables on them to stay alive. James is actually pretty good as the head villain but that’s about all there is here for subtlety or originality. Film gets gorier, weirder, and more pretentious as it goes along but if you’ve ever wanted to see someone’s face ripped apart by a boat or bike motor, this is the movie for you. Continue reading →
June 7, 2020 “Rapture In Blue” (* out of four) was a lackluster bore about a young man (Bryce Lederer) in a conflicted relationship with his girlfriend (Sarah Greenfield) who begins to struggle with both his sexuality and his sanity when a new boy (Tanner Garmon) moves into his new home. Genuinely bizarre movie goes in all different directions, none of which unfortunately are coherent or interesting. Means to be bold and shocking but just comes off as being crude and garish. Continue reading →
June 7, 2020 “Momo: The Missouri Monster” (* out of four) was an abysmal horror movie done in the form of a pseudo-documentary focusing on the title creature who was on the prowl in Louisiana, Missouri in the summer of 1972 and gave many terrified citizens (Cliff Barackman, Lyle Blackburn, and others) the jitters. Unfortunately, viewers themselves won’t get any from this amateurish and inept production which has no scares or thrills. Pretty brutal, even at only an hour-and-22 minutes. Continue reading →
June 6, 2020 “Ouija Blood Ritual” (** out of four) was a lukewarm horror thriller about the recovered film-footage of three filmmakers shooting a web series about several friends (Kayla Elizabeth, Dustin Mills, Rob Grant, and others) who attempt to debunk several famous urban legends summoned by the ouija board but soon find that more evil than they imagined has been released and they are all in imminent danger. Can we please by now put an end to horror movies that think it’s scary or intellectual to focus on a ouija board? And while we’re at it- can we please also put an end to the found-footage horror genre? Not bad by the very low standards of these types of movies but not memorable either. Continue reading →
June 6, 2020 “The Last Days Of American Crime” (*1/2 out of four) was a criminally overlong and incoherent jumble of a futuristic thriller set in a futuristic Metropolis in which the U.S. government is about to send a signal making it impossible for anyone to commit unlawful acts; before this takes hold, a crime czar (Michael Pitt) recruits a master bank robber (Edgar Ramirez) to rob a bank but a lone rogue cop (Sharlto Copley) tries to intervene and at the same time save civilization. Some interesting ideas about criminal justice and governmental control are completely overshadowed by film’s overlength, overplotting, and overall unpleasantness. Flashily directed by Olivier Megaton as usual but it’s all for nothing. Continue reading →
June 5, 2020 “No Apology” (*1/2 out of four) was a tiresome melodrama about a group of young women (Lydia Adair, Fawn Martin, Madison Nyenhuis, and others) who struggle to deal with the death of a friend and causes their various secrets and thus their relationships to start to unravel. Since none of the characters are especially likeable or intriguing, it’s hard to care about their relationships or any of their secrets. “No Story” might have been a more apt title for this misfire. Continue reading →
June 4, 2020 “My Husband’s Deadly Past” (**1/2 out of four) was an above-average suspense thriller about a woman (Sarah Butler) who is haunted by visions of murder which lead to her becoming arrested and imprisoned; subsequently, she realizes that her manipulative psychiatrist husband (Peter Benson) hypnotized her to hide his own role in the murder and that their daughter (Maddy Hillis) might also be in danger. Film cannot escape standard genre cliches and logic gaps but is slickly done with efficient direction from Troy Scott and a sharper-than-expected script by Paul A Birkett. Yet another contemporary attempt at a Hitchcokian story but succeeds more than most. Continue reading →
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