Month: January 2023

“Play Dead” (*1/2 out of four) was an abjectly tedious horror thriller about a young criminology student (Bailee Madison) who fakes her death to be able to get into the city morgue to try to obtain crucial evidence but soon finds that the coroner (Jerry O’Connell) is a serious sicko and she has to play dead in order to survive and stay alive and escape. One-note story is made with little tension or suspense and goes on endlessly at nearly two hours. O’Connell is woefully miscast as the coroner; this effort is unlikely to bring his career back from the “dead.”

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“Don’t Look Deeper” (** out of four) was a generic sci/fi melodrama about a typical disaffected teenager (Helena Howard) who begins to suspect she’s something less-than-human and begins to uncover various factions of artificial intelligence that have rumblings involving everyone around her. Sincere performance from Howard can’t enliven tired proceedings combining teenage angst and futuristic intelligence. Director Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen”, “Twilight”) once again shows her empathic connection to youth and outcasts but don’t look for much “deeper” than that here.

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“Betrayed By My Bridesmaid” (*1/2 out of four) was a subpar suspense melodrama about a newlywed couple (Ashley Dakin and Steven He) who discover to their shock that her bridesmaid (Shana Goodman) is trying to splinter them apart after they find out too little/too late that she is a sociopath (or is it a psychopath?) Yet another thriller made for those- and only for those- who’ve never seen a thriller before. Film is so by-the-numbers it could have just been spit out of a computer. Watch “Betrayed” or “Bridesmaids” instead.

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“Black Warrant” (** out of four) was a reheated and rehashed action potboiler about a retired C.I.A. agent (Tom Berenger) who is recruited by an old pal (Jeff Fahey) to stop a multi-tentacled terrorist organization and teams up with a hard-nosed D.E.A. agent (Cam Gigandet) when the organization tries to attack the nation’s power grid. Good cast attempts to add spice to a very old recipe as film is a stale cocktail blender of Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, and Jason Bourne. Film’s story and co-script were by actor Michael Pare.

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“All Eyes” (* out of me) was a practically worthless horror potboiler about a disgraced podcast journalist (Jasper Hammer) who interviews an eccentric farmer (Ben Hall) who claims to have (yawn) paranormal activity and monsters on his farm property. Unfortunately, neither the journalist nor the farmer nor any of the horror activity are the least bit interesting (or original) so it’s a real snooze. This apparently was a family affair because director Todd Greenlee and writer Alex Greenlee and other Greenlee family members all have cameos but there’s not much worth seeing here.

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“The Price You Pay” (*** out of four) was a sturdy horror thriller about a bank robber (Stephen Dorff), his psychopathic accomplice (Emile Hirsch- looking bizarrely like Jack Black), and others (Gigi Zumbado and Tanner Zagarino) who take refuge in a farmhouse from a young boy (Tyler Sanders) but soon find that they are in for a long night of unspeakable horror. Unexpectedly strong movie is done in the vein of “From Dusk Till Dawn” where first half is a moody crime thriller and second becomes a goofy horror blowout. Starts to lose its grip in the final third but script is much sharper than you would expect. Dorff is excellent as usual. Sadly, the 18-year old Sanders died after completion from a fetanyl overdose.

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“There’s Something Wrong With The Children” (*1/2 out of four) was a lame horror thriller about a family (Amanda Crew, Zach Gilford, David Mattel, and others) who goes on vacation and things go astray when the children start disappearing in the woods in the middle of the night (hence the film’s title). Strictly by-the-numbers ripoff of “Village Of The Damned”, for those who never saw the original or even its remake. Inauspicious feature-film directing debut for noted television director Roxanne Benjamin. “There’s Something Wrong With The Movie” would be a better title for this clunker.

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“Detective Knight: Independence” (** out of four) was a tepid third entry about title Detective Knight (Bruce Willis) who is assigned to stop a former EMS worker (Jack Kilmer) who has become unhinged and a deadly threat to the city. Final entry in this series is more-or-less on par with the first two; not bad but derived from too many other Willis cop movies, “Heat” (which starred Kilmer’s dad Val), and in one key scene “The Dark Knight Rises.” Willis’ real-life health problems are all-too-evident as he’s hardly in much of the movie and most of his dialogue seems dubbed. Lochlyn Munro once again adds some punch as a hard-nosed cop.

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“Burned By Love” (*1/2 out of four) was a thuddingly predictable suspenser about a woman recently divorced (Shiva Negar) who meets a Mr. Perfect (Dillon Casey) online who seems wonderful on the surface but the more she learns about him, the more she realizes he is (what else?) a sociopath intent on turning her life upside-down. Virtually anyone who has seen a thriller will be able to predict this entire film within the first 15 minutes and remaining hour-and-15-minutes after are almost guaranteed suspense-free. Hard to believe 35 years later they’re still ripping off “Fatal Attraction” but seeing is believing.

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“The Haunting At Death Valley Junction” (*1/2 out of four) was a meager horror thriller about a team of reality-television investigators (Ernell Mainibat, Victoria Vineiros, and others) who set out to investigate ghosts but (yawn) end up stumbling onto the real thing and find that their lives may be in jeopardy. Umpteenth low-budget film about ghosts, reality television, found-footage horror, etc. Film looks like it was made by college film students with their collective allowances. This will likely wind up buried in death valley soon.

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