Month: December 2023

“The Five” (* out of four) was an ersatz Western that fires zeroes about five bank robbers (John Marrs, Tom Dragt, Todd South, and others) who hide out in a house waiting for a female contact (Cat Roberts) to show up but the longer they wait, the more suspicion grows and the more they begin to turn on one another. Clunky attempt at incorporating elements of “Reservoir Dogs” and even “The Hateful Eight” is an almost total misfire. Completely undone by cheap filmmaking and some terrible acting and writing. Perhaps it’s about time that veteran Western director/filmmaker Travis Mills started heading East.

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“City Rush 3” (0 out of four) was an ironically titled rush-job that runs only a little over 50 minutes long about special agent Ace (George Tounas) who is called out of retirement and teams up with a femme fatale (Petra Stevic) to take down the deadly clown (Jannis Sky) and his gang when they eventually attempt to overtake the city. Director/co-writer/star/co-producer Tounas bears almost all of the blame for this incoherent botch job; to put it mildly, the third time is not the charm. Top-billed Eric Roberts is only in the movie for 41 seconds! Viewers will be in no “rush” for a fourth entry in this unwatchable series.

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“A Dream House” (*1/2 out of four) was an obvious, stale suspense melodrama about a young couple (Taryn Hacker an Jon Hacker) win the house of their dreams in a housing auction but soon move in and notice that strange occurrences are happening and they are soon losing their minds. Synthetic cocktail of “The Amityville Horror” and “The Shinining” but this drink was starting to lose its buzz 30-40 years ago. Real-life couple Taryn and Jon Hacker are married in real life which makes their lack of chemistry here hard to understand.

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“Divinity” (* out of four) was an in-your-face and ugly futuristic potboiler about a television mogul (Stephen Dorff) who pushes a medication that can grant you immortality and was designed by his father (Scott Bakula) but 2 hapless brothers (Moises Arias and Jason Genao) attempt to thwart and abduct him while a seductive young woman (Bella Thorne) attempts to seduce all of them into her own form of self-discovery. Striking black and white cinematography is a plus; the rest is turgid and unwatchable pulp nonsense. If more movies are made like these, no one is going to want to stick around for immortality period. One of the executive producers was Steven Soderbergh.

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“Wrath Of Dracula” (* out of four) was a torpid timewaster about damsel-in-distress Mina Harker (Hannaj Bang Bendz) who embarks on a mission with vampire-slayer Van Helsing (Mark Topping) to rescue her husband (Dean Marshall) from the evil clutches of Count Dracula (Sean Cronin). It’s all so stupefyingly dull, even for hard-core horror fans. Even by the low standards of direct-to-DVD vampire dreck, this will still suck the life out of you (pun intended). Does anyone remember when these kinds of movies were actually entertaining and fun?

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“Showdown At The Grand” (* out of four) was a cut-rate action schlockfest about an independent movie theater owner (Terrance Howard) who teams up with a former action star (Dolph Lundgren) to defend his theater again ruthless killer corporate developers (John Savage, Amanda Righetti, and others) resulting in a showdown to the death. Witless and artless homage to grindhouse cinema gets more dreadful by the minute. Lundgren (in a terrible wig) sleepwalks his way through another laughable performance and Howard can play this role in his sleep by now. Film is hardly a “grand” slam for either of their careers.

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“A Creature Was Stirring” (*1/2 out of four) was a feeble horror psychodrama about a nurse (Chrissy Metz) who tries to protect her teenage daughter (Annalise Basso) from her unusual affliction she is struck with but when a blizzard moves in they are besieged by 2 intruders (Connor Paolo and Scout Taylor-Compton) and she has to fight them off to stay alive. Well-made horror story is also excessively unpleasant and (after a while) pretty boring. Decent performances are unable to do much with this flaccid material.

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“Deep Fear” (** out of four) was a serviceable suspense thriller about a group of drug traffickers (Stany Copet and Macarena Gomez) who are besieged and stranded in the midst of a terrifying storm and force a yachtswoman (Madalina Ghenea) to recover a sunken cocaine stash from deadly waters invested with sharks. Good-looking cinematography from Mark Silk on attractive locations highlight this otherwise plodding and predictable fare. No relation to last year’s Paris film of the same name but owes more than a bit to the similarly titled “The Deep” and “Deep Blue Sea.”

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“SKAL- Fight For Survival” (* out of four) was an almost unsurvivable melodrama about an internet celebrity (Darren Eisenhauer) who throws a party for having 3 million subscribers but an apocalypse now soon ends the festivities and forces him and his friends to struggle to stay alive. In-your-face filmmaking and unlikeable characters and actors make this a real “fight” to make it to the end. With an idiot like this as it’s central hero, the end of the world doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

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“Silent Night” (** out of four) was grindingly familiar and formulaic pulp-revenge thriller about a grieving father (Joel Kinnaman) who is left silent and is family murdered by a gang of ruthless thugs and trains brutally over the years to carry out his long-vowed oath of vengeance on Christmas Eve. A return for director John Woo to the kind of violent vengeance thriller he used to make to perfection but this one is hamstrung by its humdrum story. Film deserves credit for its chutzpah of having almost no dialogue but it gets undeniably monotonous after a while.

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