May 6, 2021 “Await The Dawn” (** out of four) was a flashy but flimsy horror thriller about a family (Dee Wallace, Bruce Davison, Courtney Gains) travelling cross-country who are hijacked by a man (Josh Server) in desperation but they soon find out he’s on the run from ghoulish and otherworldly zombies who are bent on worldwide destruction. Proficient enough with a reasonably zippy pace and some occasional jolts but film itself amounts to nothing more than a pastiche of “Night Of The Living Dead” and “The Howling” (which also starred Stone). Even still, this won numerous awards at the 2020 MMXX Foreman Empire Productions International Film Festival and the Pasadena Horror Film Festival. Continue reading →
May 4, 2021 “Wrong Place / Wrong Time” (** out of four) was a forgettable horror thriller about a team of mercenaries (Franziska Schissler, Alex Ryan Brown, Chase Garland, and others) who conspire to steal $14 billion in laundered money; they’re subsequently double-crossed and have to seek refuge with a family in the middle of the nowhere and find that the patriach of the family (Mike Markoff) is a bloodthirsty zombie intent on killing them all. Some scares and decent visual effects but a definite feeling of deja vu hangs over the proceedings. By this point, the horror zombie genre needs a transfusion of fresh blood and right ideas. Continue reading →
May 4, 2021 “My Husband’s Killer Girlfriend” (** out of four) was an overly routine suspense thriller about a dedicated mother (Cindy Busby) who hires a nanny (Chelsey Reist) to watch her child over the weekend when she goes out of town but subsequently finds out she’s the girlfriend of her ex-husband (Lane Edwards) and tries to frame her for child neglect and she has to go on the run to sort out the mystery and prove her innocence. Efficiently directed and made but you’ve seen this done before and better many times by now. Lucia Walters adds some spice and style as a hard-nosed detective on the case. Continue reading →
May 3, 2021 “Hoodman” (*1/2 out of four) was a dreary horror thriller about the title urban legend who haunts a small New England town; when a young woman (Madison Spear) discovers her young daughter is missing, her and a hard-nosed detective (Brock Morse) link ties to a suspected killer (Jack James) who may or not be involved and who may have ties himself to the hoodman legend. Moody cinematography by Jack Parker is a definite plus but the story is dead in the water and never comes to life. Watch “Candyman” (or even “The Bye Bye Man”) instead. Continue reading →
May 3, 2021 “Zombie With A Shotgun” (*1/2 out of four) was an artless adaptation of the popular web series about a couple (Brandon Baade and Kathrine Kuhn) on the run when he gets seemingly infected by a zombie virus during a worldwide pandemic but his virus symptoms never progress and he remains in the transitional phase which makes him sought after by both ravenous zombies and shadowy government operatives (Foster Davis and Robert Bella) who want to study him. Cheesy and lame pastiche of zombie cliches doesn’t give you anything that Romero didn’t do- and do better- decades earlier. For hardcore fans of the series only. Continue reading →
May 1, 2021 “Eat Wheaties” (*1/2 out of four) was a synthetic comedy about a middle-aged blowhard (Tony Hale) who finds his life gradually starts to fall apart when he tries to prove he was friends with a particular celebrity in college and this leads to his close friends and job to find out that he’s full of it. Failed attempt to cross-pollinate a moral melodrama with sitcom humor; a paper-thin premise stretched well beyond its limits at nearly an hour-and-a-half. Hale tries his best but you’ll likely be starving for laughs and fulfillment. Continue reading →
May 1, 2021 “Ape Vs. Monster” (*1/2 out of four) was a lumbering action thriller about an ape who crashlands on Earth which creates a sludge that makes him and a scorpion grow to gigantic size resulting in a fight to the death while the military (Eric Roberts, Shayne Hartigan, Katie Sereika, and others) stands on the sidelines trying to figure out what to do. The kind of cheesy thriller that’s made to cash in on a much bigger one (“Godzilla vs. Kong” in case you were wondering); some of the visual effects aren’t bad but script and story are lame and film wanders too much to its inevitable conclusion. Does Roberts have it in his contract that he has to appear in every movie that’s direct-to-DVD? Continue reading →
May 1, 2021 “Bang! Bang!” (*1/2 out of four) was an ugly and exploitative melodrama that fires all blanks about five teenagers (Nicole Fahel, Lucas Mogerley, Jordan Knapp, and others) who rob a supermarket but soon find that it has consequences upon all of them that they never imagined. Since none of the characters are likeable, it’s hard to care about them or their plights and thus the movie. Writer-director Nicholas Joseph Cunha mashes so much unpleasantness in your face that he seems to be straining to make another “Kids” but film is low on ammunition and firepower. Continue reading →
April 30, 2021 “Without Remorse” (**1/2 out of four) was a slick if overly generic adaptation of Tom Clancy’s spy novel about a navy-seal (Michael B. Jordan) whose family is murdered and he is left for dead; he subsequently finds out that his entire unit was targeted and assassinated and he goes on a rampage gunning for revenge in a conspiracy that goes all the way to the political top (Guy Pearce, Lucy Russell, and others). Commanding and gripping at first then starts to lose its way as it wanders into a mechanical and routine political pulp melodrama which feels “Bourne” again. Jordan is first-rate as usual and makes this worth watching. Not up to the craft and polish of the Harrison Ford/Clancy adaptations but an improvement over the last adaptation with Chris Pine. Continue reading →
April 30, 2021 “The Unholy” (** out of four) was a mindlessly derivative adaptation of James Herbert’s horror novel about a young deaf girl (Cricket Brown) who is visited by the Virgin Mary and can suddenly heal the sick and is visited and worshipped by millions but a disgraced journalist (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and a local priest (William Sadler) and bishop (Cary Elwes) begin to suspect that some sinister paranormal activity may be at play. Good cast tries their best to inject all the life they can but are defeated by well-worn material. By this point, there have been at least 100 horror movies too many about religion and the church. Continue reading →
dlepikcom 