March 1, 2019 “Beach House” (*1/2 out of four) was a dreary story about a young girl (Emma Fitzgerald) on retreat at a quiet beach resort when a mysterious artist (Murray Bartlett) appears who knew her mother (Orlagh Cassidy) but she soon comes to suspect him of a terrible crime buried in both of their pasts. Dawdling melodrama moves like molasses but has no real story to tell. Film’s final surprise isn’t much of one. At least the beach scenery and surroundings are pretty and well-captured. Continue reading →
March 1, 2019 “Hangover In Death Valley” (0 stars out of four) was a stupefyingly awful melodrama about two suit-and-tie losers named The Jews Brothers (are you laughing yet?) who wind up in a town called El Dorado in which a hitman (Michael Madsen) and other assorted lowlifes (Patrick Bergin, Jeff Fahey, and others) try to track them down. Full of annoying characters and relentlessly irritating and pseudo-hip dialogue combined with low-rent filmmaking which make this unwatchable. Made by someone who watched too many Tarantino movies as a child but there’s no pulp fiction here. And what a waste of a great supporting cast. Peter Fonda (sounding a lot like Ozzy Osbourne) narrates this mess. Continue reading →
March 1, 2019 “Atone” (** out of four) was a semi-watchable action melodrama about a former Special Ops solider (Jaqueline Fleming) who shows up for work at the largest church in America where she soon finds out that terrorists are taking over and her daughter (Genesis Martin) is trapped inside and she has to risk all to take them down and save her daughter and the rest of civilization. “Die Hard” clone has a few good action scenes but a thin script and storyline and by now you’ve seen it all before and better. Fleming (who is a dead ringer for Zoe Saldana) is OK in the lead. Continue reading →
February 27, 2019 “Who’s Stalking Me?” (**1/2 out of four) was a moderately entertaining thriller about a young girl (Chelsea Ricketts) who is attacked in her home and is rescued by a helpful cop (Michael Welch) who she subsequently begins a relationship with but she soon begins to realize that he is all not all that he appears and that he is an obsessive sociopath intent on turning her life upside down. Full of the usual plotholes and logic gaps but is still slickly done and tense and is given a boost by Welch’s unusually strong performance. Neat twist ending is a real surprise also. Continue reading →
February 27, 2019 “Instakiller” (** out of four) was a mediocre thriller melodrama about a woman (Kelly Sullivan) whose teenage daughter (Lizze Broadway) becomes world-famous on the internet through her photography website but this attention brings the attention of a stalker who attempts to harm all of them. Reasonably well-directed and well-made but offers no surprises and thus no sparks. Just because it’s a movie about the internet doesn’t mean it has to feel like it was spit out of a computer. Continue reading →
February 26, 2019 “Kim Possible” (** out of four) was a silly Disney action yarn about the title teenage hero (Sadie Stanley) and her best friend Ron Stoppable (Sean Giambrone) who embark on saving the world from two monstrous villains (Todd Stashwick and Taylor Ortega) all the while embarking on the more challenging adventure of beginning high school. For young girls only, who may not be old enough to remember “Hannah Montana” which this liberally borrows from. Stanley is engaging in the lead and does what she can with the mindless script and story. Alyson Hannigan has a key role as her mom Dr. Ann Possible. Continue reading →
February 26, 2019 “Havana Darkness” (*1/2 out of four) was a thoroughly routine horror melodrama about three friends (Carolina Ravassa, Guillermo Ivan, Zach Rose) who travel to Havana, Cuba to investigate the origins of a manuscript supposedly written by Ernest Hemingway but find themselves trapped inside an abandoned building and being stalked and killed by a masked murderer who doesn’t want the truth of the manuscript to come out. Cheapjack mishmash of “Saw” and countless other schlock horror movies with the Cuba scenery its only novelty. But film’s ugly cinematography and shoddy lighting renders even this to look dull. Continue reading →
February 25, 2019 “Lords Of Chaos” (** out of four) was an intermittently intriguing but odd story about a teenager (Rory Culkin) in Oslo who attempts to start the genre of Norwegian black metal but his plan hits several speed-bumps and he then is forced to start his own record label and open his own record shop in order to survive but this also leads to twists of fate and consequences he did not foresee. Interesting for fans of metal and hard-rock (with a particular nod to Kiss whose face-paint and makeup the band emulates) for a while but story gets bogged down in the middle and takes some strange turns afterwards till its very bloody ending. Culkin is strong in the lead role and holds the movie together and makes it worth watching for at least a little while. Continue reading →
February 24, 2019 “Deadly Excursion” (** out of four) was a tiresome thriller about a woman and daughter (Samaire Armstrong and Alexandria DeBerry) who go on vacation together and charter a sailboat but find out all-too-late that the captain is a real sicko who intends on making sure they never return home. Not bad by the standards of these things, with pretty location photography and decent acting, but it’s too routine and predictable to sustain interest for too long. Originally titled “Paradise Prey” Continue reading →
February 24, 2019 “1st Summoning” (*1/2 out of four) was a tired found-footage horror story about four student filmmakers (Hayley Lovitt, Jason Macdonald, Brook Todd, Ace Harney) who set out to explore a historic and occult building but soon find that the evil that once lurked in the building is (yawn) still very much alive and their lives are in peril. Yet another rip-off of “The Blair Witch Project” without much horror or thrills and makes you wish the found-footage genre would just go back to Hell. Hopefully, this will be the last “summoning” and imitation of that 1999 classic and filmmakers can move on to more original stories. Continue reading →
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