“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.

Continue reading →

“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.”

Continue reading →

“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.

Continue reading →

“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.

Continue reading →

“Caddy Hack” (* out of four) was a pitiful horror comedy about a series of gruesome murders at an upscale golf club caused by killer gophers while the greedy owner (Jim Gordon) tries to cover all of it up and an unhinged groundskeeper (Nick Twist) wages war and tries to kill them all one by one. Title and story are obvious puns on the classic comedy “Caddy Shack” but trust me this makes that movie (or its sequel) look like “Citizen Kane” by comparison. This cheezoid mess looks like it was made by a group of hacks or film-school dropouts.

Continue reading →

“Appendage” (** out of four) was an unpleasant horror psychodrama about a young fashion designer (Hadley Robinson) whose life starts to spiral out of control as her dark inner thoughts begin to manifest into something external and gruesome that won’t stop growing until it takes over (and tries to end) her life. Robinson (who resembles a young Claire Danes) is good in the lead but is overcome by pretentious and cumbersome material. Film’s title is appropriate since it’s made up of “appendages” from other (better) films.

Continue reading →

“Maestro” (** out of four) was a curiously flat biography about legendary film composer Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and his lifelong relationship with actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan) throughout the years. Star Cooper also directed with lots of reverence but he fails to involve you in Bernstein or make you care much about his character- or thus the movie. Final scenes work the best but film on a whole is pretty aloof and unmoving. Many critics thought this was extraordinary but I’m not among them.

Continue reading →

“Candy Cane Lane” (** out of four) was a harmless but interminable holiday comedy about a family man (Eddie Murphy) who is determined to win the prize for Christmas decorations in his neighborhood and makes a deal with an elf that plunges the town into holiday chaos. Colorfully designed and vibrantly shot and Murphy is solid as always but it goes on forever with hardly enough story to keep it afloat. A few nice moments are sprinkled in the mix but by the end you may feel like saying Humbug. David Alan Grier is nicely cast as Santa Claus; this marks the second collaboration between him, Murphy, and director Reginald Hudlin.

Continue reading →

“In The Land Of Saints And Sinners” (** out of four) was a fairly one-note melodrama set in Ireland in which an Irish hitman (Liam Neeson) is trying to make up for his lifetime of sin and murder but finds that he cannot escape his former lifestyle as he continues to be faced with moral and personal opposition from various friends and members of the underworld (Colm Meaney, Desmond Eastwood, Kerry Condon, and others). Well-acted and remains watchable but missing the dramatic fire and multi-dimensional characterization that this type of film needs to make it really compelling. Second collaboration between Neeson and Meaney and also director Robert Lorenz and is about on par with previous efforts “The Marksman” and “Marlowe.”

Continue reading →

“You’re All Gonna Die” (*1/2 out of four) was a senseless murder melodrama about a group of social justice advocates (Martin Donovan, Lori Petty, Richard Tyson, and others) who raid a campsite in order to find a serial killer but one-by-one they are all systematically killed and they struggle to escape. Filled with cliches and plot fragments from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Wrong Turn” and confusingly told in a haphazard style. Collection of promising 80’s/90’s actors holds your interest initially but this film is sadly another reason why their careers soon “died.”

Continue reading →