Fantasy Island is the worst movie of all time

This was a bullshit movie. Maybe you had to be into the show. I'm not entirely sure if they are even connected. It seems like it might be a prequel, the timeline is all kinds of fucked up on that. All I know is this movie sucked. Sort of started out interesting and kept getting worse and worse before coming to a crescendo of suck. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Fantasy Island tries to show audiences the dark side of wish fulfillment, but mainly serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of exhuming long-dead franchises.

Oh boy. Gist is a group of young people win a free trip to Fantasy Island, where they get one wish granted during their stay on the island. The place is Westworld for the lazy. The island is magic, you see, with some magic TV rock and water that does shit too. However that shit comes at a price, and who is to say that they aren't part of someone else's fantasy? Late in the movie we find out that is exactly what's up. Spoiler. Her fantasy is to get revenge on all the people that led to her losing the love of her life, who we find out she went on sort of one date with. She fucking cray. 

Directed and co-written by one Jeff Wadlow, who is behind some of my personally most loathed films. Cry Wolf and Truth or Dare?, for instance. Stars Michael Peña, who I hate, as the dude who runs the island. He's sort of the Richard Alpert in Lost. Peña is the sidekick from Ant-Man. He's also a Scientologist. Again, hate him. The beautiful Maggie Q whom you might remember from Mission: Impossible III  or the Nikita reboot from 2010. Lucy Hale from Truth or Dare?. Austin Stowell and Portia Doubleday I don't recognize. Doubleday plays a woman who bullied the cray chick and has continued to be pretty much a piece of shit. But she's learning. Jimmy O. Yang from Silicon Valley,  Ryan Hansen from Party Down, and Michael Rooker from The Walking Dead and the Guardians of the Galaxy movies (he's the blue guy with the arrow).

Not really sure that anyone really won the movie. Maybe Doubleday, who actually showed a little bit of range. However, didn't really give her, or anybody, a lot to work with. This is not a good movie. 

Hell Fest is the greatest movie of all time

Some people are just evil. They walk amongst. Another killer in a haunt movie. Another decent entry. I would totally go to this place, by the by. Basically, it's a theme park of horror attractions. Sign me the fuck up. In reality, the filming location was a Six Flags outside of Atlanta. Wah wah. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Hell Fest might give less demanding horror fans a few decent reasons to scream, but it's neither clever nor frightening enough to leave much of an impression.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. Gist is that a group of high schoolish kids go to a haunt, this one amusement park or state fair-sized, to get their scare on. It's all fun and games until a serial killer starts killing folks in their click. Then shit gets real, but everybody just thinks it is part of the show. 

Directed by one Gregory Plotkin. Mostly known as an editor. He did Get Out, Happy Death Day, Game Night (all movies I adored), and it looks like all of the Paranormal Activity sequels. This was his first feature film as a director. His second, Crimson, was released today. 

The film stars Amy Forsyth (never seen her), Reign Edwards (don't recognize her from anything), and Bex Taylor-Klaus (BTK, unfortunately). BTK is in that show The Killing (which was good as fuck), Arrow, and a bunch of solid horror stuff. Non-binary, prefers the they/them pronoun. Might recognize from Scream the television show (loved that shit), or iZombie. Tony Todd--you know, Candyman!--is in the movie for like 30 seconds but gets top billing.

Again, I thought the movie was good. However, only one thing makes it really stick out from the other haunt movies. Namely that the killer guy ends up just being a normal family man. You know, kill a shit-ton of people, get stabbed, go home, kiss your kid good night. There are some cool scenes that use the setting to its advantage. Not sure I'll remember that they came from this movie in a couple of years though. 

While all that sounds bad, I assure you this is a good, fun slasher movie. If you like going to haunted houses, this is a really good substitute during COVID, with way more tension. Definitely recommend. 

MVP is this Taylor-Klaus. I've seen BTK in several things and always stands out. Always a plucky smart-ass sidekick, but does that shit well. Steals the show—total MVP performance. 

Haunt is the greatest movie of all time

Do you still want to see my face? It's a work in progress, but I think you'll like it. Sort of a standard slasher elivated a little bit with intriguing killers and a cool location. I'm sort of a sucker for these horror movies set at a haunt. Basic gist is that folks think they are going to a haunted house to get scared by dudes in masks, but people really start to die. The Funhouse back in the day was sort of like this, then you got two pretty interesting ones that were ultimately unsuccessful in The House October Built and The House October Built 2. 

As someone who goes to these more extreme haunted houses, I get it. Twice I've gone with chicks who freaked out, thinking it got real like it does in these movies. The first time I was in eighth grade and the girls started to cry. The next time I was in college with a pair of friends and my sister. My friends were from Germany and France and had never experienced anything like a haunted house. The French girl locked on to me and screamed at anyone who came near us. The German girl went ahead with my sister. When we got out of the corn maze, we saw the German girl absolutely sprinting away from a guy wielding a chainsaw. "Ze chain-saw wus real, Ay-run." That was a fun night. I thought what a good idea this type of movie would be that night. Now, 10 movies later, it's starting to get a little overplayed. However, a Shudder original, this was the most popular movie on the streaming service this year. So don't expect these to go away. Also, this is better than most of the ones I've seen. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Haunt is spooked by the spirits of its obvious influences, but still packs enough thrills and chills to satisfy horror fans up for a haunted house excursion.

Gist of the movie is that a group of college kids go to a secluded haunted house. The kind where you have to sign a waver and shit. Eventually they discover that the actors are real killers after several of them indeed die. 

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. These guys wrote A Quiet Place. The kids include Katie Stevens, Will Brittain, and Lauryn McClain. Haven't seen or heard of any of them. One of the killers, Damian Maffei, the Devil, was one of the killers in The Strangers movies. He's masked in that as well though. 

There is some dumb shit about this movie. First, there is this whole abuse victim/chilhood drama subplot that the writers throw in for the survivor chick. Gets them a car at the end though and pads the bodycount a little bit. Then at the very end, the Clown goes to the survivor girl's house, she had to put her address down when she went into the haunt, to finish the job. However, chick has Home Aloned her house and she ends up killing the dude, which is deserved, but come the fuck on. 

Overall, the movie is some pretty creepy shit. The people that work at the murder house all wear these masks. Shit like a ghost, a devil, a witch, a clown, so forth. Underneath those masks their faces are tattooed and mutilated to look like a much more horrifying version of the mask. These are guininely pretty scary. No thank you. We get told that one of them is a tattoo artist and all the workers are into death metal and they earn their faces by killing people. Producer Eli Roth, the "Bear Jew" in Inglorious Bastards and director of Hostel, told the writers to write out backstories for all these killers even though it wouldn't be used in the film. I feel that definitely gave the characters some richness that shined through. For that, I'm giving him the MVP. Hell of a talent, that Eli Roth. 

Night of the Demons 3 is the worst movie of all time

Come here. Just the bitch I was looking for! Oh, look, another one of these movies. This one a threequel. That's where the magic starts. You know, when things go way off the rails. This is, of course, no exception. So while a bad movie, it is pretty fun. Has the stink of Canada all over it. 

Gist is that a group of kids try to buy booze to party on Halloween and it goes horribly wrong. They end up shooting a cop, which is insane, and have to go on the lamb. The guy who did the shooting is obviously completely over-the-top. He totally commits to this life of crime when they can't buy booze, which is grossly unnecessary. Maybe try another gas station before going scorched earth. But his girlfriend is into it. She seems to be turned on by this nonsense and fully commits to this crazy life their going to have. Some of the others aren't so into it, but they don't really have a choice at this point. 

To avoid arrest, they go hide out in the old abandoned mansion that becomes possessed on Halloween night. They are obviously unaware of this fact or of Angela. Once again we have Amelia Kinkade, the glue that holds the franchise together, I guess in the role. She plays the role of the demon character Angela known for her gross "sexy" dancing. If you were into that the first two times you saw it, don't worry, this third installment has that too. She shows up, does her vomit-inducing sexy dancing, and starts killing the 30 year old teens one by one. 

This movie features some of the most bat-shit decisions in all of the films I've ever seen. You get turned down for booze at a gas station so you steal the attendant's shotgun and shoot the place up? A cop show up so you fucking shoot him? What the fuck are we doing here? You're on the lamb and a demon is killing your friends? Might as well bone, am I right?  Have some self-control.

Some of the names of the people in the film are Vlasta Vrána, Gregory Calpakis, Tara Slone, Christian Tessier, Joel Gordon, Larry Day, Kristen Holden-Reid, Stephanie Bauder, and Patricia Rodriguez. I didn't recognize any of them though it looked like most of them have had semi-successful careers. The problem with the movie isn't the acting. 

The plot, which is completely insane--one character has a snake hand for christ's sake (like, that shit really happens in a movie)--isn't the worst thing either. That would be the truly horrific CGI. This shit is like really bad. It would have been noticeably bad in the 1980s. Was awful for 1997. It is OMG bad by today's standards. And it was completely unnecessary. But, again, gives it charm in that so bad it's fun to watch way. 

Overall, while I liked the first two, the second was a lot of fun, this is sort of a terrible send off. Disappointing since Kevin S. Tenney, who directed the first one, wrote the screenplay. The franchise got a reboot in 2009. Don't think they'll be revisiting this any time soon. 

Terrifier is the okayest movie of all time

How can you eat a greasy croissant while you're cutting up dead bodies? Sweetheart, I've been doing this twenty-two years, alright? Once you've seen an eight-month-old microwaved to death... everything else is just old hat. About the overall gist of this movie. Saw a lot of love for this online. I thought it was fine, but nothing super special. Hell of a costume for the killer though. And his use of body language and his silence are pretty creepy. However, felt like it relied a lot on shock value--I mean, it was very shocking/disturbing--but that type of movie doesn't really do it for me. Brutal and sick. 

Plot runs thus, it's Halloween and this these chicks run into and become fodder for a truly sadistic supernatural murderer named Art the Clown. They run, he gives chase, commits murder, repeat. These murders are some next level sick shit, by the way. 

Written and directed by one Damien Leone. Also in the girl are the likes of Catherine Corcoran, Matt McAllister, Pooya Mohseni, and Samantha Scaffidi. Don't feel bad if you don't know them because no one does. Guy named David Howard Thornton plays Art the Clown. Looks like a much more terrifying Crazy Joe Davola from Seinfeld when he dressed up like Pagliacci in "The Opera." 

Tara Heyes, played by Jenna Kanell, is the final girl who ends up looking all fucked up. I think this is shown at the beginning but I can't quite tell if that is her or another chick. 

Apparently this is the second feature film appearance of the Art the Clown character. The first was Leone's 2013 anthology film All Hallows' Eve, which sounds pretty interesting. Chick watches horror movies with the kids she is babysitting that feature the character. He ends up coming alive and doing what he does. Might check it out. 

Blackmail (1929) is the greatest film of all time

Detectives in glass houses shouldn't wave clues. Final silent Alfred Hitchcock movie from 1929. When it was being developed, The Jazz Singer, the first talkie, came out. That shit became all the rage and Hitchcock made a talkie version of the same flick which is cited as the first sound feature film. The silent one is better though. 

Gist of the movie is that this young lady who is maybe cheating on her (I guess) husband--who is a detective for Scotland Yard--goes home with a painter. His game is to get chicks naked and to "paint" them. The oldest trick in the book, apparently, because it is worn out even then. They flirt and he makes a move. She turns him down and he gets all rape/murdery. In what is obviously self-defense, she kills him. But she freaks and takes off, leaving a mountain of evidence behind. Luckily though her dude gets assigned the case and takes some of the shit she leaves behind when she sees that the victim is the guy his wife or whatever left with. She ain't out of the clear though as this homeless dude saw her and tries to blackmail them. 

Rapey vibes

But, surprise, they pin it on the homeless dude. Spoiler. She doesn't want him to get hanged for her "crime" though so she goes to Scotland Yard to tell the cops "who did it." When she's about to do as such, they find out the homeless dude died while being pursued by the cops. It's a pretty sweet scene that takes place in the British Museum, a truly remarkable building. Her conscience clears up real quick when they learn about that. So off they go, to live happily ever after, I'm sure. Ends with a real knee-slapper how "pretty soon, you'll see women detectives on Scotland Yard!" They all have real good laugh at that one. 

Stars Anny Ondra the chick who kills the dude in self defense. She famously spoke little English and ended up miming the words while another access spoke offscreen in the talkie version. Don't feel bad for her though. She continued to act in German and French films and married the German boxer Max Schmeling. He was famous losing the "Battle of the Century" to Joe Louis in 1938 and getting shunned by the Nazis. The Nazi Party didn't exactly jive with him either as he saved Jews by hiding them in his basement during the war. Later in life he became an executive for Coca-Cola and more or supported Joe Louis. He was solid. I imagine she was as well. They stayed married until her death in 1987. Their marriage was apparently super happy.  

John Longden plays her detective maybe husband who helps cover the crime up and pin it on the blackmailer. Cyril Ritchard is the guy who gets murdered who had it coming. 

Hitchcock is the MVP, obviously. This was something like his 10th film. All the shit he would become known for is there. The use of shadow and light. The Kuleshov Effect. The cameo. The beautiful blonde. The famous landmark. Really glad I watched it. Probably never watching it again though. 

Vampires vs. the Bronx is the greatest film of all time

Yo, check out the courthouse. They are turning it into apartments. You know how this starts. White people with canvas bags. That is always the first sign. Pretty solid flick. Had some Attack the Block vibes. Not quite as good though. Sort of falls apart a little at the end. Still really fun though. For sure recommend this new flick available to stream on Netflix now. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: In the sharp, socially conscious battle of Vampires vs. the Bronx, comedy and horror blend brilliantly -- and the audience is the winner.

Gist is that a group of kids from the Bronx fight to save their neighborhood from vampires that are moving in and trying to gentrify their block. Pretty solid social commentary as well as a comedy horror movie. 

Directed by one Osmany Rodriguez. Looks to have done a lot of TV and shorts, but this one of his first, if not the first, feature film. He also wrote it with another guy. Mostly follows around three dudes that are 15ish. Playing these parts are Jaden Michael, Gerald W. Jones III, and Gregory Diaz IV. I've seen none of them but they are all great. Also in their crew is one Coco Jones, who is female. All of the acting is pretty great. 

Other's you'd recognize include Sarah Gadon who plays the head vampire. I mostly know her from the Stephen King adaptation of 11.22.63. She plays the role of Sadie Dunhill, the female lead. She's a pretty lady. Method Man, who plays a no-nonsense priest. Chris Redd, who is just some dude on the block. And a vampire or two sort of stick out. 

Like I said, sort of falls apart at the end. The head vampire chick is like 700 years old and brags about how she is the shit and all. However, she makes a bunch of rookie mistakes that end up getting her killed. Ends sort of on a, "well, that ended up being pretty easy," which was kinda weak. 

Gotta give the MVP to the three kids. They are pretty perfect and totally great as buds. Really fun movie that henges on their roles. Even though the ending is weak, they always shine. 

Scare Me is the greatest film of all time

Power outage. I'm bored. Let's tell each other scary stories. I loved this movie. If you are a fella that might be interested in some scary stories, you'll like it too. A Shudder Original, released on October 1, it's available to watch right now. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: Smart, well-acted, and suitably chilling, Scare Me uses its familiar horror setting as the backdrop for a fresh deconstruction of standard genre ingredients.

Gist is that a writer-type who works for an advertising agency rents a cabin in the woods to write a cliche werewolf novel and bumps into a neighbor who is a cute, kooky, best-selling author. He is pretty jealous and sort of unpleasant, but things sort of turn around when the power goes out and she comes over and forces him to play a game where they tell each other stories. It's all fun and games until shit gets real. 

Written, directed, and staring one Josh Ruben. Don't recognize him. He's pretty good though. In a show called You're the Worst. His character is horrible. Total involuntary celibate type. He gets progressively worse until the end when you totally hate him. Cute writer chick is played by Aya Cash who is probably most known for her roles in The Boys and You're the Worst. Prob how they came to work on this together. You think they might hook up, but that dude is really the worst. Only like two or three other people in the movie. Only one you'd recognize is Chris Redd from SNL and Deep Murder, which is fantastic. He plays a pizza dude who get's high with them and plays out a couple of tales. 

This telling and acting out stories looks fun as shit. Might start doing something like this with my buddies. We are the creative types who would get into it. Anyway, hard to pick an MVP because all the performances are so good. Tempted to give it to Ruben because he was great with all three of his functions on the picture. But, I'm leaning toward Cash. She is really good. Great flick for a Halloween Saturday. 

Hack-O-Lantern is the worst movie of all time

This was legitimately one of the worst movies I've ever seen. 1988 straight to video, if that tells you anything. Wouldnt have finished it if it weren't on Joe Bob Briggs Last Drive-In. Even then it was something of a chore. Diana Prince, aka Darcy the Mail Girl, was really unimpressed. "You should have shown another movie." It's MST3K bad without the riffing to get you through it. Had to supply a lot of our own to not go mad. 

Gist of the movie is that this maniac of a grandfather/pumpkin patch proprietor is secretly this satanic cult leader whose group sacrifices folks on Halloween night. He also practices incest and fathers a child with his daughter. That child, this little blonde kid, is being groomed to take over the cult and grows up to be Mac's dad from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 

Some shit to watch out for... Lots of nudity. All gratuitous. Some of the ladies are pretty attractive, too, surprisingly. Odd number of breasts, which is always fun. The blonde child from early in the movie looks exactly like the brother of Mac's dad and nothing like Mac's dad. It could be that guy's son. 

Gramps kills his granddaughter's BF after getting trapped in a recently dug grave. Instead of burying him in, you know, the deep ass grave, we later see that dude was buried next to the hole in a dirt mound, which was an interesting choice. Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Hack-O-Lantern features a cop having sex with a girl right on top of a freshly dug grave. Later, a girl bones a guy on the mound and mistakes a corpse's exposed hand for her lover's. Insanely, the girl then shows her friend exactly where she had sex at where they find the corpse, who is the other chick's BF. 

Some other dumb shit includes the four times I thought the movie was over but then it just kept going on. Lots of pump fakes. Hate a pump fake. Also, Gramps thinks he is making the sign of the devil and making the pentagram in the air like a Catholic would cross himself, but he is really making the sign for "I love you." WTF. 

Worst offender of all, maybe, is the name Hack-O-Lantern. Like, why? Has nothing to do with anything that happens in the movie. Waste of a perfectly good title. 

Only real positive I have is that the band is pretty solid. The director, one Jag Mundhra, came out of Bollywood which seems to pretty much always have more or less music videos in the movie (at least the few movies I've seen playing at Indian restaurants). I guess this came out of that style. Band was D.C. La Croix, metal but not metal AF. Total MVP of the movie. 

Child's Play 3 is the worst movie of all time

Don't fuck with the Chuck. So. Movie takes place in the future, I guess. Came out a year after Child's Play 2 but takes place eight years later. The Good Guy Corp is basically fucked when we start the movie. Too many people dying from this Chucky doll shit. But they are on their way back, baby. End up making the first doll on the new assembly line, which has Chucky DNA in the plastic. Immediately comes back to life and kills the CEO, who seems like a real prick. Then it's off to find Andy, again. Well alright. 

Find it funny that the company that makes these dolls is a wear a suit to work kind of place with a board full of hard-asses. I have a fancy corporate job at a no-nonsense company with hundreds of employees. I'm on economic development boards with executives. I'm a member of Rotary. Don't see this level of formality and seriousness like ever. Tight ship they run there at Good Guys, Inc. 

Anyway, life is still incredibly shitty for Andy, now high school age. He's at a military school and it looks like it really sucks. He gets bullied and Chucky is still trying to take his body and shit. But Chucky figures out some technicality and gets to go after someone else now to play "hide the soul" with. Yep. There is also a war games battle between the two groups at the school. It's supposed to be sort of like paintball except with real guns where the bullets shoot paint, but Chucky replaces them 

New kid playing Andy. One Justin Whalin. Played Scotty in the John Waters's movie Serial Mom which I haven't seen in over two decades. Only people you'll recognize are Andrew Robinson from Hellraiser, he is the "Jesus wept" daddy, and Frank the Tank's wife from Old School. 

Overall, this movie is pretty bad, but sort of fun. Really fucking weird. Definitely an outlier for the franchise. This is where Chucky just goes off the rails. Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky, gets the MVP for the "Don't fuck with the Chuck" line. Hell of a line. That shit is killer. I think I mixed up some of the plot with of Major Payne. Not a good sign that I watched it just a few days ago and already forgot almost everything. Shan't be watching again.