The Watchers

Posted by cat2002116 on June 15, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews, Supernatural. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I was definitely interested in seeing this moive when I saw it advertised at the cinema. The whole idea of a small group of people trapped in a small space, being watched by unseen creatures on the other side of a mirror, was one that immediately interested me.

The movie started out in a fairly similar way to most horror movies, with a man running through the forest, trying to escape or find his way out while being chased by an unseen creature. That opening scene ends with what was included in the trailer: with the man being dragged away by the same unseen creature that’s apparently been stalking him. Either way, he doesn’t really appear in the rest of the movie…although he is mentioned.

I found Mina a bit of a difficult character to really empathise with, as she was hiding who she was with various people even before she’s stranded in the forest. The start of the movie is a little slow-moving, but it moves a bit faster once Mina finds herself stranded in the forest.

While I did find the whole concept of being watched by strange, unseen entities to be really interesting, I did think that if I was in Mina’s position, I would have been asking a whole lot more questions. For instance, she doesn’t ask anything about this Professor that Daniel mentions. I found it very hard to believe that she wouldn’t have mentioned anything at all about this extra person who’s referenced, but isn’t actually there.

Madeline, Ciara and Daniel seem to have accepted the whole idea of being watched, but while Ciara mentions her husband has left to try and get help, she doesn’t actually seem worried about his safety at all. It’s a little hard to really feel like there’s much danger in this movie, as apart from the opening scene and a few instances where the watchers are banging on the cabin, unable to get in, the characters always seem able to escape danger. It’s also not very clear what the consequences for breaking these ‘rules’ are, apart from the watchers reacting badly by banging and trying to get in. Have they killed anyone apart from the guy at the beginning, who none of them seem worried about? Again, I feel like this is a question Mina should have asked. What happens if we break the rules? When she inevitably turned her back on the mirror, I was expecting something to happen…but unfortunately, nothing did.

I also found that this movie contradicted itself towards the end. I had the feeling it was more about bringing in a twist than making sure it made sense with what had been established before. There were very few clues pointing towards the twist at the end.

On the whole, I think there was a lot of potential in this movie. Sadly, though, it just fell short of what it could have been.

Sting

Posted by cat2002116 on June 9, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

This was another movie that was pretty much what it said on the tin…but actually, as I was expecting it to be a giant monster movie, it was more enjoyable than I was initially expecting.

The movie starts with an old woman, Helga, hearing sounds in her walls and calling a pest control company. The man she speaks to, Frank, recognises her apartment as one he’s already visited, and asks her about her parrot…to which she responds that she doesn’t own a parrot, and immediately hangs up. As Helga seems to suffer from a form of dementia, though, she forgets that she’s called him…and, indeed, forgets that she’s called another pest company, who were there before Frank was.

After Frank is attacked and dragged away by a giant mutant spider, the movie goes back a few days; to a young girl, Charlotte, who breaks into her grandmother’s storage room and finds a tiny spider in a dollhouse. Unlike me, who’d be running screaming in the opposite direction at a spider like that, Charlotte smuggles the arachnid out of the storage room and decides to keep it as a pet, eventually feeding it enough that it grows at a rapid pace.

I don’t like spiders at all, so most of this movie had me cringing whenever the spider was shown on screen, and that was even before the beast got loose and started terrorising the residents of the apartment building! I did feel that the strongest part of this movie was the relationship between Charlotte and her family. I had some empathy towards Ethan, although his decision to change Charlotte’s artwork made him dip a lot in my estimation. Yes, it’s later revealed that Charlotte’s biological father is a jerk who abandoned her…but speaking as a child of divorced parents, I still loved my mother, despite her flaws. (I obviously love my father, too, but I lived with him, so it was a little different). So yeah, I hd some mixed feelings about Charlotte’s relationship with her step father. I will be honest and say that I didn’t really like her mother, though. Especially when Heather told Ethan she ‘needed that’ about seeing Charlotte and Ethan sitting together while he drew the comics.  At that point, she came across as unbelievably selfish for assuming that the sweet moment betwen Ethan and Charlotte was purely for her benefit.

I liked the fact that Charlotte was particularly resourceful in this movie, and there were some really good elements of foreshadowing throughout. I also really liked Frank, the man who worked in pest control. His presence added some much needed humour into the relatively dark moments during the movie.

I did actually enjoy this movie, all told. It was exactly what it said on the tin, but the characters were ones I liked and cared about, and there were some nice breaks in the tension at times. It’d be interesting to see a sequel to the movie, as I definitely think Charlotte is someone who could grow up to be extremely resourceful/successful…and what if the spider’s mother put in an appearance in the future?

So yeah. Good horror movie. Fairly simple and easy to watch. Would recommend if you’re on the fence about it.

Cold People

Posted by cat2002116 on June 9, 2024
Posted in: Apocalyptic, Books, End of The World Book Reading Club, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I was very excited to read this book, as I joined The End of the World Book Reading Club, and this was my first box with the book and several small gifts to open throughout the book…all of which I thought was a pretty awesome idea.

When I read the blurb on the back of the book, I was immediately intrigued. The idea of an alien invasion and people having to travel to Antarctica to survive immediately caught my attention…and I actually really liked the beginning of the book. I really enjoyed viewing the first sighting of Antarctica through the eyes of Ui, a man from two thousand years ago with no knowledge of science, or technology. I especially liked the visual of the ice blocks as clouds, either falling from the sky into the water, or rising up from the water to become clouds in the sky.

I will say that I’m not really a fan of the instant love connection between two characters, so seeing that between Atto and Liza kind of put me off reading the book a bit. I did like the sudden, abrupt chaos of the alien ships appearing in the sky and giving the deadline to humans about thirty days to reach Antarctica. That definitely gave an air of urgency to the book…and as people attempted to flee the city and get to the airports, I could definitely feel the panic and that sense of trying to save your own family, with nothing left to help any of the others who were in the same, or perhaps worse, situations.

I liked the whole buildup of humans trying to reach Antarctica before the deadline given by the aliens, but I was extremely disappointed by the abrupt timeskip of twenty years once they actually got there. Learning, adapting and surviving to life in the extreme cold would have been a really good way of worldbuilding and character development…and I kind of felt robbed of that by the timeskip. I also found it really hard to have characters introduced in the present day, only to abruptly skip back twenty years to how they handled the alien invasion and got to Antartica. There was a lot of jumping backwards and forwards that made the book hard to read at times.

I also think that the book could have done without the focus on the science experiments. It felt like there were two different ideas/plots going on in this book, but neither were given enough room to develop properly.

On the whole, I couldn’t really engage with this book as much as I would have liked to. There was too much going on and too many random jumps for characters I didn’t get the chance to know. I will say that I loved the gifts I received with the book, and I definitely plan to continue the subscription as long as I can afford to. Hopefully, I will enjoy the next book better!

The Strangers Chapter 1

Posted by cat2002116 on June 9, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Okay, so…horror movie. No one’s surprised, right? I think by now, the majority of people who know me, or follow my blog, know that horror movies are my bread and butter of film genre.

I watched the first Strangers movie, which was actually really creepy and did really well at having the masked strangers just appear in the house, without drawing any attention to that. I felt that this movie tried to do something very similar, but unfortunately, it didn’t do anything different to the original home invasion movie, so there was very little to make it stand out from its predecessor.

I did like Ryan and Maya’s relationship, although a lot of the movie very much felt like a stereotypical horror where the main characters end up in a small town that just has a weird, almost creepy feel to it. Honestly, if I was in that position, I wouldn’t be staying in an airbnb right in the middle of the woods. And the moment someone started banging on the door, I would have been calling the police…because no one who has good intentions is going to be out in the middle of the woods at that time of night.

I originally thought that Ryan having asthma and needing to use an inhaler was a nice touch…but it didn’t really seem to have an impact on him throughout the movie. Okay, there was one cool scene where he used a bottle to breathe into and then used that sound to get the upper hand…but unfortunately, it was fairly obvious how the movie was going to end. Even if I hadn’t seen the previous movies in the franchise, the trailer gave away a lot of what was going to happen throughout.

I was somewhat disappointed because I thought the movie was going to show a bit more about the Strangers and how they interacted with each other. Yes, the scariest thing about them is that there’s no reason why they’re going on killing sprees, but I do think there could have been subtle ways for their personalities to come through.

On the whole, I really don’t think there was much to make this movie stand out from the previous two in the franchise. Most of what happened in the movie had already been done in the previous two movies, and it was fairly obvious where the movie was going. I can’t really say it added a whole lot to the franchise, to be honest.

Passenger List Season Two

Posted by cat2002116 on June 8, 2024
Posted in: Podcast, Reviews, Thriller. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I’ll preface this review by saying that I don’t tend to listen to podcasts. I don’t tend to listen to audiobooks, either, to be completely honest; mostly because I can read books faster than listen to them, and audiobooks always make me think of being at school and being forced to read at the speed of everyone in the class, which was always ridiculously slow.

I can’t say I’m planning on listening to audiobooks anytime soon, but I’m definitely a convert to podcasts; or the fictional ones, anyway. I binge…listened?…to the whole of Passenger List season two in one day, and while it wasn’t what a comment I read said it was (a woman having creepy messages left on her answerphone), it was pretty engaging and drew me in really well anyway.

I just listened to season two, as I hadn’t realised season one was on the same page (just further down), but I don’t think you need to have listened to season one to understand what’s going on. I was able to follow the plot pretty well, as the first season had been about the disappearance of a plane, flight 702…while the second season involved debris from the wreckage being found, and almost everyone believing the passengers, pilot and crew on board to be dead. I say almost everyone, because Kaitlin Le…the sister of one of the passengers on board that ill-fated flight…receives a phone call that appears to be from her presumed-dead brother, Conor. And immediately after that phone call, she disappears without a trace.

After the initial episode, the focus switched to Rory, a lawyer representing the families of those supposedly killed in the crash of flight 702. What seems like a fairly straightforward wrongful death claim takes a vastly different turn when Rory discovers a group of family members who claim to have seen videos and received calls from the so-called deceased passengers of Flight 702.

As I was listening to this series, I had a huge amount of questions and theories. There were a couple of nice interactive touches through the website, although I would have liked to see a bit more detail. For instance, there was a computer game that was developed by one of the characters that linked in really nicely with one of the episodes. However, the password that needed to be entered wasn’t mentioned in the episode itself, or in the transcript…or, at least, not that I could find. And I found it very hard to reach the point in the game that was so integral to the episode. So it was a really good idea, but the game didn’t really go anywhere.

Kaitlin was definitely my favourite character in this series, although I did really like most of the other characters. I especially liked the parental relationship that seemed to form between Rory and her, and Jim and her. That was a really nice touch, especially as it seemed Kaitlin didn’t have the best relationship with her actual parents.

I can’t really comment on the visuals of this series, as it was a podcast. However, for the most part, the sounds worked really well to indicate what was going on. However, I couldn’t always tell the difference in tones with some of the minor characters, so I wasn’t always aware of who was talking. Still, the sounds did a really good job of immersing me into the story…and really helped me to listen through to the end.

I was a bit disappointed that there were some plotlines that didn’t really seem to go anywhere, like the people who were initially following Kaitlin. I couldn’t tell who they were there and they didn’t seem to really crop up again. Also, there were some parts where it was harder to suspend my disbelief, such as the passengers calling their family members. Without going into too much detail, what was being said in those phone calls really didn’t match how the series ended. However, those were only minor problems and didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the series as a whole.

I will say that I hope there’s eventually a season three of this series, as it ends on something of a cliffhanger. But it also seems to have been greenlighted for a TV series, so…I really hope that does go ahead, as it would be great to see this series further expanded.

I definitely recommend listening to this if you enjoy podcasts/audiobooks. And even if you don’t, like me, I think you’ll still get a lot of enjoyment out of this. It’s honestly a really great thriller podcast, with characters I truly cared about and a moment right at the end where I literally shouted, “YES!” Fortunately, this was not in public, so no one else gave me any odd looks.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Posted by cat2002116 on June 8, 2024
Posted in: Movies, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I watched the previous Planet of the Apes movies, so when I saw this one advertised, I was immediately intrigued by the trailer. I have to say, though, that the impression I got from the trailer was not, in fact, what happened in the movie, which I assumed was about a human (or an ‘Echo’) randomly gaining intelligence/the ability to speak and being hunted by apes.

I really liked Noa’s character. It was really easy to care about him and him trying to get an eagle egg, so as to prove himself to his father. I felt so much for him when the egg he’d managed to collect was broken. While it might have been a good thing to an extent, considering he had to leave his village to get another egg and avoided being involved in the main attack, I really felt for him after he’d worked so hard to get the egg in the first place.

One thing I found really interesting about this movie was how much Caesar’s teachings had been changed/twisted by the time Noa’s generation had reached their majority. Noa and his clan had no idea about Caesar, but the ape that Noa meets later, Raka, informs him about Caesar’s teachings…but also gets certain aspects of them wrong, especially since Nova was only the name of one human the apes adopted into their tribe, and not what they called every human they came across.

Speaking of the humans, or the Echoes, it was interesting to see them ‘in the wild’, and acting like…well, like animals. I knew they were going that way, after the last movie in this franchise, but it was still difficult to watch a once intelligent species having sunk so low. I could empathise with Mae when she sees the humans at the watering hole…but that was maybe the only time I could, as I didn’t really find her a relatable or a likable character for most of the movie. While she did ally with some of the apes, it was very obvious that she was following her own agenda…and by the end of the movie, I didn’t like her at all.

I was definitely able to empathise more with Noa’s journey to find his clan and his own purpose than with the plight of the humans in this movie. I think that Mae’s motivations could have been better explored, making her a more sympathetic character; as it stands at the moment, I was definitely more engaged with the plight of the apes than the plight of the humans.

If you enjoyed the previous Planet of the Apes movies, you’ll probably enjoy this movie as well. It definitely focuses more on the apes than on humanity, even if the ending does set it up for humans to play a bigger role in the next movie/s.

The Fall Guy

Posted by cat2002116 on June 8, 2024
Posted in: Comedy, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I don’t always watch comedy/action movies, but considering I did enjoy Ryan Gosling in the Barbie movie…and I wanted to see a film at the cinema…I decided I’d give this one a try.

I really did enjoy this movie, I have to say. Yes, it did require quite a lot of suspension of disbelief…but I liked the way Colt narrated his life and relationship with Jody at the beginning. It was a fairly cliched start to the movie, to see everything good that was happening in Colt’s life and then see how it all went wrong, but cliches are that because they work. And I have to say that it did work here.

Despite needing to use my suspension of disbelief a lot, I found Colt to be a really likable character, and I truly cared about what happened to him. Unfortunately, I can’t say I really felt the same way about Jody. Her whole speech about the alien and the cowboy and relating their relationship in the movie to her own relationship with Colt felt really cringeworthy…and honestly, I felt like she was being pretty petty and vindictive for a lot of the initial scenes, where she forced Colt to keep going through the same stunt again and again. Plus, didn’t she know that the failed stunt at the beginning had severely injured him and what she kept forcing him through had the potential to make those injuries worse? (For some reason, I have it in my head that he broke his back, but I’m not actually sure that was what happened to him).

Regarding Tom and Gail, I have to say that they both felt very much like caricatures/over the top versions of the famous Hollywood actor and the producer who’d do anything for him. I can’t say that was a bad thing, though. The whole movie didn’t take itself very seriously at all, and that was really obvious when it came to the characters of Tom and Gail.

I will say that, although the movie within the movie was a pretty cliched science fiction romance, I found the clips shown from it intriguing enough that it would be a good film on its own merits. And I really thought that the trailer at the end, with Jason Momoa playing the hero, was a really nice touch. I also especially liked the scene where Jody and Colt have a conversation on the phone and Jody talks about including a splitscreen phone conversation in her movie…and that proceeds to be shown with her and Colt. That was pretty fun too.

All told, this was actually a pretty good movie that didn’t take itself too seriously. If you like comedy/action movies that aren’t too steeped in reality, I would definitely recommend giving this one a try.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Posted by cat2002116 on May 27, 2024
Posted in: Books, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

After reading the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder series, Holly Jackson quickly became one of my favourite authors. So my sister and oldest nibling didn’t need to encourage me too much to buy this book and read it.

I will be honest that I wasn’t really that fond of Bel as a character for a lot of the book. I thought she was kind of mean, especially to Ash. I did like Ash as a character, so I felt a bit protective of him when Bel wasn’t really treating him very well.

From the book’s title, it was obvious that Rachel Price was going to appear after having been missing for so long. Having said that, I appreciated the fact that there was a buildup to her appearing again. By that, I mean Rachel didn’t just show up right at the start of the book. I had the chance to get to know Bel, and Bel’s relationship with her father, before Rachel came back into their lives and turned everything upside down.

While I wasn’t particularly fond of Bel as a character, at least to start with, I did enjoy seeing her relationship with Carter. I felt that was one of the strongest parts of the book, and Carter was a really well-rounded character. I did not like Sherry very much at all, considering that it felt like she was trying to be really controlling over Carter, and I felt like she didn’t really care about her daughter at all. Bel comments about a mother fighting for her daughter much later in the book, and I have to agree with her thoughts about Sherry fighting for Carter.

Throughout most of the book, I was trying to figure out what had happened to Rachel; why she’d disappeared, and why she suddenly returned. I had a mental list of theories that ranged from the extreme and unlikely (Rachel had been dead and dug herself out of her own grave, which was why she looked so bad when Bel initially saw her) to something that might have actually been possible, if it hadn’t been debunked by DNA testing (someone pretending to be Rachel in order to get fame/money). I can safely say that by the end of the book, I hadn’t even considered what had really happened, so Holly Jackson did a really good job of seeding the clues through the book without making it obvious what had really happened.

Outside of all that, I did feel that Bel reacted fairly realistically to having her mother suddenly show up after all those years, and I could easily relate to her need to find out what had really happened and what the truth was.

All in all, I really found this book engaging and easy to read. I had to find out what was going to happen next. If you enjoyed A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, I would definitely recommend reading this book.

Tarot

Posted by cat2002116 on May 27, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews, Supernatural. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I didn’t expect a lot out of this movie when I saw it advertised. It seemed to be a fairly straightforward horror movie, with a group of young people doing something dangerous and foolish. In this instance, dangerous and foolish is taking an unknown set of Tarot cards and using them, plus astrology, to read their fortunes. And the person in the group who has experience with Tarot cards warns them against using another person’s deck…but goes ahead and does the readings anyway. There’s not really much of an explanation of how the reading actually works, and I would have liked to see a bit more detail about how using astrology/star signs worked with the Tarot cards.

Unsurprisingly, after the readings occur, it doesn’t take long before one of the group members dies, right after seeing a 3D version of her central card in the reading. I will say that I thought the physical appearance of the monsters were done really well, with the cards brought to life really well.

The buildup to the actual deaths was done fairly well, although I really would have liked to see a bit more attention paid to the actual readings. After Madeline is killed, the other characters talk about how her death fits the reading that Haley did for her. However, none of them think to consider that her readings would have served as warnings, which was a bit disappointing to see. I guess I can’t really talk about realism in a horror movie, but if I was in that situation, you can bet that I’d be trying to remember everything about my own reading so that I could not only have an idea about what might be coming, but also how to beat it.

I will say that I watched the movie Stay Alive, which pretty much used the same trope that appeared in this movie. A character is cornered by the supernatural threat, but their death isn’t actually shown…and they turn up miraculously alive later on. It was pretty obvious that when a movie shows all character deaths bar one, the one that it doesn’t show is the character who is revealed to still be alive by the end.

On the whole, I can’t really say that there was much that truly stood out to me about this movie. The characters made a poor decision at the beginning that ultimately ended with most of them getting killed. I do think this movie could have been better…which is a shame, considering that the Tarot card monsters had such great appearances. There were a couple of friends who saw the movie as well, though, and one of them really liked the movie, so…obviously, like all art, movies are subjective. If you enjoy horror movies, it’s probably still worth watching.

Dead Boy Detectives

Posted by cat2002116 on May 26, 2024
Posted in: Fantasy, Reviews, Supernatural, Television. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment


Dead Boy Detectives was one of the series that came up while I had the Netflix home screen on. I didn’t realise at that point that it was set in the same universe as The Sandman, but I was definitely intrigued by the initial clip that I saw.

I definitely enjoyed the interactions between Charles and Edwin throughout this series. Right from the start, it was obvious they were close friends; and I particularly enjoyed the whole concept of two dead teenagers solving cases involving spirits and curses and the like.

The first episode was particularly engaging, with Edwin and Charles having taken on a case involving a ghost attached to a gas mask. I thought the episode worked really well as an introduction to the main characters and their abilities. I also got to see Death appear in the same incarnation as The Sandman…which was awesome, because I really like that version of Death.

This episode also worked as a good introduction to Crystal Palace, who quickly becomes an integral part of the Dead Boy Detective Agency. I was a little confused by the ghost of the little girl who claimed to be such good friends with Crystal…but disappeared for the rest of the series. I would have liked a bit more information about who she was and what her connection to Crystal was.

I really liked learning more about Charles’ past, even though it was traumatising and made me sad to learn how he’d ultimately died. I really thought that the interactions between him and Edwin in the past, before he actually died, were really moving and sad.

I loved Ruth Connell’s role as the Night Nurse in this series. She came across as a fairly typical antagonist, but after she was trapped inside the anglerfish, I felt she went through quite a bit of character development. However, I still didn’t like the whole purpose of her job. Effectively, she said that she needed to make sure dead children stayed where they were. Considering Edwin was dragged to Hell (and tortured) on a technicality, I thought that forcing the spirits to stay where they’d been placed was actually pretty cruel. But it meant that their insistence on staying together and not being separated made a lot of sense, given their afterlifes would probably be different.

I thought that the Dandelion Sprites who were possessing/attacking Niko were a pretty nice touch, although given that they were immortal beings, their choice of language was kind of…well, they were definitely foul-mouthed little immortal beings. But they were a lot of fun.

I also really liked Jenny as a character, though I couldn’t help but feel bad for her. She was cleary trying to be a good landlord, but ended up getting pulled into the whole supernatural…and unlike Niko, I really thought that her reaction towards the end of season one, where she finds out everything, was actually pretty realistic. Of course, Niko came across as being more open-minded in general, given her very calm reaction to Crystal telling her about her friends (Charles and Edwin). I did really like that Niko developed the ability to see them, but it did seem like an awful lot of people in the series had that ability.

Okay, so let’s talk about the cats. Anyone who knows me knows that I love cats. They’re pretty much my favourite animals (although dogs are a very close second). I loved that cats played a big part in the series…though I have to admit, I wasn’t that keen on the Cat King as a character at first. He gave off very trickster-like vibes, and I thought he was going to be a more evil character than he actually was. I definitely would have liked to see more interactions between the Cat King and Edwin.

Esther was an interesting antaganist, although she came across a little over the top. I found it a bit hard to take her seriously at times and while there was a bit more of her background explored in the final episode, it wasn’t really enough to make her one of the ‘good’ vilains (i.e., someone I can identify with/understand).

Another crossover character with the Sandman was Despair, who appeared briefly with her sibling, Desire, in the Sandman. I liked being able to see her in Hell…or at least a dimension that allowed her to see into Hell. I was intrigued by her interaction with Edwin, and would like to see a bit more of the two of them interacting with each other in the next season.

All told, I really did enjoy watching this series. I binge-watched it over a weekend and was completely drawn in. I loved Edwin and Charles as characters and I really liked most of the supporting characters. The mystery about Crystal’s missing memories was engaging, and I really liked the fact that her abilities didn’t just mean that the cases were easy to solve. They all still had to work on it…especially with the case involving the groundhog day style murders. That was traumatising to see as a viewer, let alone to actively be there watching it.

If you watched and enjoyed the Sandman, then I think you’ll enjoy watching this. And if you haven’t seen the Sandman, then you don’t really need to have in order to enjoy this series. I highly recommend it!