movie-review

All posts tagged movie-review

Salem’s Lot

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


I didn’t see the original version of Salem’s Lot, but when I saw this movie advertised, I thought it might be a more unique horror…and then I realised it was about vampires, which I feel are massively over-used, but then again, it was based on one of Stephen King’s novels, so I thought it might be worth watching.

I did find this movie quite slow, almost boring, to start with. And I didn’t really like Susan as a character; she came across as really annoying and not that smart when she didn’t recognise Ben (despite reading his book when she first meets him). I also really disliked how she ‘asked him out’, because honestly…it just felt like she was desperate.

I will say that I appreciated how the vampires were normal vampires; by that, I mean they obeyed the lore of vampires, such as burning in sunlight, being weak against crosses, and having to be invited in. However, it made very little sense to me that Father Callahan couldn’t keep the cross lit up. I’m pretty sure that the other characters using the crosses didn’t have faith; or, at least, it wasn’t indicated they did (just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, I’m afraid).

Probably my favourite character in this movie was Mark. In comparison to the adults around him, Mark was the only one who not only realised what was going on, but was also prepared to do something about it. Yes, Matt Burke also figured out pretty quickly what was going on, but he felt woefully unprepared for dealing with the vampires in comparison to Mark…whose comment of, ‘I guess I’ve gotta kill Barlow,’ really sums up his goal as a character.

I really didn’t like Susan’s mother, Anne, even before it was revealed that she was working with Barlow. I found it really hard to understand why she was so hostile towards Ben, and I didn’t really know her well enough for her about-face to have much of an impact when it was revealed.

I also really liked Dr. Cody as a character, I have to admit. Much like Mark (who was a child, of course), she was pretty competent and capable…at least after she dealt with the shock of there actually being vampires to deal with.

The other thing that was surprising was how quickly the vampire infection spread through the town. Considering that the lore they found said vampires rising could take time, the whole infection spreading so quickly and only a few people being aware of it stretched my suspension of disbelief quite a bit.

As I mentioned above, I did find the movie quite boring at first, though it picked up later on. I’m happy I decided to go and see it, but I don’t think I’d watch the movie again.

Never Let Go

Posted by cat2002116 on November 5, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Seeing this movie advertised, I thought it was going to be more of a claustrophobic horror…and when I went to see it, I wasn’t disappointed.

For a lot of the movie, I was questioning what was real and what might only be in the characters’ heads. Apart from the forms the Evil took, the only characters I got to spend any time with were Momma, Nolan and Samuel. Because of that, I felt that the family relationship in this movie was one of the strongest parts of it. I really liked the fact that Nolan and Samuel were so different, with Samuel fully believing and trusting everything their mother told them, and Nolan beginning to question things, especially as neither he or Samuel were able to see the Evil.

Despite not being sure of what was real or not, I felt that Halle Berry did a really good job of showing Momma’s state of mind through the movie. Even if I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t, I could tell that she really cared about and loved her sons. Maybe she was wrong in what she believed…but considering what she thought had happened to the rest of the world, it seemed like she was doing what she believed was the best for her children. On the other hand, it was quite obvious that Nolan and Samuel’s growth had been stunted, and that they were malnourished. Some of what they were eating seemed like it shouldn’t have been edible at all.

I really liked the relationship between Samuel and Nolan, and how Nolan was trying to take care of Samuel all through the movie. I felt that the conflicts between them added a lot more depth to the movie; especially towards the end, as the movie became more like an actual horror, rather than a survival story (which is what it came across as at first).

I did feel that the ending of the movie dragged on. I would have liked the movie a bit more if it had ended before Nolan and Samuel had been rescued, as that scene made it clear that their mother had been lying about the state of the rest of the world. Honestly, I felt this movie would have been a lot stronger if the ending had been left a bit more ambiguous.

On the whole, I did enjoy this movie. I especially enjoyed the conflicts between the three main characters, and the way Nolan and Samuel responded differently to their mother’s beliefs. While some parts of the movie were a little predicatable, and I think it could have ended a bit earlier, I did really enjoy watching it, and can recommend it as a good horror movie to watch.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Posted by cat2002116 on November 4, 2024
Posted in: Movies, Reviews, Superhero. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I obviously watched this movie when it originally came out, so I knew what was coming when I went to see it at the cinema a second time. But I did really enjoy seeing this movie for a second time.

Since this movie was set directly after Endgame, it was a bit different in tone compared to the first Tom Holland as Spider-Man movie. For one thing, it started with a tribute video to all of those who’d died during the events of Endgame, which was really bittersweet.

I liked the fact that Peter was planning to tell MJ how he felt. It was nice to see MJ get a bit more development in this movie as well. I liked her character in the previous movie, but in this one, she was a really great, interesting character. And I really loved her interactions with Peter. I especially loved when she assumes he’s going to tell her he’s Spider-Man, as it makes a lot of sense that MJ would be able to work it out, since she’s pretty smart.

I thought there were some really nice moments of humour in this movie, especially when Peter was wearing the EDITH glasses and desperately trying to delete a picture…only to accidentally send a nuke towards the bus he was on with his fellow students.

I thought the whole thing with Mysterio started out as really interesting – and honestly, I would have liked it if he had not in fact turned out to be a bad guy. Especially considering the route the next movie took with the multiverse.

I really liked that Ned and Betty had a relationship, and they had some really cute moments in this movie. I didn’t think it made sense that they broke up, as it would have been nice to see them continue to date and Ned having to keep Peter’s secret identity from his girlfriend.

I liked that Flash had a little more depth to him this movie, even though he was still a major jerk. It was pretty cute that he really likes Spider-Man, and even says that Spider-Man is better than Mysterio…although he’s still a real jerk to Peter.

There were a lot of great character moments in this movie, along with a lot of great tension. And the movie did end on something of a cliffhanger, which set it up nicely for the third movie in the series.

All told, I really did enjoy this movie. It was a great sequel to Homecoming and I really enjoyed the relationships between the characters. It was a great movie to watch a second time through and I would probably watch it again in the future.

Corpse Party

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

I watched a YouTube video about the computer game, so I was quite interested in watching the movie version of the game. I’ve also found that Japanese horror tends to be more engaging and less about the gory violence than a lot of Western horror movies. However, I will say that this movie did not stint on the gore at all. I sort of knew what I was getting into, based on the clips of the game, but I was still a little surprised.

I did feel that there were too many characters all introduced at once. For instance, the first person who was killed (the teacher) didn’t really do much at the beginning of the movie. I didn’t know why she was still at the school, and I didn’t know why she was included in the friendship chant. To be honest, I was confused about why Yuka was included in it as well. There was nothing to indicate that either Yuka (the younger sister of one of the students) or the teacher had close relationships with Mayu, who was supposed to be leaving, so why were they included in it?

I mentioned that this movie doesn’t hold back on the gore, and the very first death (the teacher) makes that very clear. However, I did get taken out of the movie briefly by the death scene. The teacher’s appearance after being struck in the head looked like a Barbie doll’s head had been caved in, rather than a person dying. The special effects did get better, at least marginally so, but some of them still seemed a little cartoonish.

Naomi was one of the characters who was very well-developed, and I would have liked to see more of her friendship with Seiko, especially as it seemed Seiko had feelings for Naomi she wasn’t comfortable admitting to. Despite their history together not really being that developed, I did think they had a really sweet scene between them towards the end of the movie.

I also really liked Satoshi as a character. His goal was clearly to find his sister, but he came across as wanting to save the others, given that he protected Naomi and also asked Yoshiki to take care of her and Ayumi while he tried to find Yuka again. I really didn’t like Ayumi – her motivations didn’t seem to make much sense, and just made her come across as a pretty awful person.

There were a lot of really great tense scenes in this movie, even though it was really gory in places. Yes, a lot of the minor characters weren’t really well-developed, but by the end of the movie, I did really care about most of the surviving characters. Except for Ayumi, if I’m completely honest.

On the whole, I did find this movie interesting and engaging, although it was quite similar when compared to other Japanese horror. I did like how things ended with Sachiko, though.

If you’re a fan of Japanese horror, I would say that, personally, I feel this movie is worth watching.

AFRAID

Posted by cat2002116 on September 15, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I didn’t actually know much about this movie going into it. I knew it was a horror movie, of course, but I hadn’t seen any trailers of the movie, so I didn’t have any expectations walking into this movie.

I was a bit confused by the opening scene of the movie, as it was clearly supposed to be a computer game, but it was a really poorly made one. Considering what later happened in the movie and that it was apparently set in the modern day…and possibly even later in the future…I was seriously questioning why the computer graphics in the game were so bad.

I did feel that this movie had a lot of potential that, sadly, didn’t come to fruition. It was very slow-moving for most of the movie, and while AIA was an interesting concept…especially considering the existence of Alexa and Cortana and Siri…she just didn’t seem to be as much of a threat as she could have been.

The opening scene, after the surprisingly bad computer graphics, did have some potential. AIA talking to the little girl, telling her that her parents were going to get rid of her, was a pretty scary concept…and the mother trying to find her daughter who’d suddenly disappeared was a good way of building up tension right at the beginning. Unfortunately, that tension was absent throughout most of the rest of the movie.

I felt that this movie would have worked better as a family movie, rather than a horror movie. The relationship between Curtis and Meredith was quite sweet, even though I empathised with Meredith feeling like all she was now was ‘Mom’. I could understand why she found AIA so helpful at first, but the problem was that she went from suspicious, to accepting, to outright rejecting…and it just didn’t allow me to relate to the character all that well. I also really liked the children, but…they didn’t feel like siblings at all. There were hardly any interactions between Iris, Preston or Cal. I know there was the age difference, but most siblings are still going to interact with each other. The three of them just felt like strangers to each other.

Really, for most of the movie, I was questioning…why? Why was AIA considered such a problem? AIA didn’t do anything outwardly suspicious. Yes, as a viewer, I could see that there were situations where AIA was problematic, like when she showed Preston the swatting videos. However, these weren’t shown to the characters, so…why was Curtis so suspicious of everything? Really, it didn’t feel realistic…even when having to suspend my disbelief of a horror movie anyway.

To be honest, this movie would have done a much better job if it had been simply about a family dealing with an AI without the added elements of horror. There was so much this movie could have done, but it was slow-moving, a short movie, and wasn’t actually that scary. I never actually felt like the characters were in any real danger.

If you’re looking for a horror movie, I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie. It definitely gives off more family vibes. Sadly, it was another disappointing horror.

Longlegs

Posted by cat2002116 on July 21, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment


So…from a fairly good horror movie to one that, in my opinion, was nowhere near as good as it could have been.

Okay, so this movie was one that I booked in to see at the cinema without knowing anything about it other than it being a horror movie. After I booked it, YouTube then decided to play a trailer for the movie while I was watching a video…and the trailer was really creepy and immediately spiked my interest.

Unfortunately, this was a case of the movie not living up to its potential.

I really struggled to connect to Lee as a character. I had no idea why she’d joined the FBI in the first place…and it was extremely confusing why they had a whole setup to determine psychic abilities. There really wasn’t enough worldbuilding to set up why Lee’s superiors would assume that her intuition would indicate psychic ability.

I struggled a lot with my suspension of disbelief; not just because of the aforementioned ‘she must be psychic!’ but also because it felt like the movie didn’t make a whole lot of sense as a whole. Lee is told about ten cases and spends a whole montage listening to 911 calls and looking at crime scene photos…and when she’s asked to give a report on what she’s learned, she says something along the lines of, ‘Two of the families had shotguns in the house. Eight used knives. And one had a hammer.” And this number added up to eleven. Not ten. There is an eleventh crime scene found, but no one mentions that she’s identified eleven cases and not ten? The series Medium did a far better job when the main character talks about a third victim and it turns out one of the murdered women was pregnant.

Speaking of the FBI, this line made me quite literally roll my eyes: ‘The father’s wounds appear to be self-inflicted, but we can’t be sure until we’re sure.’ I just…huh? What happened to Forensics? CSI? They were on the scene; I saw the jacket saying CSI!

One thing I found strange about this movie was the use of the camera angles. When Lee was talking to Ruth, and later to Carrie Ann, the camera just showed her face and then the face of the person she was talking to. It felt kind of like the filming of the two people hadn’t even taken place in the same location, as there were hardly any scenes showing them in the same shot. I figured Lee and Carrie Ann were seated opposite each other, but both of them were looking to the side, so…who knows?

I was also really disappointed in the titular character of this movie, played by Nicolas Cage. Especially recently, I’ve found that Cage’s acting is very over the top…and while that worked in Renfield and Dream Scenario, it really pulled me out of the movie in this case. Not that that was hard to do.

Sadly, the only good thing I can say about this movie…in my opinion…is that the trailer was pretty good. And that’s it. Unfortunately, the movie did not live up to my expectations…and I was pretty bored throughout.

I wouldn’t recommend watching this movie, which is a shame, because it looked like it was going to be a really good, scary supernatural horror.

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.

The First Omen

Posted by cat2002116 on April 20, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment


So, about two weeks before watching this movie…I watched Immaculate. And the friend I saw this film with turned round to me and said, ‘It feels like I just watched Immaculate again!’ and…I had to agree with that.

I saw something that mentioned this movie would be the scariest horror movie of 2024, but I have to say that I didn’t see that. During the initial opening scene, I did think this movie would have been better visually in 3D. There was a shot of falling glass in slow motion that looked like it was made purely for a 3D movie.

I did find it quite hard to connect with Margaret as a character in this movie. She didn’t really seem to want to be in Rome, but even though she looked like she didn’t really want to be there (based on her expressions after meeting Cardinal Lawrence), I couldn’t really figure out what she did want to do. There were hints that she’d had a bad childhood, which didn’t make much sense with what was revealed later, but I felt like she only had that to give her a reason to connect to Carlita.

Speaking of Carlita, I found her to be an interesting character, but I felt that her original appearance was at odds with how she acted later on. I thought she wasn’t able to speak when she initially appeared, but later on, she came across as less of the wild child it seemed the movie was going for. Having said that, I did like the interactions between Margaret and Carlita and the friendship that formed between them.

I mentioned that this movie was advertised as being the scariest movie of the year, but the elements of horror were really quite disappointing. Once again, there was a lack of subtlety or an understanding of ‘less is more’ that seems to be so prevalent in the current horror movies.

I guess this movie works as a good tie-in for the original Omen series. I haven’t actually seen any of the Omen movies, but I’m aware enough of them to connect the dots. However, the problem with making a prequel that is obviously left open for a second movie is that, inevitably, it’s either going to completely contradict the original movie(s), or can really end in one way, so a lot of the tension of not knowing what’s going to happen is removed. After all, there was no mystery in how the Star Wars prequel trilogy was going to end, or who the main bad guy was going to be.

On the whole, this movie was fairly typical for modern day horror movies. Another disappointment, really. I’m still searching for the good horror movies.

Immaculate

Posted by cat2002116 on April 6, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

So, yep…another horror film, so another recent trip to the cinema.

I was kind of intrigued by the trailer of this movie, although I didn’t have high expectations of the movie going into it. I will say that the movie met my expectations, in that it was very similar to a lot of other horror movies I’ve soon…in particular in the way it lacked subtlety and ignored ‘less is more’.

I will say that the initial scene of the movie was quite good in how harrowing it was. The group of nuns with the red face coverings were particularly creepy…and I would have liked it if the movie had focused a bit more on them. By the end of the movie, I still didn’t understand what their purpose was…or where they were at the end, given Cecilia was fighting back.

I was a bit confused by the setting of this movie. When Cecilia is in the airport security office, there’s a very old-timey feel to her surroundings. However, the priest answers a call on his cell phone in the car later, so…I assume the movie is supposed to be set in modern times.

I will say that there were a couple of nice elements of foreshadowing in this movie, so that was something it did well at times. I was a bit disappointed in Cecilia’s actions, though. It felt like all she was doing was reacting to what was going on and not doing much about the situation she was in until much later in the film. For instance (spoiler alert), she watches a friend get mutilated and does absolutely nothing to try and stop it. I actually stopped caring so much about her as a character at that point.

It was also really hard to suspend my disbelief at times. I don’t mean about Cecilia getting pregnant without a man being involved. What I mean is her being able to run, really fast, with a huge pregnancy belly. I know adrenaline can do all sorts of things…but the fear that apparently fuelled her didn’t really come across that well. And considering that she started off the film as someone who had faith and felt a calling to be a nun…her actions after getting pregnant really didn’t feel like they fit with what had previously been established of her character.

I’m going to mention specific spoilers for the ending here, as I feel like the movie could have done things a lot better here. The appearance of the baby isn’t shown at all, but its breathing sounds like something inhuman. And I think that was a bad decision on the filmmakers’ part, because…well, it was clear that there was something wrong with the child. That whole scene could have been done so much better, just by having a normal baby’s cries and Cecilia’s horrified expression being the subtle clue that something was horribly wrong. But unfortunately, there just wasn’t that kind of subtlety in this movie.

Personally, I wasn’t very impressed with this movie. I think it could have been a lot better, and I couldn’t really connect with the main character after some of the choices she made. I won’t be watching this movie again, I have to say.

Imaginary

Posted by cat2002116 on March 22, 2024
Posted in: Horror, Movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Obviously, I enjoy horror movies. Anyone who knows me is aware of that by now. Of course, it’s also been difficult to find horror movies that are actually good, as the majority of them don’t have really developed characters and just seem to care about the shock value rather than having storylines and characters it’s easy to care about. So with that thought in mind, my expectations going into this movie were quite low.

I have to say that this movie was better than I was expecting it to be. I did like Jessica as a character, although there wasn’t much revealed about her even by the end of the movie. I guess that did make sense, given that she didn’t have many memories of her childhood.

I will say that, although Jessica obviously cared deeply about her stepdaughters, she did make a couple of major mistakes. For instance, she took a work phone call when she was supposed to be playing hide and seek with Alice. Then, later, she deliberately embarrasses Taylor by telling a guy she might be interested in that Taylor isn’t 18 yet…and he should take her to the mall. Sorry, but despite Jessica trying to claim it was just a joke, it was one of the worst things to do if she really wanted to bond with her stepdaughters.

I will say that one of the things I felt this movie did well was to build up to the danger involving Chauncey. Using Alice’s voice for the bear was an interesting idea, as it sounded like she was talking to herself/doing the bear’s voice, at least until things took a more sinister turn.

The idea of the ‘scavenger hunt’ was an interesting idea, especially as it started out as a fairly innocent list before becoming much darker. In that respect, I guess it was very similar to the rest of the film: everything started out innocent enough, but then it became much darker as the movie progressed.

It wasn’t really a surprise that Jessica had a history with Chauncey, as that was obvious from the very start of the movie. And while the movie did have elements of psychological horror, along with the usual jump scares, I appreciated the fact that there was little in the way of gore and strong bloody violence, as those are far too overused in horror, to the point of becoming desensitised to it.

On the whole, I will say this movie was a fairly entertaining one. I wouldn’t say I’d get anything from watching it again, but if you like horror movies, I would say that it’s worth watching if you’re on the fence.