Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[Kaos]

Wind River

Pretty decent cast including Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch (aka, the only talented Olsen), Dexter's Bloodlines girlfriend, and a brief almost-cameo from Shane from Walking Dead.

Very slow moving story.  The story was kind of muddled. It hints at things that I guess it sort of expects you to figure out along the way.  It opens several cans of worms and then doesn't sufficiently explore or close  many of them, including a whole "here there be lions" arc.   

The motivations are sometimes (often) unclear, there wasn't enough exposition, it didn't really give you enough meat to make the whole meal worth it.

The final act didn't really make a lot of sense, particularly the whole  OK Corral scenario that was supposed to provide answers to the overarching mystery. It didn't.  Seemed forced and was really a stupid resolution. It didn't really answer anything in a way that was satisfactory. 

Olsen briefly shows her thong-chewing ass.  So there's that.

[Kaos]

Slotherhouse

Wow. Just wow. 

Take Mean Girls, Prom Night, and Black Christmas mix them together and swirl them around. Then and add a dash of Zombeavers, perhaps a sprinkle or two of Eight Legged Freaks and a dollop of Sharknado (pick one).  Bake at 150 for 25 minutes - leaving the middle raw and gooey - and you've got this outlandish movie.

Ever wondered what happens when you add a homicidal sloth... yes, a sloth... to a sorority house and make the mistake of hurting its feelings?  Wonder no more.  This film shows you in blood-soaked detail the carnage that would ensue.

The movie is particularly, purposefully bad.  Every actor/actress in it is completely aware that the film is bad, but they all play it straight.  The directors - also knowing it was bad - tossed in subtle references to a number of great horror films including one obvious nod to The Shining.

The killer sloth is so ridiculous that every time the blatantly obvious puppet pops up on screen it made me laugh.  BUT... the film never landed squarely enough in either horror or comedy to fully embrace a genre.  It just wasn't quite funny enough or scary enough to make a clear mark.

That in the books, I've seen movies that were far, far, far worse -- movies that aspired to be serious.  I've seen comedies that fell much flatter. I've seen horror films that were much less effective. 

Is it worth the time?   Possibly.  Just seeing a slaughterous sloth was probably payoff enough to make it worth the waste of time.

[GH2001]

Slotherhouse

Wow. Just wow. 

Take Mean Girls, Prom Night, and Black Christmas mix them together and swirl them around. Then and add a dash of Zombeavers, perhaps a sprinkle or two of Eight Legged Freaks and a dollop of Sharknado (pick one).  Bake at 150 for 25 minutes - leaving the middle raw and gooey - and you've got this outlandish movie.

Ever wondered what happens when you add a homicidal sloth... yes, a sloth... to a sorority house and make the mistake of hurting its feelings?  Wonder no more.  This film shows you in blood-soaked detail the carnage that would ensue.

The movie is particularly, purposefully bad.  Every actor/actress in it is completely aware that the film is bad, but they all play it straight.  The directors - also knowing it was bad - tossed in subtle references to a number of great horror films including one obvious nod to The Shining.

The killer sloth is so ridiculous that every time the blatantly obvious puppet pops up on screen it made me laugh.  BUT... the film never landed squarely enough in either horror or comedy to fully embrace a genre.  It just wasn't quite funny enough or scary enough to make a clear mark.

That in the books, I've seen movies that were far, far, far worse -- movies that aspired to be serious.  I've seen comedies that fell much flatter. I've seen horror films that were much less effective. 

Is it worth the time?   Possibly.  Just seeing a slaughterous sloth was probably payoff enough to make it worth the waste of time.

What about that Winnie the Pooh one? Where he and Piglet fuk people up and draw blood.

[Snakebite]

Slotherhouse

Wow. Just wow. 

Take Mean Girls, Prom Night, and Black Christmas mix them together and swirl them around. Then and add a dash of Zombeavers, perhaps a sprinkle or two of Eight Legged Freaks and a dollop of Sharknado (pick one).  Bake at 150 for 25 minutes - leaving the middle raw and gooey - and you've got this outlandish movie.

Ever wondered what happens when you add a homicidal sloth... yes, a sloth... to a sorority house and make the mistake of hurting its feelings?  Wonder no more.  This film shows you in blood-soaked detail the carnage that would ensue.

The movie is particularly, purposefully bad.  Every actor/actress in it is completely aware that the film is bad, but they all play it straight.  The directors - also knowing it was bad - tossed in subtle references to a number of great horror films including one obvious nod to The Shining.

The killer sloth is so ridiculous that every time the blatantly obvious puppet pops up on screen it made me laugh.  BUT... the film never landed squarely enough in either horror or comedy to fully embrace a genre.  It just wasn't quite funny enough or scary enough to make a clear mark.

That in the books, I've seen movies that were far, far, far worse -- movies that aspired to be serious.  I've seen comedies that fell much flatter. I've seen horror films that were much less effective. 

Is it worth the time?   Possibly.  Just seeing a slaughterous sloth was probably payoff enough to make it worth the waste of time.

You ever see "Rubber" or "Hobo With a Shotgun" ?

[The Six]

What about that Winnie the Pooh one? Where he and Piglet fuk people up and draw blood.

Can confirm that one sucks but not as bad as that FNAF bullshit

[Kaos]

The Call 

Korean.  Not horror. 

First let me say that Korean film and television is FAR superior to anything done by Americans. It just is.

This film is well acted, well scripted, gory (sometimes cruelly so), and engaging.  Every time you think you know how something is going to go, it dodges in a different direction.

Storyline:  Old phone connects two girls who lived in the same house 20 years apart.  The girl from the past figures out that she can change the future by intervening in events. She grants her friend from the present a re-do of a particularly tragic event, changing her life significantly. Over time she grows resentful of the new life her phone friend has and becomes angry that she can't escape her cruel step mother.  Her religious stepmom has visions that this girl will become a serial killer and decides to end her before she can unleash her mayhem on the world. 

Future friend does past friend a solid and warns her of her potential demise, allowing past girl to surprise step mom and put a knife in her.  Now free to live her life, she kinda fulfills dead step mom's prophecy.

Sounds confusing, but it's not really as you see it all play out. Even though at one point there are seven or eight different time-line threads that the main characters cycle through.

Jeon Jong-seo plays the girl from the past and she's ridiculously good in the role. The nonchalant cruelty, the arbitrary decisions to let the bodies hit the floor, the rage killings, are all portrayed very well. She carries the film. 

I love the Korean way of NOT stopping when you think they should.  There's no deux ex machina event to save the day and prevent the bad guy (or girl) from doing something truly heinous.

There are no happy endings. Literally. Even when you think there are. 

Good movie all around.  I wish I spoke the language so I didn't have to rely on subtitles.

For the pervs:  No tits. No ass. No sex. Not even much innuendo. Little profanity.  Just a good story told and acted well.



She's 30.  I got a huge thing for Korean women.

[Kaos]

You ever see "Rubber" or "Hobo With a Shotgun" ?

No, but I saw Hobo With a Rubber once.  It wasn't as much fun as I hoped.

[Snakebite]

No, but I saw Hobo With a Rubber once.  It wasn't as much fun as I hoped.

Hobo with a Shotgun is a decent one. Violent Night is a similar film.

Rubber is as outlandish as the Sloth flick you mentioned. Wondering if they had some of the same writers.

[GH2001]

Well holy hell, I may have seen it all now.

Mother God: Love Has Won

On MAX, HBO whatever it's called now.

3 part series on a cult in Colorado, not a big cult mind you. But perhaps one of the strangest, illogical ones I have ever seen. I have watched a lot of documentary type films over the years on various cults and dictators because they are truly a study in human psychology. And the power of mental control, domination, taking advantage of and preying on the vulnerable.

Many of them I have watched over the years you could almost see why they had followers. Not that I agreed with it but you could see the bait n switch. The appeal of some promise of something greater that didn't materialize. With this one, I never saw why anyone would have joined this one, or followed this lady. It was out there - some crazy new age garbage that made zero logical sense. I know every religion, theology or even ideology relies a lot on the promise of something, a concept or even just pure faith to a degree. But this one made NO sense in that regard. It's like they were all high 24/7 on bad mushrooms spitting out verbal vomit.

The first 2 episodes are out there now. 3rd one drops soon this week I think. Its a good watch and will more than likely make you feel a little more normal while at the same time giving you depression about how naive humanity can be.

[Kaos]

To Catch a Killer

Day six of the sickness. Flu. Whatever.  Missed Thanksgiving. Unable so far to even get much done decorating for the holidays. Isolated in the house with DoorDash and Instacart as my only connection to the outside world other than my dog, which just farted on me and dared me to say anything about it.

Most of that time was spent in a medicine-induced fog. I know I watched some documentaries, series, and movies to pass the time but the only movie that I can really remember anything about is this one.   

Shailene Woodley (former fiance of Aaron Rogers) and the leader of the Skrulls (some guy I don't recall) are hunting a serial killer who used a sniper rifle on New Year's Eve to eliminate 29 random people.  He used the sound of fireworks to mask the gunshots, allowing him to take out more than if he'd just been popping caps at some other random time.  Once he's done shooting, he bombs the vacant apartment where he'd set up his perch. 

Woodley plays a beat cop who responds to the incident, has the presence of mind to try to film everyone fleeing the building and then races upstairs to see what she can come up with in regard to the shooter's identity. 

The Skrull dude sees some "talent" in her and hires her away from the police force to be part of his killer hunting team. She ends up being a low-energy Monk or Shawn from Psych type character who sees little things that others miss which helps the team track down the killer. She also gets randomly yelled at, chastised and belittled, which I ......guess?...... is part of the character's backstory or something?   

This might have been a good movie, but Woodley is just so numbingly flat and brings absolutely nothing to the part. She's like a cold bowl of oatmeal.  She's like the girl who just lays there and occasionally grunts and then wonders if it was good for you.  NO, it wasn't. 

It's not a terrible procedural (other than Woodley's wooden performance) but the final act is so stupidly absurd and out of place it does a major injustice to everything that came before it.  It's ridiculous.

I watched it, so you don't have to. 

[Kaos]

Khandar
Part of the Home Sick and Bored collection

To say that Gerard Butler is now as typecast as Liam Neeson would be an understatement.  He's devolved to cookie cutter, plug and play at this point. 

The movies are all the same.  Butler is a good-hearted divorced dad whose relationship with his long-distance daughter is fractured by the job to which he's dedicated. His ex-wife has moved on, but is still clearly in love with him and he wearily understands that it's the job that drove them apart. He's coming home, but fate intervenes and now he's got to lone-wolf fight his way through hundreds intent on killing him.  Somebody will be sacrificed in a heart-rending moment, he'll get wounded, and will eventually find his way home to repair all the relationship damage with his estranged daughter via a stroke-face grimace and a hug.  Awww. 

Just change the locale, switch his vocation, alter the accent a little, swap around a few forgettable side characters and roll it out there. 

This time Butler is in the desert, fighting his way through the entire Taliban. 

In real life he'd have died 50 or 60 times. 

[Kaos]

Monk:  The Last Case

It was never "must see" but I used to like Monk.  I thought the girl who played Natalie Teager was cute enough to pay attention to.  And there was something easy and likeable about Tony Shaloub's quirky, nerdy, germ-phobic, and excessively OCD detective Adrian Monk who was successful because he saw things other people typically missed.  It was part of a companion package with another USA Network series - Psych - that followed a similar "only he sees it" pattern. 

The show was over by the time Covid came along, but there was a time or two when I wondered how Monk's obsession with hand-wipes would have played in the pandemic world. 

Fifteen years or so since the show went off the air, Peacock resurrected the character with a one-off movie.

They should have skipped it.  Monk moped over the death of his wife for the entire series, but it was never heavy or maudlin. This new movie was nothing but heavy, dark, plodding, depressing and maudlin.  It essentially trashed the entire series in suicidal drudgery. 

Most of the old cast (that worked so well together originally) including Natalie,  Leland (the chief), and his nebbish deputy Randy.   It was kind of like finding an old t-shirt you loved in the bottom of a closet and trying it on only to realize it no longer fit, had lost its shape, and stunk of age. 

I liked the old Monk.  This ode to the edge of suicide, I did not.   It had none of the fun and spry banter of the original. And nobody wanted the stupid ghosts. 

[Kaos]

Leave the World Behind

I made it all the way to Exexutive Producers: Barack and Michelle Obama and then noped my way right back out. 

No thank you.

[Kaos]

Gone in the Night

Winona Ryder has done some really good stuff in her career. 

This isn't that. 

It's a weird story of a woman searching for her jackass younger boyfriend who went missing.  It unspools in time jumps which really don't add much to the story.  Then it dives off into an unpredictable side story -- one that you see coming from miles off, except for an added dash of twist. 

Just didn't do it for me despite some moderately interesting moments and the specter of Winona aging somewhat badly.

[Kaos]

The Exorcist: Believer

The Exorcist remains one of the most terrifying movies of all time. It’s one of the few movies that ever actually scared me.

Exorcist 3 was a trippy, muddled slew through the genre.

This? Absolute trash. The kind of trash that does a poop splattering flyover of the greatness of the original and then returns to ass piss on it again. 

Horrible film. Should not be considered as part to the original’s family tree. 

HORRIBLE.  Hated it.

[GH2001]

The Exorcist: Believer

The Exorcist remains one of the most terrifying movies of all time. It’s one of the few movies that ever actually scared me.

Exorcist 3 was a trippy, muddled slew through the genre.

This? Absolute trash. The kind of trash that does a poop splattering flyover of the greatness of the original and then returns to ass piss on it again. 

Horrible film. Should not be considered as part to the original’s family tree. 

HORRIBLE.  Hated it.

Agreed.

In fact- I found it…..boring. I wasn’t remotely interested.

You have to really fuck up to make exorcist unappealing in that way.

The trailer looked so promising.

[Snakebite]

Wanting to save you the trouble. Don’t watch Rebel Moon. What a fucking waste of time.

[Kaos]

Wanting to save you the trouble. Don’t watch Rebel Moon. What a fucking waste of time.

Since I assumed it was a comedy with Fat Amy exposing her cottage cheesed buttocks, it wasn't on my list. 

[Snakebite]

Since I assumed it was a comedy with Fat Amy exposing her cottage cheesed buttocks, it wasn't on my list.

Seeing that would have probably been better.

[Kaos]

Run Bitch Run!

Background...  If you fall asleep in front of the TV, it will just keep playing whatever is next in the list.  In this case, I had been watching an old horror film and when I woke up, the message on screen asked if I wanted to continue watching Run Bitch Run!  Well. Why not?  So I started at the beginning. 

I have an affinity for the grindhouse type films, and even the parodies of them that Tarantino and Rodriguez generate.  I love Machete and Machete Kills and I enjoyed the one where Rose McGowan has a machine gun for a leg.  They're gritty, they're over-the-top in the sexualization of characters, and they're so bad they're good. 

The set-up in this 2009 film?  Two catholic school girls are trekking through a desolate stretch of dusty, desert America selling Bibles door-to-door to pay their tuition.  They run into a bunch of sex-crazed rednecks who abuse them and then the survivor of that abuse returns to exact her revenge.

Good lord, this was bad.  Biggest problem is the lead.  She looks like an albino Mia Goth if Mia Goth had mated with a Morlock.  She's ugly - pretty good body, though, which is on display. 

Ok, no, she's not the biggest problem.  There are many.

Every single woman in the film is naked at some point.  Not that that's bad, but in this film it turns out to be.  There are also multiple rape scenes.  A woman uses a toilet plunger for a sex toy. Woman uses the barrel of a pistol as a sex toy. There are probably 140 different sex scenes.  So much dirty sex.  A dude takes a machete up his poop chute. 

I get where the film was going, but it was like the director (if there was one) watched Grindhouse and said.... "hey, what if we put in way more screwin' and some twisty rapey stuff?  What could be better?"

Literally anything would have been better.  After putting so much effort into the rapey, cringey, dirty sex scenes, the revenge aspect was almost perfunctory.  Poorly done.  Creepy, rapey, cringey sex for 87.98349% of the movie, random dialogue for 2% revenge for 9%.  Stupid, contrived, hokey ending for the remainder. 

I won't say don't watch it, maybe you get turned on by a plunger up the snatch.  Maybe you're into a filthy foot being licked.  Maybe ripping off the musical score of other films is your thing.  But be forewarned. It's bad. Even knowing it's purposely bad doesn't elevate it.