Year: 1972
Rating: 5.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Child death mentions, Nudity/implied sex, Death/murder, animal in distress
Summary: After a stillbirth, a couple relocates to a strange town called Lilith.
The movie has some very... interesting acting! Most of the deliveries feel very stiff and unrealistic, it’s kind of funny. It does get better as the film progresses. The story itself is... Fine I guess. It’s not horrible, it’s not amazing. I dislike the husband throughout the film, so I’m glad it focuses more on the wife, Laurie, and her meeting people around town than having him involved.
It shouldn’t be funny, but at the end of the movie, they open up the one guy's son’s grave and... He has his full head of hair on a skeleton. It looks so goofy I can’t help but laugh. There’s also a sequence of him being reborn which is fun but also really goofy.
At the end, Laurie wakes up and they play an alarm buzzer for. So fucking long... And it seems as though all of what happened was a dream, but Laurie wakes up and realizes that it’s about to come true. As they're leaving, the phone rings and we get the funniest camera works of zooming in and out of the phone and Laurie’s face around 3 times each. Laurie then freaks out as her husband tells her what happened on the phone. That might have been the best part in the movie for me.
I don’t think it’s the worst movie ever. It’s not exactly memorable, but definitely not horrendous.
Year: 2024
Rating: 4.5 / 10
Content Warnings: Guns/shooting [No death]
Summary: Craig, an emotionally unavailable father and husband becomes obsessed with befriending his new neighbor, Austin
This was kind of an odd movie. It’s billed as a comedy, but I didn’t find it really funny to be honest. It felt more like a drama with almost some strange horror elements. I didn’t hate it, but I just kind of left like, “well, that was a movie.” I guess in terms of cohesion it felt weird at times. I just don’t really get what they were going for with this one. It was just watching some guy slowly loose his life because he got in his own way. He’s not a particularly likeable guy (I gave him some slack until he didn’t seem to care about his wife being missing... And even in general how he treated her.) I think the acting was good– no issue there, and in fact, the main guy really imbued a very uncomfortable feeling, especially when it was time to hang out with the guys.
Year: 1965
Rating: 7.5 / 10
Content Warnings: Death/Child death, Drowning
Summary: Joey, a young boy sent away from home due to being blamed for the death of his sister, finally comes home. However, he has a deep-rooted distrust for the family nanny he once adored.
I love this genre of movie and I was delighted to watch it. I was intrigued the whole time and I’m glad I didn’t guess the ending of it. I really liked the two main characters, The Nanny and Joey. We learn that Joey is coming back from a 2-year stay at a school for emotionally disturbed children; this is because he was blamed for the death of his younger sister, Susy. His mother is distraught and his father is sort of begrudgingly taking him back as well, but the Nanny seems most sympathetic to Joey. Joey however we first meet by him pranking one of the older women who work at the school, and then berating the Nanny who’s nothing but kind to him.
The natural assumption for this film is the reveal that either Joey or the Nanny who killed Susy. There are things throughout the movie that seem to implicate both of them and you really do spend the whole movie guessing the whodunit aspect of it. It’s done in a really fun way that you don’t ever feel too certain in your guess. In the end, we learn it was neither’s fault really– Susy hit her head in the tub while the Nanny went out to go see her dying estranged daughter. She came back to give the children a bath at their usual time and didn’t see Susy in the tub, so she filled it. Once she found the body, she was already in such a wrecked mental state, she fully broke down. In this state, she tried to bathe Joey too, but he believed she purposefully killed Susy and was going to kill him too. In the final part of the movie, in the current day, the Nanny does try and down Joey but then realizes what she’s doing and helps resuscitate him, crying about the act. We then hear that she is now receiving care and now Joey’s mother is aware of what was going on.
Aside from the plot and movie being interesting, I was really blown away by the actor who played Joey. It’s no secret Bette Davis is an amazing actress— look at her career. She played this role perfectly, I love her in these movies. The child who played Joey very surprisingly only did 2 other films– a shock because I thought he was an amazing actor who perfectly portrayed such a horrible child while also being sympathetic to him as time went on when things got blurry. The mother and the aunt’s acting was... Something else, but they weren't as prominent anyway.
Really good watch and a really fun example of this subgenre of horror!
Year: 2025
Rating: 3.5 / 10
Content Warnings: Death/Murder, Some blood
Summary: A group of elders in a care facility enjoy working out unsolved cases. Once the man who oversees the home is murdered, they jump into action to solve his strange death.
I really wanted to like this movie. I loveeeee whodunit type of movies and shows, and it makes me really happy to see stories about older people. However, like most Netflix movies anymore... this fell very flat. I can’t fault the actors, they did a good job. The shooting locations were wonderful as well.
The plot itself felt rambly and annoying at times. I’ll try and sum it up thoroughly, because I feel the whole plot is integral to critique why I didn't care for it. The upcoming long blacked out section is the whole plot, with spoilers:
There’s a investigative club that meets every thursday at the Coopers Chase retirement home. This club consists of 3 active members: Elizabeth, Ibrahim, and Ron. There used to be a fourth member, Penny, but now she’s in hospice, in some sort of coma, looked after by her husband John. They are investigating a murder that involves a woman [Angela] who was killed and the boyfriend [Peter Mercer] allegedly saw the killer run out the window. That’s important later.
As they're discussing this, a new resident, Joyce, arrives. Her daughter tries to dissuade her, but she sets up camp anyway. She gets in early with the club due to her history of working as a trauma nurse.
Things get dicey as one of the owners of the retirement home wants to destroy it [Ventham], and the other doesn’t [Tony]. Ventham tells one of his workers [Bogdan], that once Tony is out of the picture, he’ll be the boss. A policewoman, [Donna] arrives to talk to the residents about safety... for some reason. I don’t know if that’s a thing, whatever, it’s a way to shoehorn the meeting of her and the club in.
Tony is killed off, cue the investigation. This goes down a winding path of the whodunnit. Ventham keeps on his plans of starting clearing out the home, starting by destroying the cemetery. You’d think there would be certain laws in place, but idk, whatever. Ventham ends up dead, collapsing in front of the retirees as theyre protesting. As this is going on, Elizabeth encounters Bogden in the cemetery and questions him. More investigation happens, there’s a lead via Ron’s son that honestly isn’t really important. As the club keeps researching, the police get mad at them– not super important, more for character building and adversity. Honestly, I think if you left out that whole part not much would have changed. Bodgan also shows Elizabeth that he found a body buried and this is exhumed and it belongs to Peter Mercer.
Elizabeth’s flat gets broken into (no security here I guess, whatever) and she gets a warning with floral arrangements. She and Donna go to track down this crime boss whos super mega wanted btw, but he’s chillin under a false name as a florist. Elizabeth gets him to agree to sell the community at a fair market price and not hurt Donna and she agrees to keep what he’s up to a secret. We end up finding out Bogden accidentally killed Tony during a confrontation because he refused to give him his passport back so he could visit his sick mother in Poland.
There’s a final wrapup to be done about Ventham’s murder, because Bogdan had nothing to do with it. We conveniently then find out actually, that was John, Penny’s husband. He did it because he didn’t want the body uncovered and leading back to the one who killed him– Penny. Penny killed Peter because she knew he was guilty and yet got no justice served, so she took it into her own hands.
Elizabeth tells John she’ll turn them in. We get a shot of the drawer where there’s extra fentanyl. There’s no uncertainty– Elizabeth and the viewer know that John is going to inject himself and Penny with it so they won't go to jail. We see the funeral for those two, and Joyce’s daughter shows up. She says she’s buying the community because she’s a hedge fund manager and then it’s a happy montage of the 4 club members having fun to close it off.
That was a lot, but it helps give context to my critiques:
I think the a thing is Elizabeth as a character. I don’t like her. She’s rude to Joyce and this never really gets called out.
Also her whole mysterious backstory... Is really not at all. You know she was some sort of MI6 agent very soon in. She’s heavy handed with it, but I think they wanted it to be a bigger reveal than it ended up being.
Related to her, but some big plot beats involving her just feel... Kind of stupid? We get the initials B.T. on a floral arrangement sent to Tony’s aunt very early in the movie. Soon later, we find out the third secret partner is a guy named Bobby Tanner. It’s very obvious it’s the same B.T. but this doesn’t get investigated until the last ⅓ after Elizabeth gets threatened via flowers. Speaking of the flowers– it makes no sense to me why she got threatened either. She didn’t really pose a big threat to B.T. when he was barely involved? And also... Why she didn’t end up doing jack shit to him when he apparently had such a horrific crime list and was still involved in illegal activites. I could sweep that under the rug if not what happened to Penny and John.
Penny and John did not deserve to die. IMO, they didn’t deserve to be threatened with jailtime. You’re telling me people who were fine with letting a working crime boss go... Were okay to just turn into their close friend/agree to her being essentially in a murder-suicide? It makes no fucking sense. What’s the point? Just so they could close the case? The murder involving Ventham was more feasibly proven (still could be circumstantial), but what Penny did was not at all. Especially like... What are they gonna do? She’s in hospice and unresponsive. And then a 2-minute funeral and then a montage of everyone being happy... It just felt so hollow.
I guess that’s a lot of how this feels: very weirdly hollow. I just really don’t think it hit much and that last part felt like such a bad way to end things. With that ending alone, it did kind of feel like a waste of time which sucks. I can’t say it’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen, but there also felt like there was nothing to it either.
Post review note: I did look at what other people said. Hearing it was a book originally made so much sense and then hearing that it was then a poorly adapted version is such a shame.
Year: 2001
Rating: 6.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Gore/death (non-realistic), Light Homophobia, Minor sexual references
Summary: Lesbians are being attacked by vampires around the city, and there's only one man who can step in to save them-- Jesus Christ.
I have a bit of mixed feelings on this. I feel like some parts once the allure wanes... Kind of becomes a bit boring. Like on one hand, I like a good part of it– I think the plot is fun and I like a very messily done movie with questionable acting. I think there’s a lot of charm into it, but also towards the last ⅓ it kind of loses some steam. It’s kind of funny because it’s only a 1h24m movie. I think it has enough charm that I can’t call it bad, but it’s not good enough that I’d say it’s more than a 6.0. However, it does look like everyone had a blast making this film which does add to the experience.
Also, I have to say– the movie gets points alone for being pro-lesbians [/sapphic relationships in general] while not feeling skeezy about it. Very nice and cool, especially surprising coming from the early 00s!
Year: 1991
Rating: 4.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Death,Murder, Light fatphobia
Summary: A group of wealthy city-slickers get brought to court after speeding in a small town. This decision turns into life-or-death.
It’s a pretty mid movie. The best part was seeing Digital Underground and the set and costuming work (I could talk ad nauseum about the sets, but also the prosthetics were really cool looking!). I think this is one that could’ve been more interesting if it was more horror or more comedy– but it’s pretty much a horror concept with comedy that just doesn’t land for me (Though the movie isn’t dominated by it, I can’t really get the appeal of gross-out humor. That was the one thing I could really point out as supposed to be a joke, but I just don’t like it).
I saw someone say when I was reading other’s reviews that it was originally supposed to be more horror. It should’ve been! I can also really feel the region they were shooting in (that sort fo tri-state area, but the more denser parts where you have sparse towns), because I’ve been to those areas a lot as a child. It really does capture that in the town of Valkenvania.
I have to say, reading about it made me appreciate it more, but it also made me sad I didn’t like the movie more. It seemed like a lot of love and fun went into it (based vaguely on a story of the director’s brother getting fined 50$ for a speeding ticket, going to court, agreeing to tea after with the judge and spending 4 hours there; In addition, some of the bizarre elements were taken from dreams.)
... Also the judge in the movie was right, fuck bankers.
Year: 1968
Rating: 3.5 / 10
Content Warnings: Nudity, implied sex, domestic violence, death/murder/gore, eye trauma
Summary: A woman who does S&M work in a nightclub begins having strange visions.
NOTE: The version I watched of this movie was English dubbed I believe, as the original language is listed as German. This is specifically about the English dubbed cut.
This movie is overall just... kind of a drag and boring. Everything goes very slowly, to a painful degree, and it doesn’t even feel like there’s a lot of payoff. It teeters somewhere between sexploitation and horror– but doesn’t hit either of the marks.
I don’t think the script is totally gone– if there was more life in the whole thing, I think it’d work pretty decently in terms of the general concept of “weird visions of killing”. However, I think that core element is what makes it feel so tiring to get through. Everyone, but especially the main woman, seems to operate in a very sleepy manner…Even during segments when it wasn’t a dream. I was pretty bored from around the 30 minute mark, but trekked on anyway.
If you can withstand the dragging nature, the film isn’t a total bust. There’s a very nice soundtrack and lovely sets. I also will say, they did a good job of conveying a dream-like state in the film. For me, it works better as a film you put on and half-listen to because it’s not like there’s much to enjoy in terms of plot anyway.
Year: 2025
Rating: 6.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Body horror, Animal body horror, Blood/gore, Missing persons
Summary: An unsteady couple moves when one of them is offered a job in a remote town. However, they get closer than they'd ever wished to be due to strange occurances after spending the night in a cave.
This movie was just alright! I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t love it. In a way, I wish it leaned more on the comedy aspects of the scenario,
because those were overall the standout moments. The theme of couples who should split using marriage as a bandaid was pretty clear.
I do have to say they pissed me off so bad until things started happening... I just going, “Just break up already!”, but that’s the point.
At times the lead actress’ accent was this weird point of somewhere between Australian and American... Which just felt off
(I guess she’s American. It was a dual-country film, I don't really get why they made her put on such a wobbly accent.).
Again, it’s overall just fine. It was the director’s debut, so I give some grace there.
POST-REVIEW EDIT: I just read about the debacle of the copyright... woof... I do want to keep my review to the movie, but I wanted to acknowledge the fact there are claims the movie’s concept was stolen.
Year: 2025
Rating: 7.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Blood/Gore, Death, Missing persons
Summary: One night, all the children except one from a single classroom go missing. The movie follows those who are directly effected.
I rarely get excited for movies, but this one I was excited about! I saw trailers for it (I rarely see trailers of anything lol) and I really liked Barbarian, which was made by the same person, so I went in quite optimistic.
Overall, the movie is good. I think it sets up a good sense of mystery and whatnot and I do like stories that slowly peel back their layers. I think they did the timeline thing decently and were able to convey the timeline of events without making it feel tedious or making you watch a very slightly different version of everything you’ve seen more (there was overlap, but it wasn’t more than like 30 seconds to establish time and place usually.)
I was intrigued the whole time and I really like how it ended up almost becoming a twisted fairytale story. I think it was a good use of more fantastical horror and doing a newer story with a witchcraft flair to it. I’m fine that it all wasn’t exactly explained, but it was enough that you could understand what the hell was going on and the general logic of things.
Personally, I don’t think it was as good as Barbarian, but it was still really enjoyable. Perhaps the one gripe I carry is I don’t exactly understand why at the beginning they said it wasn’t a solved case and was covered up– fine. But the fact there were witnesses and such– not just the kids but also people like the teacher... I think it would’ve been closed in some way or another, right…? I don’t know. It’s not such a major detail, but it did annoy me thinking back on it.
4:25pm .. .. // 10.02.2025
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