Year: 2025
Rating: 3.5 / 10
Content Warnings: Sexual references, death, blood
Summary: A priest gets sent to a rural church and comes head-to-head with the Monsignor there. However, his past comes to haunt him as the Monsignor turns up dead.
I... Did not really care for this movie at all. In all aspects but the writing, it’s good... But that doesn’t save it from a very convoluted and annoying plot. It just often times felt rambly and like everything was moving in quicksand... Not helped by a very long runtime for a movie that’s plot didn’t really need it and in fact complicated itself more. When I thought it was coming to it’s last 10, 15, there were still 40 minutes left. It all felt incredibly needlessly complicated.
I’ll cut straight to the ending and the surrounding bits: 1. Why the hell did the grandpa priest decide “instead of donating to charity, I will get this gaudy ass diamond ring made and then eat it” (I’m not even broaching the stuff w the daughter it feels unnecessary atp). 2. Why the hell did the old lady who had been at the church like 60 years and know about this not decide “you know what yeah let me just give this to charity if its causing so many issues”. 3. I mean you can argue it but for something about virtue and honestly it is kind of funny how the priest didn’t even gaf to do anything with the money. 3. Why the fuck even when they though the Monseignor was alive again did they want to go and arrest the priest... All they wanted to do was straight up arrest him with no proof that whole movie, it was so tiring.
I don’t know it all felt incredibly flat and just like half of the story could’ve been taken out and it would’ve been a more interesting movie. Not a 10/10 by any means but hell at least a 6/10. Not to mention... It all felt like the surrounding characters were just tropes rather than fleshed out to the story. They all had some level of backstory for motive but somehow it just felt very flat still.
Year: 1951
Rating: 7.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Death, Ableism, Sexual references, Mentions of CSA, Violence, Incest (of some degree)
Summary: A Japanese take on Dovtoveysky’s novel. After World War II, a man goes to visit his only living relative and intertwines with several people and changes their lives.
I watched this movie in 3 parts; It’s a nearly 3 hour movie with 2 acts split, though apparently the original lost cut is 4 and a half hours, so I wonder what was lost... I’ve never read the work it was based off of, so I can’t hold it side-to-side in comparison.
I think it’s a fine movie. It’s a life-drama and I was invested the whole time. I thought it built up a good air of tension throughout, but especially when Kameda (the titular “idiot”) is being watched by Akama– a rich but hot-blooded man who becomes jealous over him. I thought the dynamics were overall very interesting– though the scenes of Ayako’s (who’s vaguely related to Kameda) back-and-forth nature in the latter half were kind of annoying. I do really like her eventual interaction with Taeko– an ex-courtesan who has fallen for Kameda but stays with the abusive Akama because she feels she doesn’t deserve him. I think it’s a really interesting view into self-hatred and projecting upon others as well.
I do have to say I did pick a Kurosawa work that I don’t see mentioned as often as my first, but I’m excited to see more of his filmography in time!
Year: 2025
Rating: 7.5 / 10
Content Warnings: Death, Illness, Suicide, Gore/Blood
Summary: A man believes a company present is behind misfortune in his life and enlists his cousin to help him capture her and bring them both to her emperor in space.
This is a really strange movie, but I mean it in a good way. I haven’t seen the movie it was originally based off of yet (Save the Green Planet!), but solely going off of this movie, I thought it was really interesting and not something I had seen done like this before. There was a good air of tension and I didn’t really know what was going to happen next at a lot of points (especially the whole last 20-30 or so). I also think it’s an interesting dive into conspiracy and how trauma effects people in certain obsessive tendencies (I can argue either way how the ending can undermine that or add another layer– but I think there’s points to be made on both sides).
Year: 1988
Rating: 5.5 / 10
Content Warnings: Sex/Nudity, Death/Blood (non-realistic), Guns, Eye horror
Summary: The Queen of the South Sea curses the bloodline of the man who stops her killing spree. She gets her chance at revenge by possessing a young anthropology student.
A strange movie with some baffling choices. It’s a mockbuster to the original Terminator... Which I’ve never seen. The plot is sparse and honestly a good amount of the runtime amounts to a lot of sex and action sequences. However, the choices inbetween those events are so strangely done it feels like it came from another planet. The dubbed in dialogue feels so uncanny and weird, the actual content of the dialogue is even weirder, but honestly thats the most enjoyable parts of the film.
My biggest gripe is towards the latter half it really just plateaus in terms of interest for me. Maybe it’s all the guns and chase sequences that feel like filler to this (maybe if I was a bigger fan of those, I’d think differently).
Honestly despite that flaw, I think it was still a fun watch just for how tonally off the whole thing is. Not to mention, I do think the last 10 minutes of stupid action sequences kind of make up for how mediocre the other action sequences were– especially with the horror makeup and really badly done lazer-beams from the eyes and gun overkill. There’s also an outro thats just some guy trying to sound deep and genuinely I do think it wraps up this mess well because yeah. Sure. Why not!
Year: 2000
Rating: 4.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Nudity, Sexual arts (sort of), Scenes involving the toilet (not scat), Nonsensical birthing (not explicit), Blood, Unsanity (??), Incest
Summary: A nonsensical script about a family that survives an atomic bomb acted out by 4 different porn companies
This movie is strange. It’s more of an art experience versus a coherent thing but I did enjoy how weird it was both in terms of the production and the fact it was able to get made with 4 acts. The acts were given to fetish-centered production companies and sent back. It’s interesting because there’s a very clear nature of it being from porn productions– and I’m not saying that because of the nudity or sexual aspects. It’s interesting in the fact of how clear-cut a lot of porn is shot and acted and genuinely kind of interesting how that is translated into some over-the-top satirical artsy piece about nuclear war.
I think it does drag especially towards the end because the absurdness doesn’t go anywhere, so you're left in a plateau state. I think that hinders the watch, but not exactly the enjoyability of the overarching art aspect of the film, which I think carries the backbone rather than the actual contents.
Year: 1987
Rating: 6.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Drunk driving, Animal death (Real: While the animals are not shown being killed, there are scenes of dead chicken, eel, and a rabbit ), Attempted sexual assault/Sexual harassment, Derogatory language (specifically at Black, Jewish and Gay people)
Summary: Two dysfunctional out of work actors head to a countryside house for a get away.
A rambling movie that feels like a predecessor to every weird and awkward British comedy show I’ve seen (especially Peep Show). I don’t even really know how to describe my feelings towards this movie. It felt in some ways like watching a trainwreck but it also didn’t have much of a plot to speak about minus the cabin get-away. I was interested the whole time despite that, so I can’t knock on it too much. I almost have to wonder if there's some sort of time/cultural barrier that stands in the way of my enjoyment, especially since it seems like it's quite the cult classic.
Year: 1981
Rating: 7.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Body horror, Pregnancy, Death, Vomit, Blood
Summary: An American anthropologist comes to Bali in order to learn about Leyak magic. After encountering the Leyak Queen, she slowly starts experiencing issues.
I went in expecting very little and was kind of pleasantly surprised. This movie does have a lot of technical and writing flaws, don’t get me wrong, but I have to say I was thoroughly invested the whole time.
The big noticeable issues are of course the dubbing and the cheesiness of the effects– though personally, I find both incredibly charming and those are more fun than flaws to me. There’s a scene where one of the leads, Mahendra, is sitting with the main anthropologist, Cathy, and a server comes up to them and asks them if they need anything else while actively walking away and not facing them... It’s charming!
My big critique centers around the main character interactions– namely, the lack of really any big chemistry with Mahendra and Cathy, not to mention the seemingly random inclusion of Mahendra’s ex girlfriend who’s sort of stalking him (only to be named and killed off in like a minute at the end) and then Mahendra’s other uncle who saves the day because he’s some sort of all-powerful being (?) . Granted, this is not a film where I’m looking for peak perfection in terms of plot or character development, but these things were just kind of thrown at the audience haphazardly.
Now, going onto what I think is the star of the film: I genuinely really like the body horror and special effects done. I think it’s really unique and I haven’t seen a movie that focuses around a Leyak (also known as a Penanggalan; A floating vampiric head with entrails hanging beneath it.). Genuinely I think even though it’s considered low budget, I see a lot of creativity in this film, especially with the body horror effects.
Year: 1981
Rating: 4.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Nudity, Sex (Unsimulated?), Prostitution with questionable consent, Alcoholism,Domestic abuse (parent to child), Animal death (bird, carcass is shown ; taxidermied dog ), Distressed animal noises, Gun violence, Death/Suicide
Summary: Taking characters from The Story of O and Retour à Roissy and setting them in China– A woman opts into prostitution in order to prove her love to an older man.
A film from Shuuji Terayama, with music by J.A. Seezer is bound to be a beautifully shot and amazingly scored movie. However, this seems to be the two big perks of the film with not much else to speak of.
Visually speaking, this movie is gorgeous. It holds Shuuji Terayama’s beautiful and dream-like vision, like you’re watching a dream play out. J.A. Seezer’s scoring always adds to the experience and at a point it feels only natural for the two to go hand-in-hand. These two elements save the film from absolute obscurity.
It’s not that anything is egregiously bad, but it’s extremely mediocre. There are threads here and there of something that could’ve flowered something so much more interesting than it became, but those remain as untapped potential. In a way, the sub-plots are more interesting than the main story because there’s just not much there.
The main story revolves around “O” who willingly becomes a prostitute to prove she loves a man named Sir Stephen with her obedience. Stephen is a rich man who does something with casinos and gambling and ends up loaning money to anti-English revolutionaries. He also has a lover named Natalie– who genuinely I don’t know if that’s his wife or girlfriend, but she takes the role of “the other woman”. Intermixed we see the plot of the anti-English revolutionaries, including a young man who falls in love with “O” and some peaks into the lives of the other prostitutes.
The main story is... Incredibly thin. There’s no real reason why O is so caught up in Stephen– the only thing I can think is money or just because they mesh on perversion levels. I’d wager it’s more of the latter, but genuinely I can’t tell because she just seems absolutely miserable the whole movie and with very little agency or motivation or anything beyond the fact she wants him happy. Stephen himself doesn’t have a whole lot besides being unpleasant and rich and having a lot of sex.
A good part of their plot in the start revolves around her looking sad before eventually having sex with men while Stephen watches on. Natalie joins him in watching sometimes and is so perplexed why he’s into her– which that I can’t understand well either. Eventually, Natalie and O meet and have dinner with Stephen and Stephen does some of the most unappealing looking bondage I’ve seen to O and makes her watch he and Natalie have sex. Eventually, Natalie gets fed up with playing second fiddle and leaves Stephen. Stephen goes to see O as she’s having sex with a younger man and all of a sudden she falls for that man... In like 5 seconds flat despite her not wanting to even have sex with him moments prior. Stephen gets jealous because she for once seems to be enjoying herself 0.5%, tracks down the boy and kills him before trying to kill himself. The rest of it is meandering as she finds out and walks around sadly (but we do get some more beautiful shots at least).
This story feels very underbaked and honestly most of it is just spent watching O look sad and wanting in a Terayama set and the occasional cringe sex. I’d say someone who’s really into ugly old bastard and cuckolding porn might like this, but I think honestly, even isolating those scenes, probably a bit too boring and unsexy to pass as erotica.
Now, I did say there were seeds of more interesting work. Genuinely, I was so much more interested in the other prostitutes and their lives when they came on screen and the surrounding. We have a woman who forces a submissive man to act like a dog before she’s hit with a memory of playing with her drunken father; An always shirtless but ready to help male guard who’s frequently seen; A woman who’s acting out her fantasies of being a film star with the clientele, much to their chagrin– and hell, we have the whole barely-cooked revolutionary subplot that feels like it should be in a totally different film.
It’s funny, but the film kind of reminded me of watching the whole Twilight Saga. We focus on the two most boring people and don’t really delve into what they want beyond each other (and even that feels so surface level), meanwhile there’s some actually interesting things going on with characters in the background that we barely get to see.
It’s a shame, but it is what it is.
Year: 2013
Rating: 2.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Animal death (not shown/not graphic; screaming is heard), Dog attacking person (Not shown in depth), Jumpscares and general loud noises, Death/suicide, Injury with blood, Vomitting blood
Summary: 3 men investigate reports of strange occurrences in a rural English Church. Note: This was also released as “The Borderlands”.
This is one of those movies that from the get-go I had a feeling I would not like but I decided to stick with it. I’d say for me, watching this is akin to eating bland crackers with no water... It’s incredibly dry. Even for all the jumpscares and cheap loud noises that are supposed to startle you, it really adds more annoyance than fear (because at least listening on headphones, it’s INCREDIBLY loud compared to the dialogue).
This movie plotwise and how it all feels is similar to how I feel with the game Phasmophobia... As in, it’s not really for me and feels like you’re going through the motions and hoping it gets better but it just feels stale (sorry Phasmaphobia and it's fans, after a while, it really is quite boring to me...).
None of the main characters are really interesting and you get the genre typical religion and supernatural debate which makes the movie feels even staler because there’s nothing unique really added. In general, it feels like the most mundane and stereotypical shaky-cam movie combined with general supernatural religious horror.
Overall, the more this movie went on the more boring it became to me. I will admit, around the 45 minute mark I put it on x1.5 because I was so tired and could not imagine sitting through another full 45 minutes. Around the 1h10m mark, I upped it to x1.6 because that one minute of time saved was one more minute I didn’t have to spend.
The last 1 minute is just ramped up by screaming and crying and even that isn’t emotion inducing because I genuinely did not care about the characters created.
The best thing I can say is wherever the film location is, there’s some nice scenery! I like the outdoor scenes the most because the greenery is quite lovely.
Year: 2025
Rating: 6.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Death/Blood/Gore, Sex (non-graphic), Nudity (non-sexual), Pregnancy/Birth, Cancer (+ death in part due to it )
Summary: 28 years after an outbreak of a virus, the mainland of England is now a quarantine zone holding those infected. After feeling people are not taking his mother’s medical condition seriously, a boy embarks to the mainland to find a doctor.
I feel like I’ve seen one of the “28 [X] Later” movies before, but I can’t honestly be sure. Either way, I don’t think you need to watch previous installments to view this one, as it sets up the world pretty seamlessly from the get-go.
I think the premise of the film is interesting, but what bogs it down is a lot of the action taken. The general concept of a boy going on a mission to save his mother is fine... But in the first place, why did they allow him to even go out with his dad, especially as they made a point in the beginning that it’s never boys as young as him? I don’t know– it’s one decision of many that irked me. I think the boy who played Spike was very good and I think his good acting helped me not be mad at him because he really did feel like a kid thrust into the situation.
On a similar note, I think the acting in general was good. Jodie Comer was really good as per usual and the rest of the cast all kept it together. I also really liked the exchanges between Erik and Spike and I think it helped lighten up the film and not keep it as just depressing and one-note (similarly so, I think the ending did the same thing).
Again, I don’t think this is a bad movie by any means but some of ways the plot developed irked me so I can’t say I was blown away by the writing. Also... It had one of my biggest gripes which is: no one in film can think of an illness besides cancer. I’m sure I’ve gone on about my feelings of cancer being used nonstop in films so I don’t need to say it over and over.
Year: 1978
Rating: 3.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Carcass (animal; while not showing what type of animal, it can still be unpleasant to look at), nudity/sex (explicit of both ; incl. Bleeding during masturbation ), Violence (mild), Indecent exposure (unconsensual), Death
Summary: Sexually frustrated nuns resent the mother who oversees them and the iron grip she holds on the convent.
This movie holds it’s place somewhere between drama and erotica, with it’s central theme being around sexual desire and repression. There’s not a super heavy plot: the nuns have fun, whether it be through simple musical whimsy or pleasures of the flesh, then they are punished for these actions once they are discovered.
I will say I was heavily disappointed when I realized this wasn’t about lesbian nuns and concerned itself with hetero sex. To quote my own mother– I don’t have “straight women tastes” in the slightest... And this was largely unappealing in the way it was meant. From an artistic standpoint, when it concerned itself more with the nuns themselves, it did also feel more artsy than anything else. Whether that’s bias or anything is up in the air, but that’s my general read on it.
At the end of the movie, the covenant Mother dies from poisoning and that’s really the most the plot picks up as the Father scrambles to figure out how she died. In general it kind of dithered out because I didn’t really feel super connected to most of the characters.
I have to say I like whatever the vibe was for the girl who was talking about having sex with Jesus. She was always fun when she was on screen.
Year: 1988
Rating: 6.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Gore/Blood, Insects, Domestic abuse/Child abuse, Stalking/Harassment, Flashing lights, Body Horror, Gross eating noises, Light nudity, Infidelity, Forced Sedation
Summary: As she waits for her wedding day, a woman is plagued by nightmares and slowly the difference between dreams and reality becomes thinner.
I went into this movie with extremely low expectations and it at least wasn’t a bad experience. I think the general concept isn’t bad and I think they did a really good job blending dream and reality (especially some sequences when it was hard to tell when the dreams began and ended). I think the acting was just okay– some spots really did take me out of it, but it didn’t make me frustrated or anything. I think the location they filmed at was really good too.
I am kind of happy the main girl didn’t marry her loser soldier boyfriend and at the end got instead with the goth girl–... Or at least that’s how I see things LOL. The fact they conquered their anxiety and trauma together... I dunno man, there’s something kind of romantic about them making it out the other side together.
I wouldn’t say this film is exactly memorable overall, but it’s not bad either. I’ve seen it compared to Nightmare on Elm Street which came out only a few years prior... And I think I’d take this over that easily. Also, I genuinely never heard of the Falklands War before this film, so hey, it taught me something new.
Year: 2020
Rating: 6.0 / 10
Content Warnings: Cancer (+ death via it ), Animal death (fake), Animal injury (fake, happens multiple times), Gore/VIolence/Death (including gun violence and eye trauma and various fake but graphic scenes), Child injury/child death (latter is off-screen but referenced), Nazi-ism/swastikas
Summary: A girl who recently lost her mom goes to her parent’s lakehouse. However, it turns out spending time with her to-be step mom is the least of her issues as a group of criminals escape and come looking for something inside of the house.
It’s fine. A lot of the movie I spent being annoyed that the titular Becky didn’t run and get help at any point (even when her father was begging her and telling her get help, right before he got killed). I understand the point is she was so broken and messed up she actually did want to kill at a point... But that first set up part really annoyed me. However, I can say the movie did keep me intruiged and I think there were some interesting and unique approaches (especially the kill by the fort and in the lake.)
My biggest gripe is the fact that the center of this movie– the whole thing it ended up revolving around (a key that was hidden in the house) was never explained. Like I can believe “well maybe that guy owned the lakehouse before going to jail”... But then it becomes more tangled with other stuff such as “what was the key even for?” We got a vague explanation but it wasn’t really well-explained and left me frustrated, waiting on them to finally explain at the end and still... Nothing. I get that it was possibly “well this ideology is so insane so the reasoning is also insane”... But I don’t know, it doesn’t do it for me! It left me frustrated.
Overall, it’s not a bad movie but it didn’t also do a whole lot for me personally. I think if you like gritty thrillers with a lot of gore and can look past some plot holes, maybe check it out regardless.
2:45pm .... // 02.01.2026