Recent Viewings, Part 2

Rev. Powell · October 21, 2025, 10:53:53 AM

DOG MAN (2025): A dog-man cop (with a dodgy origin story) pursues a mad scientist cat intent on cloning himself and unleashing a telepathic fish on the city. Decently animated, with a couple of nice gags, but wow, is it made for kids with short-attention spans. 2.5/5.

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025): In a mythical island where Vikings are at eternal war with dragons, one misfit boy befriends an injured dragon. Totally unnecessary but nevertheless entertaining live-action adaptation of the hit cartoon. 3.5/5.

HappyGilmore · October 22, 2025, 03:20:02 PM

Scream 5

Fifth movie on the series. Tara, played by Jenna Ortega, is brutally attacked by a new person taking on the Ghostface persona in the town of Woodsboro. She survives, but her sister Sam, comes home to care for her and apologize for using drugs and leaving the family.

More attacks happen, and we find out one of the victims is the nephew of Stu Macher, one of the killers in Scream 1. Sam admits to Tara that Sam caused their dad to leave a few years back, upon finding out that Samantha herself is actually the daughter of Billy Loomis, the second killer from part 1.

David Arquette, Courtney Cox and Neve Campbell reprise their roles from the first four movies, with Arquette's character getting killed.

Jack Quaid, son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, is hilarious in this, playing the real killer

M.10rda · October 23, 2025, 05:53:16 AM

Hot Take: These later sequels had been highly unnecessary with Arquette, totally unimaginable and pointless without Arquette.

Rev. Powell · October 23, 2025, 08:49:20 AM

HARVEST: Life in a Scottish farming village changes dramatically with the arrival of a new lord. Beautifully shot (reminiscent of the "harvest" subgenre of European painting) and impressively scored (one peasant threshing song is synced to the rhythm of swinging scythes), but the storytelling is confusing, the dialogue can be stiff, and the feckless protagonists supply little dramatic momentum as the story limps to its inevitable conclusion. A mild recommendation, because it is thought-provoking, but with a major caveat that this is for hardcore art-house patrons only. 3/5.

Trevor · October 23, 2025, 04:04:40 PM

FINAL CUT: THE MAKING AND UNMAKING OF HEAVEN'S GATE.

Quite a superb doccie. 😊

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyeOmPMHRYg&t=2645s

Rev. Powell · October 24, 2025, 09:41:38 AM

THE ICE TOWER (2025): A French teenage runaway hides out on the set of a film production of her favorite fairy tale, "The Snow Queen," and becomes obsessed with the diva who's portraying the lead role. Visually exceptional movie that, unfortunately, is also quite dull, with little of the intriguing strangeness Lucile Hadzihalilovic normally invests in her films. 2.5/5.

lester1/2jr · October 24, 2025, 07:18:01 PM

The Focusing Effect (2018) - sort of found footage, but actually a thriller (of sorts) with a faux documentary concept. It's got a couple okay and interesting things going for it, but is brought down somewhat by how annoying the main guy is. I think the actual director is playing the movie director, so he should have been more sensitive to how the audience sees the character (he's a jerk).

A doughy film student decides to make a documentary about couples breaking up for his final project. One couple's story goes in a more exciting direction so he's happy, but then starts to realize that the fact that it's so interesting is also what makes it a problem. Some of the writing and acting is good, but it falters in other places. The ending was thoughtful, but felt like the rough draft of an ending.

The main area of interest in this movie is not the story about a couple breaking up with possible life or death implications, it's about the director who tries to capitalize on it. I don't think this team quite understood that.

3.75/ 5 It was entertaining enough for a weekday night. I would definitely not hire this guy to choreograph an action sequence though.

Edit: No IMDB reviews and Letterboxd ones are generally less charitable than mine was.

HappyGilmore · October 25, 2025, 04:02:20 PM

Quote from: M.10rda on October 23, 2025, 05:53:16 AMHot Take: These later sequels had been highly unnecessary with Arquette, totally unimaginable and pointless without Arquette.

Yeah. Can agree. I feel of the six movies so far, part 4 was the worst, but it wasn'tbad either. Part 7 he's bacj, not alive, but apparently the killers are making use of AI and modern technology to screw with the new victims and Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox.

It's my favorite horror series overall.

lester1/2jr · October 25, 2025, 06:09:57 PM

Absentia (2011) - What is with those long sidewalk tunnels that go through a hill or something?

There was one in Body Double (1984) and I think some other movie I saw used this same one. No surprise that weird stuff tends to happen in these quasi caves.

This is one of those low budget horror movies that, for all it's amateurish faults, is ten times more interesting than a slick, colorless netflix instant (well okay, they're all instant now) offering. A woman's husband goes missing and her ex-junkie sister comes to live with her and help her move on. She's doing pretty good, practicing meditation to come down and even manages to get knocked up. It wouldn't be much of a story though if her life were to persist in this manner, so some more dark and dramatic stuff happens.

Absentia taps in to the "horror as possible metaphor for something else" thing and does it well. Mental Illness? drug abuse? Who even knows. I'd like to think that whoever wrote this looked at the tunnel thing and was like "there is something weird and not quite right about that" and the story progressed from there, but that's probably not what happened at all.

4.5 /5

also the cover is one of those ones like from that thread

indianasmith · October 25, 2025, 09:47:47 PM

Quote from: lester1/2jr on October 25, 2025, 06:09:57 PMAbsentia (2011) - What is with those long sidewalk tunnels that go through a hill or something?

There was one in Body Double (1984) and I think some other movie I saw used this same one. No surprise that weird stuff tends to happen in these quasi caves.

This is one of those low budget horror movies that, for all it's amateurish faults, is ten times more interesting than a slick, colorless netflix instant (well okay, they're all instant now) offering. A woman's husband goes missing and her ex-junkie sister comes to live with her and help her move on. She's doing pretty good, practicing meditation to come down and even manages to get knocked up. It wouldn't be much of a story though if her life were to persist in this manner, so some more dark and dramatic stuff happens.

Absentia taps in to the "horror as possible metaphor for something else" thing and does it well. Mental Illness? drug abuse? Who even knows. I'd like to think that whoever wrote this looked at the tunnel thing and was like "there is something weird and not quite right about that" and the story progressed from there, but that's probably not what happened at all.

4.5 /5

also the cover is one of those ones like from that thread

I remember watching this when it came out - I rented it at Hastings, in fact, when we still had a Hastings and renting movies was still a thing. I thought it was a great low budget psychological horror.

lester1/2jr · Reply #5050 - Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2

Yeah, I was impressed. The cover doesn't at all reflect the contents, but this is what people have to do.

indianasmith · Reply #5051 - Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2

BLACKOUT (2024) - A struggling local artist comes to terms with the fact that he is transforming into a werewolf and killing locals. He wants to end his existence and exonerate the local immigrant who is being framed for the killings, but that means somehow letting the town see him in his transformed state. There's also a subplot about a developer and some suppressed environmental impact statements on his new mountaintop resort . . . honestly, this one is a bit of an incoherent mess, but moderately entertaining. 3/5

Rev. Powell · Reply #5052 - Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2

GHOST BOY (2025): A 12-year old boy develops a mysterious neurological condition that leaves him in a coma, then conscious but paralyzed and unable to speak; years later, he improves to the point where he's able to use a speech computer and tells his story. Begins as the ultimate real-life horror story about a man "marooned on the island of myself," which makes Martin Pistorius' eventual recovery emotionally profound. Director Rodney Ascher recreates scenes from his life, and even his coma-dream scenes. Note to Trevor: the subject is South African. 4/5.

M.10rda · Reply #5053 - Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2

Quote from: HappyGilmore on October 25, 2025, 04:02:20 PM
Quote from: M.10rda on October 23, 2025, 05:53:16 AMHot Take: These later sequels had been highly unnecessary with Arquette, totally unimaginable and pointless without Arquette.
Yeah. Can agree. I feel of the six movies so far, part 4 was the worst, but it wasn'tbad either. Part 7 he's bacj, not alive, but apparently the killers are making use of AI and modern technology to screw with the new victims and Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox.

It's my favorite horror series overall.

I mean, I guess I'm glad

that Arquette is "back" as AI... actually I don't care, I'm never watching another SCREAM movie, so I have no stake in this debate. For the record though, I'm never watching another SCREAM movie because you're telling me about the 7th movie and Campbell and Cox are still around/alive/not just AI. Neither one of them should've survived Part 3. (Actually I'd hoped Campbell would be the killer in Part 3 and they'd off her, ah well.)

Among my big movie pet peeves are cases in which writers/directors/producers inventory their ensemble and then make puzzling/indefensible decisions, vis a vis: "I've got Liev Schreiber and Parker Posey... and Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox in this entry...... let's kill Schreiber and Posey and keep Campbell and Cox around for four more movies! Yeah, that's the ticket!" I mean people like Alison Brie show up in sequels and last two scenes, I'm still reading about Cox and Campbell. Dear Sweet Jesus.

lester1/2jr · Reply #5054 - Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2

Confessions of an Opium Eater aka Souls for Sale (1962) - Low budget, a little bonky, but makes up for it with weirdness and endless Scooby Doo/ Fu Manchu style trap doors and secret passageways. This was kind of a rare movie back when there were such things, and it's all you would expect and want from such a product.

A world traveling sailor type guy somehow becomes part of the Chinatown underground of tongs and so forth. He encounters various lovey women and partakes in the titular opium, leading to a really bizarre action scene filmed in slow motion because he's so high. Black and white and with a very off beat style, it's certainly a far cry from Price's better known Edgar Allan Poe derived stuff. It's kind of like if Hammer tried to incorporate "Lord Love a Duck" type weird/ modern elements into one of their classic horror things.

4.5 /5

I'm usually strictly a story guy, but this was interesting enough with all the combined elements to get a thumbs up and it wasn't hard to follow or anything. Anticipates the later end of the 60's in some ways.

The opium chase scene starts at 50:00 https://youtu.be/Fh8x5tJQuiA?si=tk8hgsKPzarB_0DO&t=3010