Change Your Image
Todd-65
Reviews
Abigail (2024)
Best gangster movie of the year
First of all, let me say it: this movie is really, really, really fun. It is flawed, but the flaws don't take away much from the fun. Usually, they never do in movies like this. It was a real pleasure to watch.
Don't know how bad this is with spoilers, so I'm just gonna say there are spoilers. Here's the first one: this movie is too much like "The Usual Suspects" to get a fun movie 10 score. Replace Keyser Söze with a little vampire girl (or her daddy), and the whole movie suddenly falls into place, and you'll figure out almost everything but the ending. There's nothing random in this collection of criminals -- it's all very personal.
Some slightly annoying bits: this vampire kills suddenly in maybe four steps in dead silence and everybody knows it. So what decent strategist comes up with an idea like "we should split up and look for her separately -- just yell when you find her." Just 'cause the doors are locked doesn't make it locked door mystery. It's a vampire and you can't just leave. Who in God's name thinks, "let's split up to cover more ground faster" is a good idea? It's a house, okay? It's not a Dungeons and Dragons game and nobody's on point!
There are also surprises -- and surprises are always fun (that's the major thing to take away from all this -- this movie is FUN). Apparently, there are some things vampire can do that I didn't know about. New ideas can work well when you don't expect anything like them to happen, but they happen anyway. Death can be slow with vampires, but it can also be sudden and unexpected. And unexpected is fun, especially in vampire movies when you think you know all about vampires. They're a lot wetter than I really understood.
You might figure out the ending ahead of time. I did, but not because I've seen so many vampire movies -- and I've seen a whole lot of vampire movies. The things is, I've also seen a whole lot of gangster movies, and at it's core, "Abigail" is just another gangster movie.(albeit of a different sort).
Like I say above, I can't give "Abigail" a fun movie 10 score because of "The Usual Suspects" plot outline. I can't give it a 9 either, 'cause the director cheated by letting us think we were watching a vampire film, when we were actually watching a gangster movie. It's a cheap shot, like a jump-scare in some pathetic Amityville movie. Either let us know it's a gangster movie before you do the whole Keyser Söze game show reveal, or you lose a point for thinning out your audience with a bunch of reedy, anorexic "Twilight" nerds. Seriously, guys. Even "Bloodrunners" made it clear that we were watching a gangster movie.
So "Abigail" gets an 8 -- which is much better than I expected it to be. It was so much fun!
Demon House (2019)
Oh my God, it's movement uncoerced!
Demons, yeah? Don't waste your time. Seriously, how frightened do you get when someone unexpectedly -- oh, no! -- turns off a light.
They call this movie a chronicle of "the most authenticated case of possession in American history." I've concluded that they got away with calling it that by neglecting to mention that "possession" in this case means "ownership", in reference to Zak Bagans' well documented purchase of the Demon House in question. Even then, it isn't hands down "the most authenticated case of ownership in American history." It's more like in a tie with maybe a hundred-million or so other people in American history who have also purchased their own homes and got a legal receipt for it.
If these are demons, they're the least threatening demons I've ever heard of. You hear all sorts of stories about how demons influenced the Spanish Inquisition (not in this movie, of course -- nothing so interesting to discuss here). So what's the worst thing all those demons -- presumably the same ones given that they supposedly can't reproduce (much like angels) -- do in this little bed sore of a B&B? They ganged up in all their evil, untold millions and pooled their resources into a cage of fury enabling them to gather enough strength and eldritch horror in order to... move a Ouija board. Yeah. Maybe four inches. Couldn't even knock it off the table. It nonetheless frightened the four people who witnessed it so much that they discussed in some detail whether they should leave both Ouija board and table in the basement. That's right -- there was movement uncoerced of about four inches, and they acted like God had just slapped them down into Hell itself. F o u r i n c h e s.
Quick question: ISN'T THAT WHAT A OUIJA BOARD IS SUPPOSED TO DO? What a let down of a snooze fest that little comedy turned into. So tell me, why isn't the world finished with this kind of crap already? It seems like every day another ghost hunt or demon filled cesspool of poorly edited archival footage of somebody's wall shows up on Hulu or Prime or Netflix to make us wonder what in God's name happened to CBS in the interim. "F-Troop" was more entertaining.
Some good news: the technology behind the Electronic Voice Phenomenon has improved enough that something called a Spirit Box can now let you converse with demons or spirits LIVE without having to rewind the recorder in order to hear what's being said by the ghosties and beasties. Amazing bit of technological evolution really. I think it's an empty plastic box with somebody off-screen pretending to be a demon or ghost. Works better than a rewind, though. It's use was a vivid reminder that throughout history, nobody used electronic technology to communicate with the dead and they still had more fun than I had watching this terrible movie (sorry, I mean documentary).
Even in his "possessed" state, the most threatening thing Zak Bagans could do was sit on the floor and stare at the camera. Busy, busy demons. Give it a shot, if you don't believe me. You'll get to hear some pathetic clown talk to himself for an hour or two. As for demons, well....
It took 'em over two hours to open a goddamn door. Not much of a threat, really. Ren and Stimpy are more frightening.
On the whole, it didn't really deserve the high score I granted it, but I had to put something in the box. And that something was also movement uncoerced.
Left Behind (2014)
Just quit it, already. Seriously. It's not even decent Christian heresy. It's bad Christian heresy.
It seems I have once again discovered a disaster epic that has the intolerable effrontery to call itself "Christian". The truth is simpler: it's not even good fantasy.
Here's an interesting bit of news you might not be aware of: The Rapture isn't mentioned anywhere in the Bible -- Old or New Testament, it doesn't matter; it's never been discussed. The whole concept of The Rapture originated in the middle nineteenth century with the work of the Irish dispensationalist theologian John Nelson Darby.
Darby fell off his horse in 1827 and as a result began to believe that the "kingdom" described in the Book of Isaiah and elsewhere in the Old Testament was entirely different from both the Christian churches already well established by then and all of Judaism. He could have read any standard world history book and reached the same conclusion, but he fell off his horse instead, proving that eventually, some form of enlightenment reaches all of us, sooner or later. He eventually came to believe that the very notion of a clergyman was a sin against the Holy Spirit, because it limited the recognition that the Holy Spirit could speak through any member of the Church. This was a period when "speaking in tongues" could enliven any Bible Study meeting, and could thereby be used to validly reinterpret any of the Biblical texts with far more authority than any of the ideals advanced by educated clergy, who were, after all, primarily endowed with the Sin of Pride in authority and education. He recognized that anybody could be possessed of the Holy Spirit, and that anybody could, therefore, interpret the Bible in whatever way they wished -- provided, of course, it was the Holy Spirit coming upon them and not some other stray spirit otherwise requiring an exorcism. Fortunately, this woebegone heresy has yet to destroy the Exorcist movies enjoyed by horror fans worldwide, which is more than you can say about the repeated attempts to film "Left Behind" and its associated attempts to create Christian Apocalyptic Horror that's kicked off with a phantastic heresy.
It's very hard not to feel great disappointment that one of my favorite actors, Nicholas Cage, is forever associated with this particular effort. I have, however, always considered it an admirable trait for a working actor to accept whatever work is offered him should his expected wage be met, and have always noted that the best actors have the most interesting careers as a result of this quality. I can hardly place the blame for this mess of a movie on the actors. The blame is entirely the fault of the authors and the producers for trying to turn the heretical fancies of the Irish phantasist John Nelson Darby into a Christian folktale, and have not only failed to do so, but have insulted an entire religion in the process.
Darby was one of the original members of the Christian movement that became known as the Plymouth Brethren. It was at this point in his life that he he first began discussing his views of pre-tribulation rapture, a non-sexual transportation ethic that the true author of the Book of Revelations would have denounced in horror. Ironically, the Rapture has since become a Christian Horror movie trope that has been denounced in horror by actual horror fans worldwide, one that has been widely acclaimed as the Willie Wonka steampunk version of Dante's Paradiso, the one book of his Divine Comedy that nobody reads unless they are forced to do so, and even then only the Cliffs Notes version applies. In this reviewer's opinion, these dispensationalist musings deserve to be "Left Behind" as something the meek have established amongst us, thereby allowing them to present zombie apocalyptic structures without the necessity of raising the dead and post-apocalyptic ruminations without being forced to subdivide the atomic radioactive elements, a series of scientific belief systems that many of the unwashed and uneducated continue to deny, or at the very least to doubt the efficiency of in a world where the structure of reality must at all costs be denied, being made up, as it is, with mostly nothing wrapped up in mysteries and electromagnetic wails of intemporate disbelief.
In any case, Darby's non-Biblical ramblings about the Rapture to come quickly gained popularity among end-times-oriented Christians, thanks especially to its incorporation into the notes and illustrations of study Bibles, such as the Scofield Reference Bible (1909). Darby translated numerous versions of the Bible and included his note on the Rapture whenever he could do so. It should be remembered, however, that none of it can be found within the actual pages of the Bible, and cannot, therefore, be considered as Truth emitted and translated by the Mind and Mouth of God. And thank God for that -- anybody who has read the books or watched the movies incorporating this ridiculous heresy cannot help but be horrified with the simplicity of plot structure that's been incorporated into such stories.
There's nothing quite so annoying as a movie that refers to itself as Christian Horror or Christian Drama, depending upon how indoctrinated the authors are at denying human nature and scientific reality. I can hardly wait for the anime versions of such works to come, primarily because I cannot see anybody taking the time to retranslate such works back into the English from which they originated. The same goes for such works that refer to themselves as "webisodes".
In any case, given my rejection of a myth-managed belief system that remains insulting at best, it's hard to become enthusiastic about stories that are wrapped-up in such insults. That is the primary problem with the books these movies came from, and it reflects poorly on the movies themselves. It stands ill-engaged upon the consequences of one's belief in scientific truths, insisting that the errors of one's education, Christian or not, given the contempt for Christianity that the belief in Rapture tends to propagate, will ultimately prevent one from being swept up in the mass disappearance of "decent" Americans, leaving only the tribulation audience to inherit and ultimately destroy the nation and world that most of us have grown to love, with the possible exception being those who assert themselves as better than human, a further step in their personal evolution of the species who cannot apparently love anything so worthy as an inheritance.
This movie isn't even worth the discussion of value. It is insulting, irresponsible, and contemptible in its major themes. Calling itself Christian anything is an insult to Christianity. The theme of Rapture is not Christian at all. The whole idea of the Rapture was invented by a 19th century Irishman who introduced his silly theology in the advertising section of Bibles he was clearly pleased to promote. It is contemptible in that it denies the Judgment all men must strive for in order to erase it from the possible history of those who accept this warped version of God's will. Its heroes are the vanished and the unJudged, and as such it promotes any ugliness those men who consider themselves worthy of God's Dispensation may elect to rediscover for themselves as such men who place themselves, their lives, and their desires above those of other men have always done. Should you Reject what they Reject, Believe what they Believe, and Silence those they wish to Silence, than you too can carry yourself and your soul into the new world without fear of Judgment by man or God. That and only that is the true message of Dispensation, and as such it is an obscenity that also lacks the energy that true horror builds within itself.
The cold and uncalculated contempt for the ordinary that "Left Behind" has promoted is not drama and is not horror -- it is merely what happens after the "blessed" beings of Christ's "true church" vanish from the Earth in an act neither Christians nor Jews have ever imagined, let alone promoted as a tenet of their faith.
I could still have gone along with it, however, if the story being told had at least been an enjoyable ride. It is not. It's just more tripe by those who deny the world and place themselves above it. It's just religious elitism that hides underneath a truly self-serving and insulting tale that rejects both science and reality. This collection of senseless thought isn't even worthy of the curiosity it might otherwise evoke in those ignorant of its roots. You can't lose yourself in the story, so it's best just to lose the story itself. Then you can hope for yourself that it stays lost longer than the Nag Hammadi scrolls that were rediscovered in 1945. Unlike the Nag Hammadi library, The Left Behind series -- books and movies -- deserves anonymity and eventual extinction.
I rate this one a single star 'cause it's a repeat and it's still a mess. And that's a gift.
The Rapture Chronicles (2019)
Just quit it, already. Seriously. It's not even decent heresy.
I was originally intrigued upon discovering that this Irwin Allen disaster epic was classified as a mini-series even though it ran for three years. Than I looked closer and noticed that it wasn't actually an Irwin Allen disaster epic -- it was just a disaster.
Here's an interesting bit of news you might not be aware of: The Rapture isn't mentioned anywhere in the Bible -- Old or New Testament, it doesn't matter; it's never been discussed. The whole concept of The Rapture originated in the middle nineteenth century with the work of the Irish dispensationalist theologian John Nelson Darby.
Darby fell off his horse in 1827 and as a result began to believe that the "kingdom" described in the Book of Isaiah and elsewhere in the Old Testament was entirely different from the Christian church. He could have read any standard world history book and reached the same conclusion, but he fell off his horse instead, proving that eventually, some form of enlightenment reaches all of us, sooner or later. He eventually came to believe that the very notion of a clergyman was a sin against the Holy Spirit, because it limited the recognition that the Holy Spirit could speak through any member of the Church. This was a period when "speaking in tongues" could enliven any Bible Study meeting, and could thereby be used to validly reinterpret any of the Biblical texts with far more authority than any of the ideals advanced by educated clergy, who were, after all, primarily endowed with the Sin of Pride in authority and education. He recognized that anybody could be possessed of the Holy Spirit, and that anybody could, therefore, interpret the Bible in whatever way they wished -- provided, of course, it was the Holy Spirit coming upon them and not some other stray spirit otherwise requiring an exorcism. Fortunately, this woebegone heresy has yet to destroy the Exorcist movies enjoyed by horror fans worldwide.
Darby was one of the original members of the Christian movement that became known as the Plymouth Brethren. It was at this point in his life that he he first began discussing his views of pre-tribulation rapture, a non-sexual transportation ethic that the true author of the Book of Revelations would have denounced in horror. Ironically, the Rapture has since become a Christian Horror movie trope that has been denounced in horror by actual horror fans worldwide, one that has been widely acclaimed as the Willie Wonka steampunk version of Dante's Paradiso, the one book of his Divine Comedy that nobody reads unless they are forced to do so, and even then only the Cliffs Notes version applies. In this reviewer's opinion, these dispensationalist musings deserve to be "Left Behind" as something the meek have established amongst us, thereby allowing them to present zombie apocalypse tales without the necessity of raising the dead and post-apocalyptic ruminations without being forced to subdivide the atomic structures of radioactive elements, a series of scientific belief systems that many of the unwashed and uneducated continue to deny, or at the very least to doubt the efficiency of in a world where the structure of reality must at all costs be denied, being made up, as it is, with mostly nothing wrapped in electromagnetic wails of disbelief.
In any case, Darby's non-Biblical ramblings about the Rapture to come quickly gained popularity among end-times-oriented Christians, thanks especially to its incorporation into the notes and illustrations of study Bibles, such as the Scofield Reference Bible (1909). Darby translated numerous versions of the Bible and included his note on the Rapture whenever he could do so. It should be remembered, however, that none of it can be found within the actual pages of the Bible, and cannot, therefore, be considered as Truth emitted and translated by the Mind and Mouth of God. And thank God for that -- anybody who has read the books or watched the movies incorporating this ridiculous heresy cannot help but be horrified with the simplicity of plot structure that's been incorporated into such stories.
There's nothing quite so annoying as a televised work that refers to itself as Christian Horror or Christian Drama, depending upon how indoctrinated the authors are at denying human nature and scientific reality. I can hardly wait for the anime versions of such works to come, primarily because I cannot see anybody taking the time to retranslate such works back into the English from which they originated. The same goes for such works that refer to themselves as "webisodes", such as The Rapture Chronicles (2019-2022).
In any case, given my rejection of a poorly managed belief system that remains insulting at best, it's hard to become enthusiastic about stories that are wrapped in such insults. That is the primary problem with this series. It reflects upon the consequences of one's belief in scientific truths, insisting that the errors of one's education, Christian or not, given the contempt for Christianity that the belief in Rapture tends to propagate, will ultimately prevent one from being swept up in the mass disappearance of "decent" Americans, leaving only the tribulation audience to inherit and ultimately destroy the nation and world that most of us have grown to love, with the possible exception being those who assert themselves as better than human, a further step in their personal evolution of the species who cannot apparently love anything so worthy as an inheritance.
This series isn't even worth the discussion of value. It is insulting, irresponsible, contemptible in its major themes. Calling itself Christian anything is an insult to Christianity. The theme of Rapture is not Christian at all. The whole idea of the Rapture was invented by a 19th century Irishman who introduced his silly theology in the advertising section of Bibles he was clearly pleased to promote. It is contemptible in that it denies the judgment all men must strive for in order in order to erase it from the possible history of those who accept this warped version of God's will. Its heroes are the vanished and the unjudged, and as such it promotes any ugliness those men who consider themselves worthy of dispensation may elect to rediscover for themselves as such men who place themselves, their lives, and their desires above those of other men have always done. Should you reject what they reject, believe what they believe, and silence those they wish to silence, than you too can carry yourself and your soul into the new world without fear of judgment by man or God. That and only that is the true message of dispensation, and as such it is an obscenity that also lacks the energy that true horror builds within itself.
The cold and uncalculated contempt for the ordinary that The Rapture Chronicles has promoted is not drama and is not horror -- it is merely what happens after the "blessed" beings of Christ's "true church" vanish from the Earth in an act neither Christians nor Jews have ever imagined, let alone promoted as a tenet of their faith.
I could still have gone along with it, however, if the stories had at least been enjoyable. They are not. It's just more tripe by those who deny the world and place themselves above it. It's just religious elitism that hides underneath truly self-serving tales that reject both science and reality. This collection of tales isn't even worthy of the curiosity it might otherwise evoke in those ignorant of its roots. You can't lose yourself in them, so it's best just to lose the stories themselves. Then you can hope for yourself that they stay lost longer than the Nag Hammadi scrolls that were rediscovered in 1945. Unlike the Nag Hammadi library, The Rapture Chronicles deserve anonymity and eventual extinction.
I rate them two stars. And that's a gift.
Covidland: The Shot (2022)
Textbook paranoia
Textbook paranoia. Useless and uninformed. Dangerously ignorant of scientific fact. The editing, however, was pretty good, so I'm giving it an overall grade of 3 stars out of ten.
These people have made numerous claims that have little support in the scientific community, and then write it off as a global conspiracy of some new order illuminati groups that want to kill off people in population level extinction events. Frankly it's disgusting that such ignorance even exists, given the fact that the vaccinations they are discussing have saved literally millions of lives around the world.
Like I said, though, the editing was pretty good. Other than that, these people shouldn't be allowed the wider voice that film gives them. Documentaries are supposed to tell the truth. This trash does the opposite.
Dao jian feng mo (2022)
For the love of God, tell Greenpeace
When I heard that this movie was about the events that take place after the horrifying murder of the very last demon on Earth, I thought, "finally, an ecology movie capable of uniting the entire world behind the importance preventing the extinction of species on the planet." How could I possibly have known that the movie I thought would contribute to the conservation of life around the world would actually celebrate the extinction of demons, not criticize it! Apparently after the extinction of demons referred to in the plot outline, life actually improves for everybody else. How do you think Greenpeace would feel if every whale on Earth was wiped out, and the aftermath proved to be an incredible improvement of the status quo for everybody else? They'd feel insulted, that's what. But then, people in this movie actually start turning into demons AFTER the great extinction, which finally starts to set things right again. Unfortunately, it's all done by magic, which isn't even real! Basically, the movie sets up an ecological failure that reverses itself by magic, and everybody thinks it's a curse. I don't get this generation at all. It's like an evil God tries to screw with us by making demons extinct in the worst way possible -- wanton murder -- and just before folks can absorb the lesson that all species have value and none should be forced into extinction against their own will, magic comes along and fixes everything while also cutting into the over-population of Earth by humans! They had this great opportunity to do something special, something like Jurassic Park without the amber. They could have told THAT story, leaving us with a planet full of frogs, but instead they use a cheap plot device like MAGIC to give us a happy story instead of the gritty ecological nightmare they should have told. And then they went and classified it a "drama", instead of "fantasy" or "horror". That's the worst of it. Wipe out an entire species and then call it a drama. It's an insult to everybody who ever watched The Exorcist and immediately invited Satan into their heart and soul, only to find that it introduced a little bit of drama into their lives, and nothin' else. All that does is normalize natural selection. Well, demons don't do evolution, okay? They don't fit into a conversation about survival of the fittest. If you're gonna make a movie about the temporary extinction of demons, you'd better not call it a simple little drama. You just devastate the whole story when you do that. It's not Bradley Cooper, you schmucks. It's a planet full of demonic entities that would only like Bradley Cooper if he was breakfast. Maybe add some grits. With grits it'll be five stars. Without grits -- four. And some over easy eggs.
The Basement Office (2019)
Suggests significant understanding of previously under-reported issues
I have been lately very pleased to notice a definite change of character to UFO research over the past five years that Steven Greenstreet has now put some real effort into discussing in this program. To my mind, this is entirely to his credit and sets his conclusions head and shoulders above most of the stories covered by better known UFO proponent researchers in the United States and around the world. It has done nothing but add to the credibility addressed by "The Basement Office".
My own research convinced me many years ago that there is a loud and assertive group of UFO proponents who have, since at least the early 1990's, reached the conclusion that purposely misrepresenting or inventing from nothing stories of UFO encounters that would never have been given a public airing prior to their public interference was both ethically and operationally appropriate if the result was to gain public support for their goals, these goals including a well-financed investigation of UFO phenomena conducted by the U. S. government with the ultimate intention being the recognition of intergalactic travel to and exploration of our planet by extraterrestrial visitors. Make no mistake: these are political goals that would be debated at the highest levels of our government that would included the disposition of millions of dollars of tax monies collected by the IRS for the purpose of advancing government.
The dishonest activities of these many individuals and organizations have very definitively whitewashed the entire structure of and the governmental response to the subject of UFO interference and observations of such through media-reported incidents across the entire planet to such a marked degree that it is now impossible for sane individuals reach any valid conclusions whatsoever about UFO phenomena except that people lie about them all the time. When both eye-witness reporting and video "evidence" cannot be trusted because of this open dishonesty and contempt for human opinion -- contempt that has been repeatedly fostered by those who believe their lies are merely an acceptable means of appropriating belief in the "Truth" -- these individuals and groups are merely professing their preference for faith above reason, and then insisting that the U. S government fund programs to address and study the issues previously supported only by their "faith". It would be similar in spirit to Mary Magdalene and the Apostles conspiring to "invent" a tale of Christ's resurrection in order to give his teachings the benefit of religious support they were convinced those teachings deserved.
In the past, "The Basement Office" has shown a lesser degree of open skepticism that many of the incidents that have been discussed may have deserved. This degree of skepticism has now been markedly increased, particularly where Mr. Greenstreet's research has revealed numerous documentation that seems to have been published merely to disengage the subject from attempts to nail down dates, names and claims for various events, which could be considered a major "sin" within the field of government recordkeeping. When Steven Greenstreet is faced with an issue that increases doubt, he talks about it, which is definitely not the sort of response one expects from those individuals who are more activist than they are reporter. He is also not averse to correcting prior conclusions after "additional reflection" by witnesses or reporters have resulted in too many changes to claims made to otherwise ignore. A lot of research, particularly in the claims made by UFO proponents, require a lot of backtracking to properly address, and Greenstreet has shown a willingness to take this important and necessary step when required to do so. I can assure you, this is a rare commodity among all too many UFO proponents and activists, and is one of the many reasons that intelligent men and women who believe the claims made by UFO researchers and witnesses should perhaps reassess their faith when addressing such issues in the future.
Nefarious (2023)
Brilliant acting outshines the worst of right wing applesauce
When I was growing up, my first love was horror -- monsters were just way too much fun to dismiss entirely! There's a reason for this. Children don't require much in the way of entertainment. As a child, I LOVED the old Batman TV series. Watching it now only shows how connected we are to our youth, and why we find it so easy to take the leap from wildly adventurous stories that keep a child on edge to the nostalgia we find upon the realization that the plots no longer compel us. I watch Batman as an adult in order to celebrate the way it made me feel as a child. The story and the production values are silly and all too often uninteresting, but I can enjoy them still because of the enjoyment I received as a child. Without such value, I would find it boring in the same way I find Nickelodeon boring. I didn't grow up with Nickelodeon, so there's no connectivity to explore as nostalgia.
Horror films have values associated in exactly the same way. Monsters are too cool for words -- even monsters in rubber suits a la Godzilla. Sadly, most horror films I have watched as an adult seem insulting in comparison. Slasher films tend to have more in common with Holocaust porn. My enjoyment in monsters are rarely associated with human monsters carrying a machete. Such horror films have to have something else going on. One way to access that is to develop other qualities such as suspense, the development of tension. That's the reason a "human" monster can sometimes overwhelm our desire for monsters. This is how "Silence of the Lambs" became so successful.
Demonic possession films can prove equally successful for a different reason. Movies like "The Exorcist" can frighten us by forcing us to use our imagination. A monster exists, but we're never actually seeing it. This also explains why we can be so easily frightened by our concept of Hell. We're literally being frightened by our imagination. The movie "Nefarious" works by harnessing both of these qualities. It is unique, however, for developing such qualities almost entirely through dialogue, and it does so brilliantly while retaining its use of the horror format to tell a story.
Much of this is presented by the talent of Sean Patrick Flannery whose performance stands out as one of the best of his entire career. He goes from one extreme to another with the ease only a devil could provide. His abilities are phenomenal, providing more than enough reason to give this movie a chance.
It's certainly not a perfect movie, but if you can get past the preaching aggression concerning right wing opinions of extreme sin and damnation as applied to acts like abortion and euthanasia, you'll find it much more enjoyable. The appearance of Glenn Beck, however, is more difficult to forgive. The movie often seems to be celebrating right wing issues that are insulting at best, but if you can get past those matters, you'll enjoy it much more. Sean Patrick Flannery's contribution tends to make this an easier proposition to endure. His performance easily outshines any of the prejudices otherwise exhibited.
Overall, it's a great possession film. Ignore all of that right wing applesauce that they put on your horror film pork chops without your specific request, and you'll enjoy it a lot more. Nobody likes to be preached to when they're just looking for a decent scare, but it's not continuous like "Left Behind," so you can probably ignore it and enjoy yourself. It's well worth the attempt.
Dummycrats (2018)
This is the only review of this movie worth reading
This movie has eight user reviews. Four of them were quick and easy reviews that failed entirely to give a realistic vision of the film in question or to grant a fair and balanced review of its faults. They were all the same: "10" (all tens, which represent the the highest possible rating). The remaining four reviews also failed to give a realistic vision of the film in question. They failed to deliver a fair and balanced review of those aspects of the film that were successful or delivered properly to the consumer. They were also all the same: "1" (all ones, which represent the lowest possible rating). A film that cannot inspire a fair and balanced review by ANYBODY must also be incapable of inspiring honest praise or criticism by ANYBODY. As such, it will ALWAYS deserve some form of criticism. For me, that makes it unworthy of being watched for entertainment purposes. That doesn't mean, however, that it's poorly done. It just means I won't like it. One of the reasons I read user reviews is to determine whether or not it's worth my time to watch the movie in question. Based on the user reviews, this one is not worthy of my time, and I refuse to watch it for that reason. It won't entertain me, and it's insulting for anyone to believe it would. I recognize, however, that it might have some value that I would otherwise approve of. This would be something like good focus, decent examination of context, creative use of camera angles, or the otherwise unexpected commentary of someone who actually bases his or her opinion on known facts or his or her own previously established and thereby well supported expertise. It would only be fair to add a point or two to account for aspects of the film that I missed as a result of my own prejudices. So, because I have already refused to examine such details, I also balance out the review to account for the possibilities that I missed by refusing to watch this bit of delirious and unentertaining smegma. After all, I don't want people to assume that even after watching a movie that hardly anybody in the entire world bothered to watch, my opinion would be limited to either the lowest or the highest possible review. Perfection, especially in movies, simply does not exist, and I refuse to pretend it does for the sake of a review. There is no such things as a perfectly established wonderful film, or a perfectly established garbage film. We already have four of the lowest and four of the highest from the only eight people in the world who saw this film and also know what IMDb is and how to submit a user review. Without this concise explanation of the grounds I use to rate a movie, we'd be forced to find this film totally useless on the basis of zero reviews rated from two to nine (2-9). On those grounds, I'm perfectly happy to welcome you to five (5). The fact that this worthless piece of entertainment trash has finally resulted in a user review that is the equivalent average of the first eight review ratings and will not, therefore, raise or lower the overall review rating even a single point, but will, nonetheless, allow the producers to strut their apparent abilities in full knowledge that this is the only fair and balanced review they have yet received by the users of IMDb for this particular piece of garbage should, in my opinion, be treasured for its fairness and balanced methodology. The fact that it was submitted by the only reviewer who refuses to watch what is obviously a junk film, having reached that conclusion on the basis of every user review thus far submitted and published should not take away any of the pleasure the producers might have in response to receiving such a well-balanced review. Enjoy it, ladies. You deserve a fair review of your hard work. You should understand that it probably won't ever happen again, as I'm rarely inspired to represent the average of anything I'm willing to put my name to, whether I experience it with a fair viewing or not.
Criminal Minds (2005)
Am I the only one who thinks the new writing staff for Season 15 might be under-educated teenagers?
Lets look at a few points for Season 15 episode 1:
1. Rossi starts talking psycho-babble about narcissists that is contrived, doesn't fit the unsub, and is way above the head of the individual he's talking to, only to close the conversation by calling the unsub "a sick son of a b****". Duh...
2. They make a big deal of the fact that the individual committing the murders is a narcissist -- almost ALL serial killers are narcissists for God's sake, but do they develop the diagnosis into something useful aside from trying to sound scientific in a blue collar environment? Heck, no! It serves no purpose except to embarrass the writers, and it does nothing to advance the story.
3. A new unsub takes the chests off of his male victims with a scalpel, but when the local Medical Examiner examines the body, he insists that the dead man on the table might have been the victim of an animal predator as if bears or wolves or wildcats or even badgers can use a ruler to slice off a guys chest in straight lines, but do no more damage to the body, not even a slight bit of nibbling on the fingers! This guy is a doctor? He can't tell the difference between a scalpel carving straight lines and a head full of teeth!
4. The new unsub introduced cuts the chests off of men instead of the faces off of women, so they assume it's the same unsub, because a scalpel is used in both cases. I thought profiling was what they did every day of the week...
5. The team decides to question the unsub's daughter again, who is still in prison, but instead of going to the prison to question her, they decide to have the local police bring her in to Washington, DC, thereby providing the means and the opportunity to effect her escape.
6. The face fetishist kills his own daughter and cuts off her face, because, as Rossi says, "he was afraid she would betray him to the police" even though she had already been in prison for six months and had said nothing to anybody the whole time. The FBI still had her brought to Washington, DC even though they agreed that she probably wouldn't answer their questions, and if she HAD answered their questions, it wouldn't have helped much because IT HAD ALREADY BEEN 6 MONTHS and her father had already moved on to another location. The team knew who the father was, knew what his motivations were, understood his psychological defaults, and had known both his ex-wife and his daughter for years, because they were both in prison. What could the daughter have possibly said to them that would have helped when she had no intention of telling them anything?
7. Daddy dear murdered his own daughter and cut off her face for a souvenir, but left another woman taped to a chair and alive in the next room. He had cut off her thumb in order to access her safe deposit box at the local bank (how many banks require a thumb-print to get into a safe deposit box?), but she was left otherwise unharmed and alive in the next room, and could be questioned about everything that happened. She was also the daughter's ex-lover, so her knowledge of at least the daughter was actually pretty extensive. She was allowed to live, and was immediately dismissed from the show.
These writers MUST be different from the original staff, because their ignorance of police procedure, psychology and profiling is far and above the worst thing about this continuing narrative. I LOVED the original series and binged it twice. This IS NOT the original series, so calling it "Evolution" and tacking it on to the now-defunct original series does nothing except invite a comparison of the two series -- and it suffers greatly from such a comparison. Same characters does NOT mean the same series. This thing suffers greatly because the writers don't know what they're talking about, and they aren't even trying to figure it out. I just started on season 15, so I'm going to give it some more views on the off chance that this mess is going to improve. But I've gotta tell you, my expectations are at about sea-level at this point, and they need to be somewhere that's at least STARTING to look like the hills. The characters are pretty much the same, but the situations that bring those similarities out are full of ignorance and silly remarks. It needs to get much better before I can consider it the same show.
Meet the Hollowheads (1989)
It's a Commercial Album without commercials
It's like a late-Snakefinger era Residents video that goes on forever because one little boy WON'T LET THEM STOP!! In our house we always follow it up with a Mongolian Death Worm quiche and Quisp pie. Most folks don't necessarily need the 151-proof white rum chaser, but we strongly suggest you just take your medicine and shut the heck up -- especially during all those extra juicy food preparation scenes. This is a great movie when it's served to your dinner guests without all those pre-conceived notions like Germanoid meal tickets getting in the way. Make sure you keep those internal visions of Jesus doin' the hustle in your head all updated and stuff and you'll survive the night just fine, which is more than you can say about Juliette Lewis' acting career. Does anybody else get her confused with Shayna Knight? So it's just me then. I thought so.
The Astronaut Farmer (2006)
Billy Bob and Andy Griffeth
So was anybody else reminded of Andy Griffeth's "Salvage 1" (1979)? It's been done before, folks. And better.
Okay, he's not building a WMD, but he is building a rocket with all the capabilities to push it beyond the bounds of this gravity well we call the planet earth.
In other words, he did build a weapon of mass destruction. Why do you think NASA keeps such a tight reign on those things? The fuel content alone qualifies as payload. That's why rockets are listed in the big book of Gods and Soldiers as weaponry.
He can build a rocket that goes into outer space, but he can't get a spacesuit dated post 1972?
Vlad Tepes (1979)
Biopic of Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes AKA Dracula
Excellent film biography of Vlad Dracula, also called Vlad Tepes (Tse-pesh), or "The Impaler", a nickname bestowed upon this 15th century warrior by enemies - the Turks of the Ottoman Empire - after his favorite method of execution. This is a good, albeit one-sided, biography of the historical Dracula, who is considered a great hero of Romania for defending his home country against excessive and insurmountable odds, which were later proven to be just that. Some of the salient facts are skewed just a bit (you can't make a hero look too much like a monster - which is what both the Turks and the Germans thought him to be), but the story is still great, and is comparable in its way to "Braveheart." Definitely recommended, but difficult to find.