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LillyPiper
Lilly spends her downtime reading, gaming, meditating, singing, studying linguistics, disassembling electronics, or doing things that are deeply nerdy.
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Reviews
Cathy's Curse (1977)
So bad it horseshoes back round to hilarity best shared
Where to begin?
The story is slightly interesting, so it has that going for it. That's all it has, though.
The best actor in this cheesefest is the dog. That's no exaggeration. The lead girl is actually decent, as far as child actors go (I'd put her melodrama down to terrible direction). Every other cast member is embarrassing to watch, and the mother is positively excruciating. I have no idea what emotions she thinks she's trying to portray, but she's so awful it's jarring. Also, her pupils are so tiny throughout the film, I'm convinced she's on some kind of narcotics.
The dialogue and overall writing is stilted and ham-fisted. Exposition dumps abound. It's like the writers have never witnessed actual conversations between humans before.
Scenes don't even make logical sense. It's as if the screenwriters didn't include any scene descriptions, and the prop and makeup depts only gave the script a the most fleeting of glances. I've never seen anything quite like it.
Characters say things in direct contradiction to what they're actively doing, and they seem to hallucinate props other than those in the scene. It's actually fascinating. For example:
The father points to a chair and calls it his 'dad's old armchair', but it's a dining chair with no arms. The daughter throws a bowl of cereal and it shatters, then the maid says no worries, picks up two of the pieces, and says 'there, all clean' whilst still kneeling over a large pile of broken ceramic and cereal on the floor. She just chooses to ignore the rest. It's so weird. The props and action don't match the dialogue, and the result is absurd and incomprehensible.
The makeup effects are so bad, they're hilarious. We did better effects than this when we were kids in the 70s with those Halloween kits you could buy at the shops. One woman has what looks like a cornstarch and toilet tissue mixture on her face that's completely detached from her chin, and what I think they meant to be blood in another scene had to have been straight-up tomato paste. Some other 'blood' was orange. Even for the time period, the effects are embarrassingly bad.
The sound effects would be better suited to a 1950s alien invasion movie and are totally inappropriate for horror. Every scene that's meant to be scary is overlaid with ridiculous sci-fi noises. It's unintentionally hilarious. Some amount of drugs had to be involved in the creation of this beautiful train wreck. I refuse to believe otherwise.
I could go on and on. Yes, it's bad, but it's so very bad it horseshoes back to being good as a parody of itself. Watch it as a comedy, not horror, and it's quite entertaining. I'd recommend watching with friends or family if possible. The hilarity of *Nancy's Curse* is best shared.
The Remains (2016)
Bog standard haunted house flick
Nothing special. The story is basically every haunted house movie cliché back to back and in perfect order. The writing and acting are slightly below average, but not enough to make it unwatchable. The characters are so shallow, a snake wouldn't drown. A couple of the jump-scares are more ludicrous than scary, and it face-plants at the ending.
Still, it manages not to be terrible so much as forgettable. So much so that I'm struggling to make the minimum character requirement...
The house itself is beautiful, so it has that going for it. There's a very nice parquet floor in the master bedroom.
Flowers in the Attic (1987)
Awful in nearly every conceivable way
It's been years since I've read the book, but I remember it being pretty good. This movie completely fails to do it justice.
All the acting is wooden or overly melodramatic, the dialogue is unnatural, the pacing is terrible, the direction seems amateurish - pretty much everything is horrible. Even taking into account that most 80s movies were cheesy and full of cringe, this adaptation manages to limbo under the bar. It feels like a bad Hallmark after-school movie, which is inappropriate for the subject matter. The whole thing just feels stiff and hollow.
If you're looking for an older movie on a dark topic like this, I'd recommend The Little Girl Who lives Down the Lane with Jodie Foster instead of this mess. Even at that young age, she knew how to act.
Flowers in the Attic is painful to watch.
The Last Days on Mars (2013)
So dumb it's insulting
This movie was infuriating to watch. Just absolute trash from beginning to end. The effects and cinematography were fine for the first twenty-nine minutes, thus my two stars, but even those went off the rails after that.
The writing was atrocious. Picture the worst horror movies where every character makes the absolute dumbest decisions (where you're shouting at the stereotypical dumb blonde 'Don't go in the cellar!') and then dumb it down even more, but on a Mars proto-colony. Every single character in this script was so laughably stupid, it's impossible to suspend disbelief enough to entertain the idea any of them could get anywhere near a space program, unless we're in the reality where Earth is a literal Idiocracy. But then how did they make it to Mars? Even in that reality, this makes no sense.
At one point, after several people have died, the communications-go-out cliché happens and our hero says he has to go through a tunnel to where the zombies are to fix it, because he's the only one qualified. That's already stupid because every astronaut should be trained in routine maintenance so that if that one guy is incapacitated everyone else isn't doomed, but whatever. But then when he gets there, 'fixing it' means pressing a button on a keyboard. I am not kidding - apparently nobody else could have done that. Everyone on this elite mission is dumber than potted light bulbs.
And then, on his way back, *knowing there are undead crew members roaming about*, he comes upon one in a corridor. Rather than run away, he stands there for close to a minute, shining his flashlight at it, until it finally notices him. When it does, he *still* doesn't run, he just stands there until it's literally in his face, grappling with his helmet, and he tries beating it to, I guess, an extra death with his flashlight. And this works, because he's our hero, even though other arguably smarter people have died much faster.
Even the movie's internal science, such as it is, is inconsistent nonsense. Some people turn within minutes and others take many hours, depending on what this Swiss cheese of a plot hopes you'll feel. And somehow, these 'scientists' think a body with no heartbeat will circulate an injected cure, or that that same cure will work as an aerosol on creatures that obviously don't need to breathe.
Add to it all that the whole cast were horrible cardboard cutout caricatures of teenage drama characters. Zero positive attributes amongst them, and after only a few minutes, you start rooting for who you think should die first. I was downright annoyed our protagonist lasted as long as he did. And to top it all off, the movie insults us further by just stopping mid-scene. No actual ending, just a pretentious cut-off, like it thinks it's challenging us to think about its message, when its message was no more profound than a stain our carpet.
I can't fathom how this movie's ratings are so high. It may be worth a hate watch, but just barely. I was so angry by the end, I had to watch some light-hearted stand-up comedy as a palate cleanser. I'm struggling to think of a worse sci-fi movie that wasn't a parody and bad on purpose.
Life (2017)
Decent flick, but also quite disappointing
This movie has an excellent premise, but it quickly becomes quite disappointing in that it betrays its own setup with inane antics and poor character choices.
They obviously went to a lot of trouble getting the initial science correct, which was a massive plus at the beginning. Unfortunately they break all that within the first few scenes.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
The design of the alien was beautiful. A bit unbelievable in its rapid evolution, but it's sci fi so we'll suspend disbelief. Basing it on a cephalopod design was brilliant, not just because the science makes sense, but it made for a lightning fast, highly intelligent, and scary alien. The movie gets several stars just for how the alien is depicted.
Unfortunately it's all downhill from the scene where it breaks the exobiologist's hand.
It was made clearly obvious it only attacked after it was hurt/provoked. First the scientist tasered it, then, once it escaped its box, it was obviously curious about the rat and only attacked after it was bitten. That was made very obvious to the audience, so why didn't the best scientists the earth had to offer notice that? Why send in more people to die instead of letting it be and trying to communicate with it instead? I guess because we wouldn't have a horror movie then.
Every one of these 'top scientists' make the dumbest decisions possible every step of the way. They could have neutralised it fairly early when it was still contained in the room, but they decide to physically grapple with it instead. They went out of their way to prove to it that earth-based life is hostile and murderous. By the end, when it gets loose on earth, you have to think yeah, if that was the best we have to offer, we deserve it.
Great premise and science at the beginning, but let down by terrible biological science. It's fun to watch so long as you can suspend enough belief to enjoy idiots dying in stupid ways on a space station.
Into the Woods (1987)
Perfection
I don't typically rate things this highly, but this performance deserves every star. It's perfection. Every single actor gives a flawless performance, and the piece is brilliant overall.
I'm not sure what else I can say to fulfill the character limit except that it's a work of modern art. It gets better with each watch. The casting is perfect. It's a stage play. If you don't like that, this is probably your best introduction because it's self-aware and doesn't take itself seriously. It's an adult take on fairy tales, with self-effacing humour. It's not your grandmother's fairy tale.
Just watch it. It's worth every minute.
I Think We're Alone Now (2018)
Waste of potential and good actors
This movie was just okay. I get what they were going for, but it just didn't hit for me. The pacing was flat and there was barely any plot to be had. The ending felt tacked on, like the film wandered aimlessly and they weren't sure how to rope it in.
The sound mixing was atrocious. On my first watch, I stopped about a third of the way through out of frustration - I felt I was missing most of the dialogue as they seemed to have their background and foreground volumes reversed. I made it all the way through my second watch, but even fervently manning the volume button didn't help make the story cohesive. It wasn't just that I'd missed some dialogue, it seemed some important scenes were just missing. It's hard to describe, but I'm left with the feeling the director skipped relevant bits whilst keeping painfully long scenes with no real point.
Again, I get what they were trying to do, but it just doesn't work. It feels like this movie is somehow too much and too little.
The acting was the best part of this movie, but even the talents of Dinklage, Fanning, and Giamatti couldn't make up for the utter lack of plot or interest. There were a few great, poignant moments, but the rest was a slog.
It's okay to watch once.
School Spirits (2023)
Fun and interesting show
School Spirits is a gem of a show, different from the standard corporate fare being churned out by studios lately. I don't normally like high school drama, but this one has an original plot, good casting, and fairly natural dialogue, without giving off 'hey fellow kids' vibes.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
I want to address some comments who say the rules of the ghost world are inconsistent because of how they can interact with objects but nobody alive can see that things were moved. They actually cannot interact with physical objects at all: when they try, a ghost copy of the object is created and the ghosts interact with *that*. This is shown in the scene where Maddie tries to tear the poster from her locker - she ends up with 3 copies of the poster and the original on the locker is unchanged. This concept also applies to any food and drinks they use, the chairs in the gym, the golf cart, and the things they damage during Field Day. Their copies of things disappear after a short while.
(SPOILERS FOR S1 Finale)
It appears Maddie may not actually be dead; rather her spirit was forced from her body by Janet, who now pilots her body like a meat puppet. Her ability to do that may be tied to the experiments Mr Martin was doing. So there may have been nothing supernaturally special about Maddie except she was in the wrong time and place.
Season 2 has a lot to work with, and I'm very much looking forward to it (2024?)
Leave the World Behind (2023)
Leave this movie behind
I'm struggling to find what went wrong here, considering the plot and cast had so much promise, but all I can think is everything. The characters are oblivious, angry, angry and cynical, with little to no character development to be seen. Much of the dialogue is stilted and forced. They're either idiots or conniving, holding back key information for what appears to be no reason whatever. There are many overlong scenes where the camera cuts to closeups of each of them staring in horror at something we can't see and often are never shown - so many the title should have been 'people staring at things'. It's meant to build tension, but there's almost no payoff. It's some deer, or a horse, or a cluttered garden, or birds, or (admittedly a lot) more deer. And about those deer - what were they doing? The title could also have been 'deer staring at people' for as long as those scenes lasted, but we'll never know why.
The owners of the house are the only bearable characters in this cast of insufferable jerks, with George seeming to have all the empathy this movie could muster, and that's obviously the point, but Julia Roberts' character had me wishing she'd been on that plane instead of George's wife. And even though he's the best character, the writers still saddled him with the idiocy to notice a wristwatch half-buried in the sand and yet somehow miss the body one foot away or the giant pieces of plane wreckage strewn ALL OVER the beach, along with dozens more bodies. And their house was only a mile away, wouldn't they have heard a giant plane crash that close?
Everyone keeping everything from everyone for no reason at all was infuriating. Why not mention the ship running aground? Why not mention the weird behaviour of the animals? Why not mention the woman on the street? The cast are actively sabotaging their own chances at every step.
It's one of those movies that has no ending - it just stops, answering none of the questions it posed. Was it actually an attack? By whom? Why? What do the animals have to do with it? Did they gain sapience and try to warn people? Why? What were the sounds? Which of the multiple conspiracy theories proposed was correct, if any? We'll never know. But at least the girl finally gets to finish watching her show.
That's the only cohesive plot in this mess: It's the story of a lonely 13 year old girl and her quest to watch the last episode of Friends during the apocalypse.
The Good Place (2016)
Buddhism as a sitcom
Funny, clever, and superbly written. Every rewatch is a treat.
It's unfortunate that christians can't seem to enjoy this, spiteful wells of hatred that they are. It's an absolute joy, from beginning to end - and it does have an end, which is very appreciated.
Take a weekend and marathon this. You'll not be disappointed. Every minute is worth it.
The headline actors are perfectly cast, and there are few episodes where you're let down by dialogue. Janet is such a great character, wonderfully acted. Season three had major issues, including the worst casting in the series, but it was easy tskip that nonsense, and season four brought it back round.
You'll not regret watching.
Geostorm (2017)
Astonishingly bad
I'm rather impressed by how bad this movie manages to be. I'm half-convinced the script was generated by an AI on par with Alexa. It's so violently mediocre, employing every possible disaster movie trope in perfect order and with such uncanny precision, I would believe anyone who said the people involved in its production are trolling us with it.
The science is so laughably impossible, the script seems have been written by a child who has yet to take elementary school science class. Several sections defy basic physics so blatantly, it's actually jarring. The ending is so cheap and boundlessly trite, I have eye strain from rolling them so often.
Don't bother avoiding spoilers for this. You've seen this movie before, dozens of times, and better.
Just for context, I like disaster movies - even the dumb, explodey ones. This one is dumb in every way possible, and dumb just doesn't scale well.
MindGamers (2015)
Disappointing, cliché-laden, pretentious
I wanted to like this movie. It has many things I enjoy: sci-fi, philosophy, sociology, quantum physics, bio-and neuro-engineering, music, and shiny tech. After a bit of a rough start, it finally found its stride and proceeded to walk right over a cliff of plot holes and half-formed ideas, landing in some sort of messy diatribe on religion. Or that technology is evil. Or something.
The plot doesn't so much *twist* as flop about like a dying fish. And whenever you begin to think it's getting interesting, here comes that fish to slap your face.
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
The movie pokes at you in every scene, apparently terrified you'll miss this clever thing they've done on the back wall, or that reference to the devil with all the finesse of a forty-foot troll, and now oh my god there are hip-hop demons.
Did you catch the SUBTLE references to the blonde seer woman and the birds? Birds have wings, you know. And they move together. Gee, I wonder what else has wings? Oh! Actual angels, do you get it? Still too subtle? Paint giant wings on a wall and have the actor brood a lot as he leans against them in the perfect place.
And that's just *one* example of a near infinite supply. It really seems desperate that you know how clever it is. I've never really thought of metaphor/symbolism as a weapon before, but this movie seems hell-bent on bludgeoning the audience to death with it.
Everything - and I do mean everything - has been slathered in so much edgy symbolism I'm amazed the actors didn't drown in it. This can be a good thing when done well (as in The Sixth Sense), but can quickly become silly and full of itself (as in Lady in the Water). I laughed out loud several times at points that I'm fairly sure were intended to be serious, but towards the end, laughing seemed a bit like picking on a small child and I just felt sorry for the cast.
For example, the 'angelic', spiritually enlightened character who literally dresses in white and if she were any paler, she'd be translucent begins wearing white wings at one point, just in case you somehow missed the message. And *of course* their arch rivals seem allergic to the concept of colour.
Many, many times things were just too on-the-nose and the actors seemed to struggle under the endless clichés. Mediocre acting by all, as though they didn't want to be in the movie, and it felt like a waste of big talent.
Rather than pick apart this tangled circus further, I'll just end with its climax because it sums up the whole thing well:
Armageddon happens in this one town, with technologically-enhanced demons doing parkour. There's a christian/demon/zombie synchronised dance battle (à la Michael Jackson) *to the literal death* and I didn't make any of that up.
It isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's rather far down the list.
Rim of the World (2019)
Bad writing. Worse acting. Just no.
I lost track of the times this script straight up rips off Spielberg - and then butchers the result. It's as though the writers threw the scripts of ET, the Goonies, Jurassic Park, Stranger Things, Independence Day, and a few others into a blender and set a drunk intern on pasting the bits back together. Nothing is original, and there's cringe to spare.
The characters are 2-dimensional, stereotyped, tone deaf, and just not likeable.
The science is so, so wrong. There are so many enormous plot holes, you could send an alien invasion through them.
This movie isn't so bad it's good. It's just bad.