The film begins 17 years after the events of The Exorcist and follows the characters Father Dyer and Lieutenant Kinderman who have kindled their friendship from the shared tragedy of losing their friend Father Karras. 

A series of murders in Washington DC copycat the Gemini Killer, who has been dead for 17 years. Kinderman is befuddled that they include Gemini’s trademarks that were never revealed to the public. The investigation leads to a psychiatric ward and a supernatural suspect.

The Exorcist 3 certainly does a better job of carrying forth the themes and story of the first film, however it never comes close to matching its quality. That being said, it’s a vast improvement over the incomprehensible mess of Exorcist II: The Heretic.

The film is written and directed by William Peter Blatty, the author of the original Exorcist novel. While the writing is good, and the characters and relationships strong, the direction is a mixed bag at best. It’s hard to put a finger on whether it is because of Blatty’s lack of experience, this being only his second film he directed, or because of the studio interference demanding a more direct sequel. The answer is probably both.

The relationship between Dyer and Kinderman is the best part and the heart of the film. The dialogue between them genuinely feels like old friends sharing a laugh and challenging each other’s philosophies. 

Like the Exorcist, the dichotomy of good vs evil, and the nature of man is explored. Like the original, the forces of evil seem to be unhindered, and as such, the tone is oppressive and dark at times.

The standout performance is Brad Dourif as the Gemini Killer. Rarely has Dourif been given the free reign to appear on screen as himself and deliver a truly scene chewing performance that displays his full range. It goes from calm meticulousness to unhinged rage within seconds.

The things that hold back the film from being great are the unrefined visual style, and the obviously wedged in and tonally divergent exorcism in act 3. It goes from a tight and oppressive thriller to a bombastic supernatural bombardment in the last act. 

7/10

This film picks up right where the first one left off with our protagonist Grace dealing with the aftermath of her wedding night gone wrong, except this time she is reconnected with her sister Faith and they have to “run and hide” from even more satanists under the rule of Mr. Le Bail. The film brings us A LOT of gore and even more laughs with not so subtle societal commentary. With a star studded cast including many horror movie regulars and our returning scream queen the movie was set up for success. It’s genuinely hilarious, self aware of the absurdity at times and it just works. There are a few pitfalls that we will get into in spoilers but overall it’s a great time to watch, so I am giving it a  9/10 …. What do you guys think?

9/10

Evy is a popular scary story podcaster recording a new episode from the home of her mother who is lying in hospice upstairs. As she takes care of her dying mother, Evy and her cohost listen to disturbing recordings sent in from an anonymous email. The more they listen to the recordings, the more Evy notices strange happenings in the house.

I wanted to like this movie, but by the mid mark, I was just so bored. This is bad news for the movie, because it seems like it was tailor made for me. Having semi recently cared for a parent in hospice and being the host of a semi successful podcast with an annoying cohost, I was hooked immediately by the premise. I’ll even give credit where credit is due. The movie really does a great job of utilizing the theater of the mind of an audio format. However, it doesn’t pair the audio with anything particularly interesting to look at. I found myself thinking that truly this would have been better in an audio format as the camera Skinamarinked around aimlessly. If there was something interesting to see other than lighting changes for the first half of the movie, they were too subtle for my eyes. And by the time shadowy figures start appearing in the periphery, I was starting to doze off from the repetitive nature of the plot.

I wanted to care more about the protagonist, but we aren’t given enough information about her motivations or history to really care about her. There were so many ripe emotionally fertile situations within the plot of the movie, parent dying, unexpected news, strained relationships, etc. However, when it comes down to it she seems like a cipher for the audience. Just a blank slate.

I guess that might be what the filmmakers were going for, since the semi-stated thesis of the movie was the phenomenon of audio pareidolia, where the brain fills in random noise with recognizable patterns, such as speech. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s enough here to maintain the interest of the audience to have them try to fill in the blank spaces of the film with meaning by themselves.

4/10

You’ve heard the story of Frankenstein’s monster many times. Once just a few months ago in fact. But that is only half the story. Something has long been missing. What we really need is a femininominon. The Bride is about a woman named Ida who is (I think) possessed by the ghost of Mary Shelly. After causing a scene she is pushed down a flight of stairs to her death. Meanwhile our boy Frankenstein’s monster, or as the kids call him, frank, meets with a therapist to talk about his loneliness. Just kidding he goes to a mad scientist and begs for a sexy wife. You can see where this is going. Now resurrected and missing her memory, Ida must make fundamental decisions about her life. Who is she? What is she? Was she really just created to be someone’s wife? And does she even want this life? For all this and more, watch the movie yourself or stick around for the spoilers section. 

It wasn’t too long ago that we were recording an episode about a different take on Frankenstein, and going into the movie I was feeling a little burnt out by the story. I love Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (and by that I mean the book, not the movie that is literally titled Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein). But I am often left wanting when it comes to these movie adaptations. Luckily The Bride is a fairly unique take on the creature and the creates as they struggle in this world together. The movie has a strong emphasis on women’s rights. Based in 1938 we are shown lots of gender inequality in the workplace, as well as some pretty nasty misogyny and sexual harassment and assault of women. All problems that are still very relevant today. I enjoyed watching the Bride attempt to become her own person, while constantly being pulled in different directions from those around her, including the very wacky version of Mary Shelley that lives in her head. 

Score 6/10

Sidney Prescott is now a mother of a teen girl her age during the first film learns that another Ghostface copycat is afoot. When she gets her first call from the killer it’s revealed that it might be an old friend, or perhaps a deepfake. It doesn’t matter, we still get the nostalgia. Then pretty much everything that you expect happens: teens get killed, everyone is suspect, and the killer is finally revealed. You’ve seen one of these before, right?

As with all the Scream movies, this is a competent slasher. It remains visceral and mean, but this one lacks the fun and meta horror movie commentary that the originals had. 

Sidney Prescott as a mother is a compelling character, even if it feels like a bit of a retread of Halloween 2018. Unlike Halloween, Sidney seems like a real person that is trying to move on and raise her daughter. 

The first reveal of the killer is surprising enough and is explained through a semi convincing retconn, but comes too early for it to be trusted completely. So there remains enough doubt as to the killer and especially their accomplice to maintain the whodunnit aspect.

Kevin Williamson, the original writer of Scream and countless other early 2000s classics, directs this episode. His only other directing credit is “Teaching Mrs. Tingle” a forgettable dark comedy thriller in 1999. He does fine here, although most directors could do one of these movies on autopilot. There isn’t much added flair, he just gives you what you want: tension and jumpscares.

Overall, it’s alright, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a good time, but I can’t say that the movie makes a case for more Scream movies.

5/10

In a world full of evil and depravity, hope springs eternal. Against all odds, love is on patrol. That’s right, Psycho Killer is a story about the beautiful love between two hardened cops. But that love is suddenly foiled when Husband Cop gets shot and killed by an infamous serial killer on a satanic rampage. Dead set on capturing Husband Cop’s murderer, Wife Cop (or Widow Cop if you prefer) does various detective work to bring down the psycho killer. But his plans may be bigger than a murder spree. Gates to hell, nuclear devastation, and orgy crashing are just a few things on his to-do list. 

Psycho Killer had all the makings of a decent movie. Who doesn’t love a good detective movie about an evil psycho path and Johnny Law’s yearning for justice? But the problem with Psycho Killer is that it fails to go beyond this premise even a little bit. The detective work is boring. There are no big reveals, or any real hurdles to overcome accept for maybe some jurisdiction issues. The killer is a by-the-books satanist trope who kills people in unremarkable ways and smears some blood around. There is an attempt at humor in the midsection with the addition of a more worldly group of satanists, but even that plot point does little for the story. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that the evil plan of the serial killer is at least sort of novel, and I was interested to see how it played out. But I was unable to find myself connected to the story’s protagonist. Unfortunately, the most boring part of the movie is when the wife cop has to actually look for the guy. I wanted to like this, but I just didn’t. 

Score 3/10

Iron Lung is about Markiplier in a submarine. That’s the one thing that I can confidently say. there are a lot of other details, but none of them seem as salient. Sure all of the galaxy’s, universe’s(?) suns have gone out, and there are factions of the remaining humans fighting for resources but that is really window dressing on Markiplier being in a submarine. Also, he’s exploring an ocean of blood on some moon.

Now you may ask me Bryce, how could they possibly functions as a society without a sun? How are they making new oxygen? Doesn’t blood congeal or separate or something? how did they fine this moon without light? shut up nerd, Markilpier’s in a sub, now sit back and be scared.

before i go further, let me answer the main question first, yes this is better than Shelby Oaks. I will say that it’s not as bad as I expected, but i wasn’t blow. away either. The movie is basically all shot in one room, so that limitation let all the energy go into the story and the performance. It dod hold my attention for the most part, but it didn’t deserve a two hour runtime. They could have edited out 40 mins and lose almost nothing.

Markipliers performance was better than expected, but definitely leaned heavily into the melodramatic verging on overacting.

The production design was well done except for the fact that it faithfully replicated the cartoonish UI of the video game, which I felt was a lazy choice.

As far as delivering on suspense it did well. the movie was atmospheric and moody throughout. The ending goes full cosmic horror and feels like a good payoff.

4/10

Peter Dinklage plays Winston, a janitor working for a super polluter company called Body Talk Healthstyle, who struggles to support his stepson Wade after his mother dies of cancer. When he is diagnosed with cancer of his own, he appeals to his boss for an insurance policy that will cover his medical expenses. Like all good bosses, he denies this, so Wade attempts to steal the money only to be caught by henchmen and thrown in toxic waste. But to everyone’s surprise, the sludge only makes Winston more badass. Under the new name of the Toxic Avenger, Winston fights crime and kicks ass.

I will admit that I may have originally misjudged The Toxic Avenger. Our Facebook group has mentioned this movie multiple times, and it just never looked very appealing to me. I am personally just not very interested in crass, overly explicit shock gore movies. But to be honest, I found myself laughing a lot more than I expected to. There are some genuinely funny moments in this movie, and the cast is stacked with actors like Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, and, of course, Peter Dinklage, who carry this movie on their backs. It’s still not really my cup of tea, and I actually think the movie got progressively less interesting as it moved through act 3, but it’s still a decent movie that affords some good times. 

Score 6/10

Send Help stars Rachel McAdams as a frumpy but invaluable office worker over looked for promotion by her asshole entitled boss played by Dylan Obrien

When she is invited on a sausage fest work trip, the plane crashes and she and her boss are the only survivors on a tropical island

She quickly demonstrates her survival knowledge and the power dynamic between her and her boss shifts.

Send Help has been described as a mix between Misery and Cast Away. I’ll agree with that and add that it’s also a poor man’s version of The Triangle of Sadness. Any way you compare it, this is a crowd pleaser.

Sam Raimi returns to the horror genre for the first time since Drag Me to Hell. Though this is more on the thriller side of horror, he brings out a lot of the playful and over the top blood and gore that we are used to. 

Rachel McAdams largely carries the film with her charisma and screen presence. I’ll admit, she’s largely the reason for me being excited about seeing the film. Dylan O’brien is serviceable, and properly over the top in portraying an entitled asshole.

The script by Damian Shannon and Mark Shift is simple, yet plays with the audience’s expectations. It is better than I would expect from the guys that worked together before on the Baywatch Movie, Freddy Vs. Jason, and 2009’s Friday the 13th reboot. The character development feels a little undercooked, but is there enough to make their motivations understood.

This felt like a movie straight out of the 90’s/early 2000s. This brand of mid-budget thriller was a dime a dozen back then, and for some reason has fallen by the wayside. I’m hoping that this film, along with films like The Housemaid will start a resurgence in mid budget date night thrillers.

Also something I haven’t seen since the 90s/early 2000s is this quality of CGI. It wasn’t completely terrible, but is was distracting how overused it was. Many shots of the island and it’s design felt like I was looking at an obviously designed video game island (X mountains and all). Also, after seeing PRimate successfully pull of great practical effects with a monkey suit, I wondered why they didn’t use a puppet for the boar. They could have achieved the same level of boar gore, but make it less cartoony.

The film doesn’t plumb the depths of the human psyche or explore every facet of the power dynamics in a survival situation, it prefers to keep it pretty surface level in service of moving quickly with the plot. And in my opinion, it works. I had a really good time, and laughed out loud several times at the humor as well as the exploitative gore that Raimi is the expert at bringing.

8/10

When the young couple, Sage and Diego, walk into their Airbnb or Verbo or whatever, I dont really know, they can’t believe how beautiful it is. For the low, low price of I dont know, a million dollars, they get to stay in this amazing lakefront mansion for the weekend. But trouble is afoot. A second couple, Will and Cin, arrive, claiming they have also booked the property for the weekend. Instead of leaving and demanding a refund from the host as any normal person would, they decided to share the large house for the next few days. But things become more turbulent as Will and Cin show their wild side, and are increasingly inappropriate with Sage and Diego. Your social anxiety might try to tell you that they are just quirky and weird, but there may be more beneath the surface.

When Bone Lake came out in theaters, I was excited to watch it, but due to conflicting schedules and its limited release, we were unable to review it at that point. This was disappointing because I had heard it was really scary (mainly from my wife, who saw the trailer and said it creeped her out, which is usually a good sign for me). So when I saw it was streaming on netflix I immediately texted Bryce and told him we were reviewing it this week. Oh, how I wish I could turn back time. This movie is pretty boring and has been done before (and better). The whole time I kept thinking “they already did this with Speak no Evil, a movie which did so well that it was immediately remade with an American cast”. Bone lake does the same thing with a worse script and less tension. Thats not to say anything about Bone Lake is particularly bad. It’s fine. But the main stressor throughout the film is “Will these characters sleep with each other,” and that’s just kind of lame (unless you are super horned up). But even then its kind of a letdown. We’ve all had that one friend who makes the social situation a little more sexual than it needs to be, and while that is uncomfortable, it’s not scary. I’ll give it points for having some sort of funny, dark comedy kills in the beginning. But mostly I was waiting for it to be over.

Score 4/10