Horror Movie Talk

In post revolutionary Iran in the 80’s during the Iran-Iraq war, Shideh is no longer able to study to be a doctor because of her political beliefs. Meanwhile, her husband is conscripted to the war and she is left alone with her daughter. While bombs threaten to topple their apartment building a malevolent entity starts to haunt them.

This is the tried and true family haunting formula used in a novel setting of a repressive and war torn nation. It creates a unique conflation of traumatic stressors. A evil Djinn, is often the least of the protagonists worries compared to the imminent threat of death from an unseen foreign entity as well as the horror of losing your autonomy from a regressive dominant culture and government.

This is listed as Rotten Tomatoes #2 on the 200 best horror movies of all time. I wouldn’t agree with the placement, but I do think this is a fantastic and interesting iteration of some familiar horror tropes. 

I can’t find anything to complain about, but I wasn’t necessarily blown away by it. I was also sick while watching it, so that probably brought down the overall enjoyment. 

8/10

After giving birth to an unnatural vampire-human hybrid, Bella herself becomes a newborn as she has finally transitions into a vampire. Bella is stronger and faster than expected and with the support of her chosen family she learns the ins and outs of vampirism and motherhood. But her bliss only lasts so long when the Voltori finds out about the child and her potential threat to vampire and human kind alike. In lue of this threat the Cullens must search for allies in the vampire community to plead their case or conversely fight alongside them to protect the child.

This is clearly the best one 

Weird child, fun vampires, battle scene 

See more into the vampire community as a whole 

So little going on but so much at the same time.

4/10

Matt Hagen, played by Tom Harries, is a wildly successful actor who has just been nominated for an Academy Award. Riding the high of his nomination, he attends a club where he meets a woman and ends up spending the night with her. This woman turned out to be the girlfriend of an extremely notorious crime boss in Gotham, but that did not dissuade Matt. She was just too hot! But this catches up with him as he wakes up to find a group of thugs surrounding his bed who cut up his pretty face until it is unrecognizable. With his moneymaker destroyed, he loses his fame as well as all his…well… money. In an attempt to regain his career, he meets with a scientist named Caitlyn to undergo an experimental procedure on his face. After injecting AI-trained nanobots into his skin, he starts to gain new powers as a side effect of their healing capabilities. Now Matt must fight not only for his beauty, but for the soul of Gotham itself. 

Clayface is the third movie installment in the new DC universe following Superman and Supergirl. With the screenplay written by Mike Flanagan, the movie has a much different flavor than other comic book adaptations. I found the story to be pretty predictable and cookie-cutter for the most part. It isn’t breaking barriers with the plot. But I still really enjoyed the ride nonetheless. It is really fun to see Matt use his new abilities to enact revenge on those who did him wrong, all while spiraling into madness as Caitlyn does her best to keep him on the rails. The movie has a pacing problem, especially in the beginning. This had me worried that the entire movie was going to be too rushed to have any hope of being enjoyable, but I was wrong. The second and third acts are strong, and I had a lot of fun with the body horror and monster aspects of the film.

Score: 8/10

Breaking Dawn part one begins with the wedding of Edward and Bella. Over their honeymoon Bella becomes pregnant with an immortal vampire child (and possibly the antichrist? Its unclear). With the mortal Bella wasting away as the child feeds on her from within, Edward must find a way to save his new bride.

Review of Breaking Dawn Part One

This movie is legitimately one of the weirdest films I’ve ever seen. My jaw was on the floor the entire time and I could not believe my eyes in every scene. It is so strange, and there are moments where it is difficult to believe this was ever made in to an actual movie. Its terrible.

Score: 10/10

A shark obsessed serial killer is on the loose and young American surfer Zephyr is his latest target. After being kidnapped and held captive with little hope of rescue, Zephyr uses every ounce of her resolve as she fights for survival in an attempt to allude not only her captor but also the hungry sharks lurking in the waters surrounding her. 

This film takes the sharksploitation subgenre in an unexpected direction, revealing that the sharks aren’t really the villains, instead you are faced with a deranged serial killer on the hunt for his next victim

Released in 2025 directed by Sean Byrne the film explores themes of human versus animal predation, facing your demons, and even humans eternal search for connection 

Subverting expectations you are taken on a ride filled with action and suspense as well as a stand out performance from Jai Courtney who plays tucker our villain

Dangerous Animals succeeds in making a solid connection to the characters with interesting plot devices driving the story forward.

The pacing is great and keeps you engaged

 although, the suspension of disbelief gets harder to get behind into the third act. 

Overall the movie is fun and brings a new premise to a genre that is well overdue for a revamp.  

7/10 

In a world where being a hot, sexy vampire is more important than being a good person, Bella is still dating Edward even though he is objectively abusive and controlling. When times get tough, Edward must do the hardest thing he has ever done in his undead life: Trust his girlfriend around the presence of another male. No, but seriously. That’s the main conflict of the movie. But also, there are some evil vampires kind of just causing mayhem. If any of that is interesting to you, tune in to the spoilers section of this episode.

In the third installment of the Twilight series, we are greeted by a lot more of the same stuff we got from the previous 2 movies. Bella likes Edward, but Jacobs six pack is slightly tempting. But not enough to cause any real problem in the relationship. The problems almost exclusively stem from how possessive Edward Cullins is. I get that the movies are doing what they can to attract viewership from teenage girls and stick to the source material. I cant fault them for doing exactly what they are attempting to do. But I can say without a hesitation that this series is boring me to tears. My eyes have disconnected from the optical nerves from rolling so hard at every line of dialogue. It really feels like the story wanted more edward and jacob drama and squeezed a story about rogue vampires in to make it more interesting. They failed in that regard.

2/10

8 year old Bella loves her parents and in her spare time does what every little girl loves to do. Commune with a shape shifting trickster demon. Her playmate takes the form of her mother and Bella calls her, you guessed it, Other Mommy. The trickster demon does what every little girl loves to do. try to enter a victims heart and tear their life to pieces.

I wasn’t expecting much from watching the trailer and getting exposed to the intense marketing campaign for this movie. I expected another low effort Blumhouse one trick pony jump scare vehicle. Instead of conforming to the cookie cutter Conjurjng template, this movie borrows more from the pacing and meanness of the Evil Dead franchise. From the start it hits the gas, and never lets off.

Director Rob Savage previously directed the excellent low budget found footage movies Host and Dashcam, but also recently directed the family based supernatural film The Boogeyman. He creates something unique here, and is contamtly putting the audience off balance.

One could say this movie is predictable, but almost every cliche from the family-based supernatural horror subgenre that is included in this film is subverted eventually.

Regardless of the tropines, They stuffed a ton creativity in the form of interesting set pieces and visual effects that spanned the uneasy and uncanny, to the explosive and gorey.

The script is very thin, preferring action over words, but the acting is high quality regardless. Jessica Chastain sells Other Mommy very well, and Annabella Olivia Clark as Bella is an impressive talent as well.

Overall, I had a real good time and was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it.

8/10

Synopsis

After the events in Twilight 1, we find Bella and Edward in a difficult position. Edward no longer believes that their relationship is safe, and decides that the only way to protect Bella is for him to leave forever. Broken hearted, Bella builds a friendship with Jacob, and kind and boy with long hair and a six pack. After Bella rejects Jacob’s romantic advances, she notices him grow distant and strange. He roams with a pack of outcasts and seems to be keeping dark secrets. Its not long before the truth comes out, her new friend and potential love interest is a monster. Again. Bella will need to decide if her love for Edward can survive his absence, or if the alpha will take his place.

Score: 4/10

When 2 20 something wanna be content creators find an opportunity to get views, Ben and Tina travel to a remote location to film their experience in an underwater home. After extreme flooding, the building sank into a local lake, making it the perfect spot for inexperienced divers to explore for YouTube. As things start to go south while deep in the house, the couple learns that this is no ordinary house, but a deep house. A Deep house with deep secrets.

The Deep House is a novel idea with poor execution. Almost the entirety of the film is done underwater, which must have been incredibly hard to accomplish. I heard that most of the movie was filmed in a large swimming pool, which gives it a unique vibe. Unfortunately, it seems that the filmmakers were wholly incapable of capitalizing on this. There is almost no plot, and the plot that is there is so minimal that the characters hardly have time to explain it to you. There’s a house underwater, some evil happened there, and evil will continue to happen. Why? Cause it’s a spooky haunted house horror movie. That’s what is supposed to happen. It feels shallow, pun absolutely intended, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Side note, lighting the set underwater must have been a nightmare, but as much as I want to give the crew their flowers, they did not do good enough. I couldn’t see what was going on in so many scenes, and that is probably because a flashlight underwater does not show up well on screen, but they should have done something because what the actual hell. The movie is so dark. I hope they do better in Deep House 2: Deeper House.

Score: 2/10

Bella is a 17 year old girl who just moved to the small town of forks to live with her father. As she begins to make new friends at her highschool she runs into a very handsome and very mysterious Edward Cullins. He is tall, pale, and very moody. The perfect speciman. As Bella begins to fall for Edward she learns about his dark and sparkly secret. He is a 120 year old vampire. The insane age gap aside, the two begin dating, but soon a traveling group of vampires come to the town to tear the love-bats apart.

Twilight is an objectively bad movie. Luckily I think it falls into the category of “so bad its good”. The dialogue is awkward, the acting is so bad it hurts. Its specifically geared towards teenage girls who fantasize about unhealthy relationships with undead monsters, making it an uncomfortable watch for a 27 year old man. But I do think those things are what makes it charming. I was watching this with my wife and we were laughing and talking throughout the whole movie, making it a pretty enjoyable movie experience. It isnt a good movie, but it can be a good time.

Score: 3/10